Legally speaking...

I’m rather constrained today, given that it’s Friday and the shaggy dog story has become something of a tradition. But given yesterday’s judicial decision that democracy doesn’t necessarily mean Parliament should pay any heed to what a majority of the electorate want, I would be remiss were I not to at least touch on it. Most of us who have waited forty-one years to get another chance to leave the sclerotic club of unelected ruling elites who have gradually been killing off national identities and impoverishing millions of people, while enriching its officials beyond the wildest dreams of those who are ruled over, know exactly what it was all about.

If leaving the EU was going to involve impossible legal contortions you’d think that somebody – anybody (just one?) - in Westminster, might have thought of it and consulted beforehand. Why not? Because nobody ever believed the vote would go against those who have for years regarded elections as mere contrivances for giving the appearance of democracy. Or maybe they knew full-well and so it was left to a private – and extremely wealthy – citizen to bring a court case challenging the right of the government to invoke Article 50 despite there having been a six-to-one majority in the house to let the population make that decision.

No matter how they try and twist this so they can say they have given us what we wished for – Parliamentary sovereignty – they are totally missing the point. The ‘destination’ that Tim Farron keeps wanking on about was always clear; out of the EU. Not with one hand still grimly clutching on to the flotsam from the wreckage but free and clear and independent again. Free to fuck ourselves in the arse if we so wish. And most particularly, free to have laws which reflect the culture that shaped the entire world’s civilisation; not those of a despotic, dynastic tyranny masquerading as democracy by having only one option on the ballot paper.

This is the reason that people don’t trust lawyers. Maybe not the family solicitor, the humble conveyancer, or the barristers that do their best to defend the wrongfully accused. But those who from on high decide that foreign rapists have a right to a family life and assistance from the public purse. Those who decide cases not on clear merit but on obscure points of law for the benefit of the highest fee-payer. Those who give the legal profession its disdainful face and literally lord it over the rest of us. If there is ever another peasants’ revolt it will turn on the decision of a High Court Judge. Them and us, them and us...

And the winner is...

Following a decision that pleased the establishment but nobody else and sent newspaper copywriters into a spin, dreaming up punning headlines about deaf, dumb and blind lady justice, one such judge was riding home in the back of his limousine when he saw a man eating grass by the roadside. Such odd behaviour piqued his curiosity and he ordered his driver to stop. He wound down his window and barked, “You, sir! What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

The peasant replied, "We don't have any money for food. I lost my job to a Lithuanian who is paid half what I used to get and when we couldn’t pay the rent any more, our council house was given to a Somalian family.” The judge thought for a moment and then said “Oh, come home with me then. Hop in, chop-chop!” The man hesitated, then said “But sir, I have a wife and four children” and he indicated his family who were also chewing grass a little further along the verge. The judge insisted that they were welcome, too.

They all climbed into the limousine and set off. After a few minutes of uneasy silence, the commoners uncertain whether they were allowed to engage in conversation with one so lofty, the wife cleared her throat and tentatively said, “Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking us all in like this.” The judge beamed the smile of the righteous and replied “Don’t mention it dear lady, "The grass in the paddock must be two feet tall.”