Did we reclaim sovereignty from Brussels only to ignore Parliament? That really is the way to dictatorship

I am perplexed. There was I celebrating the decision to leave the EU because it would restore the authority of our sovereign Parliament, only to discover that it meant nothing of the sort. The referendum result on June 23 has been used as an excuse for a power grab by the executive. It has also ushered in an entirely new constitutional principle that is being bandied about as though it has long been the basis of our democratic system: the will of the people. That might have worked in ancient Greece but what exactly does it mean today? Until now we have accepted that the popular will should be exercised through Parliament, or more precisely the Crown in Parliament.

Some residual powers that were once the preserve of the monarch remain with the Government in the form of prerogatives. These include, among others, the right to wage war – though in recent years it has become an accepted convention that Parliament will be asked first before committing British troops to combat. None the less, the executive has considerable power that is kept in check by Parliament and the courts. That is the only way our constitutional settlement can work without stoking up resentment, frustration and anger.

However, the argument that Parliament should not vote on the most important issue facing the country since the end of the Second World War is hard to understand; and this is not a “Remainer’s whinge” because it is a view shared by many who wanted to leave, like the Tory MP Stephen Phillips. It is even harder to understand when it is being promoted by those who have been the most assiduous supporters of parliamentary democracy, MPs who over the years have fought the good fight to establish accountability over governments of various hues. By and large, these are Eurosceptics who railed against the EU’s undemocratic nature yet who are complicit in diminishing further the institution to which they belong.

Who, for instance, said this: “The exercise of unfettered executive power, largely under Crown prerogative – it strikes me as extraordinary that Parliament has no say not only in the decision, but in who makes them … Executive decisions should be subject to the scrutiny and approval of Parliament in many other areas. Much of them arise under the Crown prerogative – which, in truth, in modern Britain is a euphemism for the prerogative of the prime minister.”

Those are the words of David Davis, quoted in the legal papers for the case being brought against him in the High Court tomorrow to establish whether the Government has the right to trigger Article 50 without first seeking the approval of Parliament. I don’t think this should be a matter for the courts; it should be a matter for Parliament. But if Parliament is being excluded, then it is hardly surprising that people turn elsewhere for redress.

This is why the Government’s approach is wrong and dangerous. The referendum exposed a deep rift in the country that will only be bridged by taking as many people along with it as possible, not by stoking further confrontation. Even if clever constitutional arguments can be advanced to show how triggering Article 50 is an executive power, the political arguments are in favour of letting Parliament decide. Furthermore, the reason MPs are not being given a vote has nothing to do with principles but with a belief that the Remain majority in the Commons will thwart “the will of the people”.

I find that unlikely. In his Commons statement on Monday, Mr Davis said that the Government has the “largest mandate in history” to proceed essentially as it saw fit, apparently forgetting that the Government was actually opposed to Brexit – as was most of the current Cabinet including the Prime Minister and Chancellor. There is no doubt that the Commons, where two-thirds of MPs were in favour of staying in the EU, was unrepresentative of voters. But they voted by 6-1 for the referendum to take place and as the decision was to leave, that must now happen.

But it is unacceptable for the decisions as to how it should be done to be kept away from the country’s elected representatives. It is a perfectly legitimate argument to say that before we make the final commitment by triggering Article 50 the Government should be required to set out the direction of travel. This is not just a view held by Remainers, who in some quarters now have the status of pariahs, but of many who voted to leave.

I appreciate that governments down the years have considered Parliament to be an irritant, getting in the way of the prudent administration of the country from Whitehall. But to counter this we had gradually moved towards greater accountability through such innovations as select committees, pre-legislative scrutiny, regular questions and statements. Has the central institution of our democracy become so mistrusted that it cannot be relied upon to fulfil the wishes of the voters? Are MPs now to be counted among the “experts” dismissed by Michael Gove, no longer to be taken seriously?

Arguably, though, the very fact that we had a referendum which, for the first time in our history, overthrew the status quo has indeed brought about a new dispensation, where the sovereignty of the people trumps that of Parliament. Our constitution is, after all, a living thing that adapts to changing political realities.

Yet if the people are to be sovereign then how are they to be consulted? It is illogical to argue that “the people have spoken” to leave the EU only then to deny them – either directly in another referendum or, preferably, through their representatives in Parliament – a say over how this should be done. Persistent ministerial assertions that the referendum outcome gave the Government a clear mandate to conduct the negotiations in a particular way are simply false.

If the “will of the people” is to supplant that of Parliament then we must move towards a plebiscite democracy and away from a parliamentary one. Is that what we want? The alternative is that the executive decides these matters on its own with no proper accountability. That really is a democratic deficit. Actually, let’s not mince words. That’s dictatorship.