The European Council has agreed upon its nominees for the top jobs running the EU for the next few years. They have to get through the Parliament, but that seems largely a formality. The main four jobs are: President of the European Commission – Ursula von der Leyen; President of the European Council – Charles Michel; President of the European Central Bank – Christine Lagarde; and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – Josep Borrell Fontelles.

The surprise choice amongst these was the top job – von der Leyen. She is currently the German defence minister. Ideologically, she is perfect for where the EU should be going from here. She is a longstanding advocate of what she calls “a united states of Europe – run along the lines of the federal states of Switzerland, Germany or the USA”, repeating this ambition on multiple occasions since 2011.

Since becoming German defence minister she has also argued for the creation of a European army. With seven children (even beating my own score of five) she also cannot be accused of not doing her bit to counter Germany’s ageing population problem.

As an advocate of a Single European State, von der Leyen has quite rightly complained that the UK has “paralysed” the EU’s push to integrate security policy and “consistently blocked everything with the label ‘Europe’ on it.” For some of us that advocated the UK’s leaving the EU, this was a key reason why: the UK was simply in the way and had for far too long retarded EU progress towards its destiny.