Bernard Ingham: Betrayal by political class leads to democratic despair

The projected increase in the nation’s population by nearly 10m by 2037;

The European Union’s attempt to regulate the flushes of lavatory cisterns and the power of vacuum cleaners; and

The closure of England’s last warship building yard.

The short answer is everything. They demonstrate beyond peradventure, as barristers used to say at Halifax Quarter Sessions, that we Britons – and certainly we English – are not in command of our destiny.

We never voted to be swamped with immigrants or for a multi-cultural society beyond that we already knew and accepted. After the recent massive influx, immigrants are expected to be responsible for 60 per cent of the projected rise of 9.6m in the UK’s population over the next 25 years.

Part of this will stem – as it has in the past - from our membership of the European Union, with the prospect of another influx of up to, say, 50,000 Romanians and Bulgarians in the New Year.

We never voted to have our domestic appliances regulated down to the last pint and watt by Brussels. If there is a case for doing so in the interests of free trade, I have yet to hear it. In any case, free trade, certainly in the services sector, is more honoured in the breach than in the observance in the EU.

And we English most assuredly never voted for the end of 500 years of history with the demise of England’s capacity to build warships. Still less did we consent to the sacrifice of Portsmouth as a sop to the Scots whose endless whingeing (for no reason I can discover other than their entirely unnecessary inferiority complex) has now been given official and tangible encouragement through the preservation of Govan and Scotstoun shipyards.

Let me make it clear: I am not advocating endless referenda in the Swiss tradition, though it would be nice to have another one in my lifetime on our EU membership.

I fully accept that in a mature democracy we have to delegate some responsibility to our public representatives for the conduct of our affairs.

But in delegating it for reasons of practicality and convenience, we also bestow trust on Ministers and MPs to act within the manifest spirit of the times.

Ministers and MPs have known for years that immigration is a highly sensitive subject. Similarly, they must have been chronically deaf and dazed not to have appreciated the discontent with the EU’s interference in our lives with minimal democratic legitimacy and with none whatsoever in the case of the entirely unelected Commission.

They also know that while opinion on Scottish independence is as split in the United Kingdom as it is in Caledonia itself, the English feel exploited by the Scots. They did not expect that exploitation to be given a boost at the direct expense of English people to try to preserve the United Kingdom as we know it.

My symbolic trio of events demonstrate a democracy-wrecking abuse of power by the political class. Their betrayal of trust partly explains – apart from their mediocrity and endless preoccupation with publicity – why they are held in such low esteem by the people. It is also one reason why up to four out of 10 voters fail to turn up at general election polling booths.

It is probably true to say at this point in our political history that the only real justification for voting Conservative at the next election is to avoid something worse. Allowing for the trials and tribulations of a peacetime coalition, that is no commendation of David Cameron.

If the Prime Minister wants to go down in history as a statesman as distinct from a mere PR chappie, he has to find a way of convincingly dealing with the democratic deficit.

Accepting that an attempt must be made to renegotiate the terms of our membership, he has to convince us we really will have a referendum on the EU if he is re-elected. He has not merely to recognise that immigration has gone too far but also to do something about it before we are awash with more Eastern Europeans.

And he has to demonstrate that Scottish independence is not just a matter for Scots; it affects the rest of the UK who simply cannot be used as bribes to keep the Scots in the union.

He should heed the red lights flashing from immigrants, lavatories, vacuum cleaners and Portsmouth.