Historian and broadcaster Dr David Starkey CBE has slammed Remain MPs for the “absurd contradiction” of asserting parliamentary sovereignty in order to deny national sovereignty.
“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,” the Monarchy presenter said in an interview with Peter Whittle.
“It’s an absurd contradiction,” he continued, explaining that “parliamentary sovereignty only makes sense within the notion of the sovereign, independent state — otherwise it’s meaningless verbiage.”
Remain MPs are currently seeking to empower the President of the European Council to dictate another Brexit delay to Boris Johnson, and in many cases hope to eventually reverse Brexit entirely and leave much of the power to control policy in the United Kingdom with the powers that be in the European Union.
The (in)famously abrasive and eccentric broadcaster invited his interlocutor to consider “the derision in which Parliament is held — first the expenses scandal, then the scandal of the deliberate traducing of the verdict of the referendum, the behaviour of the Speaker, the clownishness of the Speaker… the performance of easily the most premier we’ve ever had [Theresa May] and the most undesirable Leader of the Opposition [Jeremy Corbyn]”, suggesting that the Leave vote had exposed the constitutionally unresolved question of the relationship between popular sovereignty and parliamentary sovereignty — which “long predates democracy” — with “brutal effectiveness”.
“[W]hat’s happened with the referendum is [it is] the first time that Parliament has consciously and deliberately — and led by its Speaker and by its leading MPs — consciously reversed the notion of representation,” he said.
“And it seems to me to be an act of unprecedented folly… it’s a sort of act of institutional suicide.”
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