I composed the following short essay as the Brexit negotiations got under way. I was struck by the two senior negotiators and specifically, how they found themselves in their latest roles. Readers will see that Sovereignty is an underlying theme in my piece and people will remember that the Brexit referendum was preceded by people on both sides talking about sovereignty. In fact, people will, and have, argued that the EU has diminished Sovereignty or, from the other side, that is has done no such thing. The latter group will cite the European Parliament, with its 750 MEP's as the peoples' representatives. This essay won't go into that, suffice to say that as a body, the EU Parliament does approve legislation, but it doesn't propose it (other, unelected groups within the EU structure are responsible for that); each MP "represents" over 800,000 citizens but most tellingly, the "citizens" of Europe are becoming increasingly ambivalent towards the EU democratic process (turnout is dropping with every vote, latest turnout being 43%). Somewhat more anecdotally, ask anyone who their MEP is and, I guarantee, most won't be able to name their own member (or any other member for that matter, except Nigel Farage) and most people haven't got a clue about the mechanics of how the EU Parliament works (try fathoming Wikipedia's page on this; it does its best, but I reckon most normally intelligent people will struggle with it). One thing is for sure, the EU Parliament does pass laws which we, the people of Europe, are bound by. Anyway, I'm not going to have a technical argument concerning whether the EU parliament does or does not diminish sovereignty. However, if you read on, you may see why I think the people around the negotiating table are a kind of metaphor for the whole issue. See what you think…

Whatever your personal view on Brexit, even if you think it is a mistake, you might want to consider the symbolism implicit in the identity and political origins of the two prime negotiators currently sitting across the table from each other in Brussels.

On the British side, we have DAVID DAVIS. Davis is a Member of the UK Parliament. In the 2017 General Election, he was elected to be an MP by a majority of the voters in the constituency of Haltemprice and Howden, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. In the election, 31,355 people voted for Davis, who represented the Conservative Party and that was a majority of 15,405 over the next party (Labour). Altogether, in the General Election, 13,636,690 people voted the Conservative party, returning 317 Conservative MPs. The second party, Labour, received 12,877,869 votes, which returned 262 MPs. It may have been a close run thing overall, but it was unequivocal. Not only was Davis returned as an MP by real individual voters expressing their constitutional right, his party, the Conservatives, were the biggest single party and they therefore retained the constitutional right to govern the country. Similarly, a year or so earlier the people had again voted. In a national referendum, they voted to leave the European Union. In fact, for completeness sake, the votes were: Leave: 17,410,742 or 51.89% of the vote, Remain: 16,141,24 or 48.11% of the vote. Some claimed the referendum was close, but statistically speaking, it was again unequivocal; the People had clearly voted to leave the EU.

The British system of Government, in various evolving forms, has been going strong (with occasional weaknesses) since Magna Carta in 1215, when a group of Barons demanded a say in how things were run. They forced King John to agree with them and even sign the famous document. That document turned out to be a pioneering, if rudimentary, declaration of human rights and the foundation of English Common Law. Since then, British democracy and Law making has pretty well lead the World. So, today, it's no surprise that a duly elected member of the UK Parliament is leading the negotiations on behalf of a duly elected Government with a mandate from the British people via a referendum based on the majority vote of the self-same people. Whether it is personally what you wanted, Davis's authority has been democratically and undeniably established at the ballot box. In fact, the process is the very embodiment of Parliamentary Democracy in action.

So, now let's look at MICHEL BARNIER who sits opposite the negotiating table from David Davis. Readers will be relieved that there are no numbers in this bit, because there are none. Before being appointed (note the word) as negotiator, Barnier was a European Commissioner. Commissioners, by the way are also all "appointed". In fact, if you look up how Commissioners are appointed, you will invariably get a bit confused, but here's a beautiful paragraph from Wikipedia which might enlighten you:

"Parliament cannot vote against individual Commissioners, there is usually a compromise whereby the worst candidates are removed but minor objections are put aside so the Commission can take office"

I have to say, as a slightly gratuitous aside, that whilst I might boast about the British Legal and Parliamentary system, sadly, we also invented "The old boys club", and that, as far as I can work out, is uncomfortably similar to the Commissioner's appointment system.

Anyway, in 2010, Barnier was appointed a European Commissioner and before that he had various French political jobs, like organising the Winter Olympics and, at one point being the French Minister for "Way of Life" (that was his official title). Otherwise, before 2010 he also had a number of other EU "appointed" jobs. He's basically someone who's become a serious career Eurocrat (current pay €20,000 per month). The long and short of Barnier's career is that in all his considerable time as a Eurocrat, he's managed, as an appointee, to assiduously avoid the ballot box, or, to be more accurate, he hasn't had to bother with the pesky voters, in favour of simply "winning friends". Let's put it this way, comparing Davis and Barnier is like comparing chalk and Brie. Whilst working class Davis has stood on the stump, year after year, persuading voters he was the right man, Barnier, had been sidling up to other "appointees" of the great Euro Gentleman's club, saying (in French) "gizza job", and he's been rather successful.

Whilst I was still learning about the European Commission, I came across this simple description of it on Wikipedia and I'm sorry to bore anyone who's got this far but here it is verbatim:

"The Commission operates as a cabinet government, with 28 members of the Commission (informally known as "commissioners"). There is one member per member state, but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. One of the 28 is the Commission President (currently Jean-Claude Juncker) proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament. The Council of the European Union then nominates the other 27 members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President, and the 28 members as a single body are then subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament. The current Commission is the "Juncker Commission", which took office in late 2014". By the way, the current British Government tried, without success, to stop the appointment of Juncker.

What you will notice is this; there's plenty of "proposed" and "appointed" and where they say "elected", they don't mean by the people, they mean by the European Parliament.

However, I want to hone in on one particular sentence: "members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state". This is very telling and gets to the heart of the matter. They MUST forsake their own State, in favour of "the interest of the EU". As I have described above, the very essence of a Parliamentary Democracy is that you set out your manifesto, you get up there in public and you explain it as best you can and then you ask people to judge you at the ballot box. This is beautifully simple and it means that, rightly or wrongly, the PEOPLE will judge you and decide who's going to be in charge. This NOT how the EU is run. In fact, the above statement wilfully disenfranchises the voting public by making the appointed Commissioners swear an oath of allegiance to the EU as a whole rather than their own State. In other words, they are structurally, and even by oath, deliberately separated from the voters.

One might say that ultimately, if something truly is in the interest of the EU it should be in the interests of us all as Europeans. Many British remain voters I talk to refer to it being better that we operate as one, rather than as fragmented individual nations. That MAY be true, but whoever is representing you MUST be directly elected and the people must be able to get rid of them if they mess up, that is how democracy works. In a democracy, you say what you plan to do and you put yourself up for office via a ballot and let the people decide; to do otherwise is contemptuous of the people, it is arrogant and it is dangerous.

In Britain, we've spent nearly a thousand years increasingly developing our democracy. At school, I spent endless tedious hours being told how important every step of the democratic journey was, from Magna Carta, through the Suffragettes, to Michael Heseltine rattling the Mace in the House of Commons and the Queen dissolving and opening numerous old and new Parliaments, ALL of which was there courtesy of, and witnessed by, WE, the people. Giving that up to a bunch of appointed suave guys in suits, on a lot of money plus expenses, seems like a betrayal of all that has gone before and that's why me and so many others find it repugnant. The guys in suits keep threatening us and warning us that we'll be punished for not toeing their line. What's more, they obviously mean it, they actually want to punish us, not get the best deal for all. But I think it's them who are worried. Ironically, whatever I think of Jeremy Corbyn, he truly understands one fundamental aspect of Democracy; it means Government Of the People, For the People and By the People. If you don't represent the People, you're nothing. To all those appointed Commissioners and Presidents who think their precious EU is above the People, I say, be careful, you are dealing with the British, who once had a King who thought the same.