It wasn’t the greatest week for those who believe that to be born British is to be blessed with automatic superiority over lesser humans.

There was Minister for Brexit David Davis admitting he didn’t have a Scooby Doo about the potential impact it will have on any part of our economy.

That’s like the chairman of your football club knocking down the stadium, then two seasons later admitting he forgot to draw up plans, doesn’t know how much the new one will cost, where your seat’s going to be or if they’ll sell hot dogs at half-time.

Imagine being one of Davis’s kids going on holiday: “Are we nearly there yet, Dad?” “Dunno.” “Why not?” “Because I haven’t booked anywhere.”

But then, as Philip Hammond told us, no one in a split Cabinet knows what they want out of Brexit apart from the other side losing.

And looking at the Phase 1 agreement , which is basically Theresa May agreeing to everything the EU wants, the only country that’s been told to “go whistle” as Boris Johnson put it, is us. Hence Nigel Farage calling it a “humiliation”. (Don’t worry, mate, you’ll still get your huge EU pension).

(Image: PA)

But maybe they’re just planning to bluff and bluster through in trusted Old Etonian-style, confident it will turn out tickety-boo when the foreign chaps remember their place in the natural order of things.

That’s surely how it looks to people in Ireland. It’s one thing for a woman to bizarrely tell Channel 4 News: “The Irish are just making trouble because they lost.” Eh? But it’s another for politicians to display a staggering ignorance about our nearest neighbours.

Tory grandee Bernard Jenkin talked on Sky about “Bertie Ahern and Enda Kelly – two former Taoiseachs of Northern Ireland” missing the fact that Northern Ireland doesn’t have a Taoiseach and Enda Kenny is not called Kelly.

Owen Paterson accused the Irish of “blackmail”, Ukip’s Gerard Batten ranted about the “tiny country’s” threats and Iain Duncan Smith, dismissing the border issue as “this Irish stuff”, claimed the row was all about the upcoming presidential election. There isn’t one.

Nadine Dorries saluted the DUP for showing the same resolve that made the Good Friday Agreement possible, even though it was the only party in Northern Ireland not to support it.

Jacob Rees-Mogg hailed Arlene Foster the heroine of Brexit, despite her being the leader of a small, religious sect which demands that Northern Ireland is not treated differently from the rest of the UK, unless, on issues like abortion and gay marriage, they say so.

(Image: PA)

Blaming Ireland for the row over the border is on a par with Philip Hammond claiming our woeful productivity rate is down to too many disabled people being in work. It’s ludicrous buck-shifting.

Show more

This artificial border was drawn up by the British, against the will of the Irish, to keep the Loyalist minority happy.

The carving up of an island which should have been handed back in its entirety by its former colonial rulers has caused decades of bloodshed.

Yet now the British are leaving the EU, the Irish were expected to ignore any threat to the Good Friday Peace Agreement and fall in line with the supposed will of a foreign country’s people.

The good folk of the Irish Republic could be excused for thinking they’re watching a re-run of the Alan Partridge sketch in which he argued that the two million who died in the potato famine were “paying the price for being fussy eaters”.

And this wilful ignorance would be as funny as Partridge if it wasn’t so insulting and still potentially very dangerous.