RICHARD the Lionheart nearly bankrupted the nation twice.

Once in raising the “Saladin tithe” – a tax that was used to wage war in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade.

And then again on his way back.

His great polymath of a mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, was forced to trek all the way to Cologne with 100,000 silver marks to extract him from a dungeon in which he had spent nearly a year.

Now the UK’s divorce from the EU is not quite the same as the medieval squabbles of the Anglo-Angevin empire, but it is a reminder of just how outlandish our continental friends can behave.

The opening demand of £50 billion in settlement of liabilities Britain is said to owe the EU is a classic example.

The UK has paid in over half a trillion pounds into the club since we joined 43 years ago; with most experts agreeing £180 billion amounts to our “net contribution”.

To put that figure in perspective, the money would fund the nation’s schools for the next five years.

Brussels Eurocrats want it for gold-plated pensions.

Another ancient quarrel is Gibraltar. So much for the European Council pretending to any moral superiority when it is so blatantly using people as bargaining chips.

Spain has effectively been handed a veto relating to the Brexit negotiations because 99 per cent of people living on the Rock want to remain British.

Why is Spain putting at risk the livelihoods of 9,000 of its own citizens that cross the frontier every day to work in Gibraltar’s booming economy?

Donald Tusk says he wants to avoid a punitive approach.

The EU should realise that the British will simply stiffen their resolve even further when faced with such adversity.

Councillor Tom Bewick represents Westbourne ward, Hove