Seven German politicians swanned down the corridor and entered the Commons foreign affairs committee to join one of its meetings.

Blimey, since when was that permitted? Why did our grandparents even bother with D-Day?

The committee’s Labour chairman, Dame Emily Thornberry, gushed that it was ‘a unique and historic day – we are sooo honoured’. Others might be more concerned about the rupturing of a tenet of Westminster: that only people elected by the British people should sit in our Parliament.

The Germans’ presence was the result of the Kensington Treaty, a little-noticed agreement signed by that leviathan of our times, Sir Keir Starmer, and ratified last week by Andy Burnham. In addition to undertakings on defence, immigration and school visits, it allowed Dame Emily to throw open her committee to a Berlin delegation led by Armin Laschet, one-time would-be chancellor of Germany and now Dame Emily’s counterpart in the Bundestag.

Herr Laschet, a plump, buttery presence, led a delegation whose English was better than several members of the Commons. Six home-team MPs turned up to welcome them. So we were outnumbered. Again.

Dame Emily, at her most dazzlingly dimpled, gurgled ‘guten Morgen’ and managed to call the German parliament the ‘Bundesbank’. She added: ‘Germany is and always has been a key ally.’ Eh?

Dame Emily, at her most dazzlingly dimpled, gurgled ‘guten Morgen’ and managed to call the German parliament the ‘Bundesbank’, writes Quentin Letts

The German ambassador also sat at the committee table. She looked a little tense.

Labour’s Fleur Anderson (Putney) asked what the visitors thought of the Kensington Treaty. Herr Laschet came over as creamy as Geschnetzeltes sauce. It was eight minutes before we had first mention of ‘the Brexit’, from a Greenish type, Awet Tesfaiesus.

She was followed by Jurgen Hardt, who was going pink in the face (the room was overheated) and nearly succumbed to a coughing attack. ‘The Brexit?’ he spluttered. ‘We regret the decision but accept the decision.’ Better than the Burnhamites.

A thickset lad, Stefan Keuter, disliked the Kensington Treaty. Not that he had read the thing, so ‘please not to ask the questions’. Herr Keuter was from the Alternative fur Deutschland party, bracingly Right-wing and well ahead in opinion polls. He was wearing a clip-on bow tie as pale blue as Unity Mitford’s eyes. Keuter was keen on Brexit and congratulated Dame Emily and Co on escaping the grasping mitts of Brussels. He wished Germany could do the same.

Dame Emily looked as if she had just swallowed a particularly iffy Pinkel.

Herr Keuter wanted to start buying oil and gas again from that harmless soul V. Putin. He believed the Ukraine war wasn’t the Kremlin’s fault. While the British were silently digesting these stink bombs, the other extreme was represented by a lady from Die Linke, unilateral disarmament enthusiasts who are comparable to Corbynites.

Good grief, haven’t we enough loonies of our own without importing more from the Continent?

But the real hardliners when it came to diplomacy were the so-called centrists. Edward Morello (Lib Dem, W Dorset) asked about ‘the dreaded Brexit word’. What a drip. He’d apologise for his shadow.

The question triggered a self-contradictory response from smoothie-chops Laschet, who noted that while Brexit was obvs. bad, relations between Berlin and London had, er, never been closer owing to our cooperation on defence.

He shrugged his shoulders about the EU refusing to buy British weapons and boasted about how Brussels enjoys wielding its economic muscle. Herr Hardt, who had by now stopped coughing, said it was time we learned to follow EU regulations.

All this in a Westminster parliamentary hearing in which he sat with a status equal to the people we actually elected.

Adis Ahmetovic, a social democrat, weighed in with a gloopy paean to Andy Burnham. ‘I am so full of passion for Britain,’ he trilled, despite having once spent 14 days in Leeds. Brexit was ‘not the best answer’, we were informed. Dame Emily proceeded to grovel and reassure these visitors – palpably impatient for our money and surrender – that a debate on our rejoining the EU would be held pronto.