Peter Obourne, writing in the Daily Mail, seems blissfully oblivious to the evolution of governance in this country over the previous 40 years.

Ever since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (when a Catholic King was toppled in favour of parliamentary democracy), Britain has enjoyed a system of parliamentary sovereignty. This has meant that Parliament has been acknowledged as the ultimate source of power in Britain, and the highest court in the land. But Gordon Brown’s Bill signals the creation of a new and omnipotent body to which Parliament must defer — provisionally called the Parliamentary Standards Authority. Initially, it will be charged with managing the Commons expenses system. It will also have exemplary powers to sack and punish MPs and ministers. In order to operate effectively, it will stand above Parliament. Even Speaker Bercow himself will defer to it.

Although Brown conceded that this was the ‘biggest reform you have ever seen in any period of the history of Parliament’, his judgment is a gross understatement. The reform marks a historic change in the regulation of British democracy — and a giant constitutional step into the unknown. What’s more, it has the frightening potential to cause great damage because it will hand vast powers to a new class of men and women who are not accountable to the electorate. At the heart of this lies a vital question first posed by the Greek philosopher Plato some 2,500 years ago: ‘Who guards the guardians?’”

Is Parliament still sovereign? It is a question we Eurosceptics agonise over, and generally come to the conclusion that while technically it remains sovereign – until the Lisbon Treaty enters force, that is – it is only a technicality since much practical sovereignty has been lost since the 1972 European Communities Act took us into the European Economic Community.

Mr Obourne also seems to fundamentally miss something quite important about modern politics…

Peter Mandelson remarked 15 years ago that the ‘age of representative democracy is coming to a close’. He meant that institutions such as Parliament would soon have served their time and that Britain was moving to a new age with a populist system of elective dictatorship, involving plebiscites and powerful popular leaders.

Well, I am not sure that is how Mandy meant it at all. I think he meant that representative democracy was being replaced by Pluralism or even Corporatism. Wikipedia handily defines them thusly…

The political theory of pluralism holds that political power in society does not lie with the electorate, nor with a small concentrated elite, but is distributed between a wide number of groups. These groups may be trade unions, interest groups, business organizations, and any of a multitude of formal and informal coalitions.

Classical pluralism is the belief that politics and decision making is located mostly in the governmental framework, but many non-governmental groups are using their resources to exert influence. The central question for classical pluralism is how power is distributed in western democracies. Groups of individuals try to maximize their interests. Lines of conflict are multiple and shifting. There may be inequalities but they tend to be distributed and evened out. Any change under this view will be slow and incremental, as groups have different interests and may act as “veto groups” to destroy legislation that they do not agree with.

And this, I think, is Mandy’s point. Politics has descended into a consensual/centre-ground mush because ideology, principle and belief have vanished. In their place has come a welfarist agenda, whereby decisions have been reduced to cold mathematical calculations which determine the course of action which will maximise the welfare of society.

Under such a system of governance, the views of voters – the people – become unimportant as they are seen as only one component of assorted interest groups. In part this is a necessary evolution – often the general public’s understanding of particular issues and their detailed consequences is limited or non-existent.

However, I personally do not accept that it is desirable or necessary to view democracy in pluralist terms.  Without question, it is necessary for politicians to consult widely among interest groups to gain an understanding of the impact of their proposals, but it should be the people, who exist, create and consume in the world, and who are thus integral to every part of the economic and social chain, who should be the pyramidal apex from which all democratic authority flows.

One man, one vote – a right from birth inherited by virtue of being a sovereign individual. What right do ‘interest groups’, whether trade unions, companies, charities, or other lobby groups have to enter the democratic process. Of course, in normal circumstances the existence of these groups and their lobbying of politicians to pursue their own interests is perfectly acceptable. The problem arises when politicians, over-burden by an over-sized state, become driven by the bureaucrats underneath them. Bureaucrats, calculating the optimal course of actions, weighing the input from these interest groups, seek compromise. And that is the nature of Bureaucracies.

Ministers ought, and need, to be the sole drivers in a material sense. Today they are not, and they can only ever be the sole drivers when their area of responsibility becomes manageable. Continual Cabinet re-shuffles, a government which is far too large and which does far too much, necessarily strips Ministers of this authority and reduces them to an ever smaller focus over the direction.

This process has been driving relentlessly over the last 60 years or so. Parliament has been emascualted, not so much by the EU per se, but by the very rot that created and which drives the EU. It is the reign of the bureaucrats which has emasculated politics and Parliament. It is this emasculation which has made the people apathetic and disinterested in politics, and it is this emasculation which has led the political parties to converge in an amorphous centrist blur on the political landscape. And it is this convergence which has led to personality politics, as this becomes the only remaining differentiators between parties.

When Mandy says representative democracy is over he is right. When Peter Obourne recognises the flaccidity of Parliament, he is right. Tyranny of bureaucracy is the enemy – the EU, political apathy, and a bloated state and merely symptoms of this fundamental ill. Until the cause is tackled, we can expect to become increasingly powerless in our own land.