The idea which is being pursued hotly
by the Legion of Remainers,
 headed by Centurion Bercow,
-- is that Parliamentary Sovereignty
can be used to deny national sovereignty.
It's an absurd contradiction.
Parliamentary Sovereignty only makes sense
within the notion of the 
sovereign, independent state.
Otherwise it's meaningless verbiage.
And again, of course, it highlights the fact that
the doctrine of Parliamentary
Sovereignty long predates democracy.
And the great crisis in Britain
is that we've never worked out
what the relationship
between an idea of popular sovereignty
and parliamentary sovereignty is.
Which was of course exposed with brutal
 effectiveness by the Brexit Referendum
If you look at the derision in which Parliament is held.
I mean, first, the expenses scandal.
Then the scandal of the deliberate traducing 
of the verdict of the [Brexit] referendum;
the behaviour of the Speaker 
 -- the clownishness of the Speaker [John Bercow]
who looks like "Ubu Roi"* wearing a black gown.
[*Ubu Roi: 
a grotesque, arrogant, stupid 
fool in a grotesque French farce];
Then, easily the most incompetent 
premier we've ever had.
And the most undesirable
Leader of the Opposition.
PW: I know that as an historian you don't
like looking at the future to say
"this will happen" or "that will happen"...
DS: I don't at all, yes.
PW: But this, therefore, is an extraordinary
time in our history, surely?
DS: It is.
I think it is the moment at which
 two things have happened:
I think the Constitution as it emerged from 
the Glorious Revolution is manifestly finished.
It's stopped working.
You could argue, equally, 
that that notion of constitutional development
from  Magna Carta itself 
has also come to an end.
I mean you've got to ask the question: 
How is it that broadly we've avoided revolution?
Why have we avoided revolution?
Because in England -- 
and we really should talk…
it's the English Parliament that's just got
a few bells & whistles stuck on to it
-- in England, the position of 
those wanting "a place in the sun",
wanting admission to the political elite….
you know, firstly the 
entrepreneur and the rich outside
the charmed circle of 
the aristocracy & the gentry;
then the skilled worker; 
then women and the whole thing...
every one of them didn't want to do
 what was the case in France or continental Europe.
You didn't want to 
TEAR DOWN the existing structures --
you wanted a place IN them.
So "Radicalism" in England was a 
campaign for parliamentary representation.
You didn't want to destroy Parliament --
 you wanted a place IN it.
And I think that what’s happened 
with the [Brexit] referendum
is that it is the first time that
Parliament has consciously and deliberately
– and lead by its Speaker and by its leading MPs
— consciously reversed
the notion of representation.
And it seems to me to be 
an act of unprecedented folly.
And you look at some of those involved.
They’re supposedly quite serious people.
I don’t think Bercow is.
I used to think Dominic Grieve was.
It’s a sort of act of institutional suicide.
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