My colleagues are writing their own death sentences

Charles I of england believed in the divine right of kings. That is to say, whatever he thought he wanted was what should come to pass, irrespective of anyone else’s wishes. as a result he ended up being beheaded.

The Bourbon kings in France had much the same attitude – and louis XVI ended up with his head on the guillotine.

The lesson for the house of lords is that if you behave in the same vain, arrogant fashion, believing you can do as you want whatever the wishes of the populace, it is all going to end in tears. It is only possible to govern the people with the consent of the people.

The Conservative peer Viscount ridley recently described the lords, rather pithily, as ‘this gilded, crimson echo chamber of remain, this neo- Jacobite hold-out for the euro-king across the water’.

The idea that hundreds of peers, divorced as they are in their own little bubble, far away from the real world, can ignore the wishes of the country is absurd.

They are writing their own death sentence – and sad though it makes me, they will richly deserve it.

The very thought that in the 21st century members of the house of lords should be working so hard to destroy Brexit, when it is crystal clear the country wants to leave the eU, is bizarre in itself.

It is curious that so many supposedly intelligent people cannot see that trying to prevent the sovereignty of this country returning to Westminster is an argument they will not win. The will of the people will prevail.

The arrogant belief prevalent in the house of lords – that they know what is best – will lead to the downfall experienced by those vainglorious monarchs to whom I referred earlier. In this instance it will be all their heads – and well deserved.

The hypocrisy of pretending to protect the sovereignty of Parliament, whilst busily trying to surrender that very sovereignty to a foreign power, is breathtaking.

The so- called salisbury Convention, which says that the house of lords must not overturn a manifesto commitment made by the government of the day, came into being at the beginning of the 20th century because it was recognised that unelected peers should not oppose the will of the people. This principle should apply as much today as it did then.

There have been arguments that this convention might not apply because the Government did not achieve an overall majority at the last election. That is nonsense. The wish to leave the eU was very clearly demonstrated at the election because both the Conservative and labour parties included leaving the eU in their manifestos. To argue that the salisbury Convention does not apply now is trying to use fine print to be dishonest.

It would be inexcusable for the house of lords to abandon such an important convention, especially when Brexit carries the extra endorsement of an eU referendum which was won outright – in spite of the monstrous and totally misleading Project Fear campaign.