You can have your sovereignty back, but only if you do what I say

If this was a parliament with its sovereignty restored, why did it look like its about to do something it really doesn't want to?

Brexit minister David Davis struggles to suppress a grin

As the Fast Show’s Swiss Toni never quite said, parliamentary sovereignty is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman: time-consuming and expensive to get your hands on, then over very quickly.

Poor parliament. They’d only got their sovereignty back at half past nine in the morning, and it wasn’t even lunchtime before David Davis took it away again.

No sooner had the Supreme Court decided, by an 8 to 3 verdict, that it is parliament and not the Prime Minister that gets to break the glass / pull the trigger / press the red button on Article 50 (the sad metaphor-less truth is ‘post the letter’ but that won’t do), than the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union was telling them when and how they’d be doing just that.

“I can announce today that we will shortly introduce legislation allowing the Government to move ahead with invoking article 50,” he said. It will be a “straightforward bill,” that will prepare the ground for these assembled elected, professional decision makers to crack on with the making of a decision almost all of them fundamentally disagree with.

There was a strange mood in the house. There always is in these bizarre times. If you can Imagine if the Chilean miners had been told there's been a vote and, sorry, we're going to have to piss on the biscuits, then you’ll have some clue as to the looks on the faces of MPs on every side of the house.

These people know they’ve got no choice but to crack on and do something none of them wants to. To take a deep breath, public servants in a national parliament, and do active damage to their own constituents, because that's what their constituents have asked for.

There are many reasons to find the many convulsions and complications of Brexit almost impossible to understand. That, to take just one example, the Labour Party campaigned for Remain under the leadership of an ardent Eurosceptic of thirty years standing who is now telling his MPs they’ll face a whip to taking the country out the EU might seem bewildering to the occasional observer. But the key is seeing it all through the simple prism: they just really really don’t want to do it, but they know they must.

Some of them do want to, of course, and they were as vocal and as angry ever. John Redwood was angry about ‘the puppet Parliament answering to Brussels.’ Bill Cash glowered about the Supreme Court verdict having ‘nothing to do with the political merits of the decision.’ It’s six months since these people achieved their life’s dream, and yet they’re still as angry as they were before. Tempting as it is to liken them to Second World War Japanese soldiers fighting on for the Emperor on some pacific jungle atoll, the trouble is it's not like they’ve not been told the war is over - and that they won.

Mr Davis made solemn proclamations on the ‘independence of the judiciary’ in ‘a nation that is watched by other countries as an example for themselves.’ Yeah, those days are gone mate. The death threats to Gina Miller, the ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE stuff did that. It’s not that there aren’t still plenty of people out there who see the UK as a shining example, it’s just that, well, they’re mainly fascists (they really are). If you don’t believe it, ask Marine Le Pen why she spent most of the last half of last year with the Union Jack as her profile picture on Twitter, and probably Tinder too.

Still, there’s always the Lib Dems, so serious about repositioning themselves as the party of the 48 per cent that one of their nine MPs turned up. It fell to Tom Brake to ask for a ‘second referendum.’

Mr Davis told him to ‘exercise his brain.’ Tell Brussels that we’ll be voting again on the deal, and they’ll make it as bad as possible so we vote against it, he explained rather persuasively, confirming that the madness is definitely going ahead.

In any case, a second vote won't be necessary. Forced to explain to Anna Soubry why, no, there can be no question staying in the single market, the ‘EU in all but name’ despite that specific question’s noted absence from the ballot paper, he suggested thus: “What we have come up with is the idea of a comprehensive free trade agreement and a comprehensive customs agreement that will deliver the exact same benefits as we have.”

All of the benefits then, and none of the costs. Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande, Donald Tusk and indeed everyone else have now spent more than a year saying that this won’t be possible, which it won’t be. But hey, why start listening now?