Be careful what they wish for

Castledine Gardens,Â Sheffield,Â S9

Members of Parliament deceive themselves into believing it's all about them: they subsist only byÂ investing in that belief. The promise of a binding and irrevocable people's resolution '“ which they gave a solemn promise to uphold '“ nevertheless remains in total conflict with their notion of the sovereign power of parliament.Â Hence the express will of the people, as determined by a legitimate democratic process, can in their eyes be invalidated simply through the prism of parliamentary intervention.

Their arrogant self-importance and contempt for the people they represent has fatally frustrated the outcome of the referendum. The scheming subversion of those in their own ranks who perceive themselves too high and mighty to accede to the unenlightened biddings of the common rabble have had their way. This remote, out-of-touch parliament has shown that it despises the electorate, just as it despised the last figure of authority that challenged its self-perceived dominion. On that occasion it began a civil war and culminated in the murder of a King.Â Â

But what of this unyielding supremacy it confers upon itself? Where does it turn when its omnipotent authority dissolves into a contemptible slurry of discord and despair? Its overblown sense of entitlement exposes its true feebleness. Will this be its downfall?

A people left powerless will not lie idle and the fuel for social unrest is already present in the form of restless social inequality, homelessness, the NHS, care for the elderly, Universal Credit, housing, education and ineffectual policing. They need only to look at France to see the consequence of a self-aggrandizing ruling class.Â As one '˜gilet jaune'Â pointed out in Paris, it began as a protest about fuel taxes but now it's a protest about everything.

The House of Commons cognoscenti, their ennobled co-conspirators in Lords and their acolytes in the media classes will doubtless be very pleased with themselves for having invalidated the votes of the guileless bumpkins from the north. But their spark of brilliance may merely serve to ignite the fuel of conflagration.