Edmund Burke's pamphlet written in 1770 was focused on what he saw as the malign influence of the Court operating through the Royal prerogative on the operation of Parliament and in particular the House of Commons. Those favouring exit from the European Union have a similar obsession about the degree to which the sovereignty of Parliament is being trammelled by others.
Even if that is a stretch it's still a neat title for some reflections on just why we are so unhappy as a nation at the moment as to do something as ridiculous and self defeating as to leave a trading bloc with our major partners and turn our back on an institution which was founded in large part to prevent a return to war in Europe.
The single most depressing aspect of the result is what it says about us culturally: insular, nativist, backward looking, increasingly xenophobic and in some respects simply bigoted and with a wholly misguided view about taking back our sovereignty in a world which is in fact increasingly inter-dependent and in which the major threats on the environment, the economy and security can only be addressed through international and multi-lateral action.
That is not the country in which I want to live so here are some reflections on our present discontents in the light of what can only be described as a catastrophe for the country and for liberal democracy in yesterday's referendum result:
1. Our politics has been irretrievably coarsened by the pernicious mendacity of the Out campaign which traded from the outset on fear, fostered hatred and racism and told several major lies which it failed to retract. The fact that it worked should worry us all greatly. Even more worrying is that anti-politics has taken hold and been used egregiously by those who themselves belong to the elite. If you no longer trust your politicians where else do you go in a democracy?
2. We live in a post factual and increasingly an anti-rational country. This is a threat to the very Enlightenment values that underpin liberal democracy and the rules by which we consent to live for the benefit of all. If there are no facts that cannot be trumped by prejudice and no rational analysis that cannot be overcome by common sense (of a particular kind - that of the angry, white, middle aged or elderly male for the most part) how do we sensibly regulate discourse and debate?
3. Referendums are favoured by those who are no friends of liberal democracy. They are by their very nature binary. The world is not. It is astonishing that Gove, Johnson and others suggested that they had to wrestle with their consciences and weigh up the arguments to the final moment before declaring for Out. Having done so they gave every impression that the world would end if we did not leave the EU. Referendums divide and push to the extremes. Liberal democracy needs nuance and balance and pragmatism to make difficult choices and reflect the spectrum of opinion. I know which version of democracy I want to live under.
4. Culturally, we are a divided nation and one that increasingly sees those divisions as impossible to bridge. I am a metropolitan liberal living in inner London, in one of the most diverse societies in the world and wholly comfortable with an outward, open, tolerant and cosmopolitan atmosphere. Where I live Remain scored 78% in the referendum. I know no one who voted Out. Yet outside most of the cities and towns we have the reverse; we have people who feel ill at ease and uncertain about openness because it seems to have few if any benefits for them. The two increasingly do not meet. They shout at each other and mutually despair. That is a disaster for the country.
5. Young people have been screwed by older people. It's a clear and ongoing pattern that young people are having their futures sacrificed and their opportunities trammelled because of the views and actions of their parents and grandparents generation. How can it make remote sense to allow the Baby Boomers who have had such a cushy life compared to their parents to screw the living daylights our of their children's generation? We will all be the poorer for it and our political system does nothing to help address the issue.
6. More and more people feel that their lives are precarious. This is at root an economic problem - those responsible for the Crash were never held to account properly and instead politicians obsessed by counter productive austerity have enforced draconian punishment on their own workforces and populations. Economically insecure people will understandably look for an answer and demagogues are all too ready to give them scapegoats to blame. If we do not have greater economic equality our democracy is further degraded.
7. Our wider framework of rights and liberties is under threat. The European Convention Human Rights was not on the ballot paper but we can be sure that the Outers will have it in their sights. The obsessive concern with removing rights from the vulnerable because of a few marginal cases which seem to favour undesirables is one of the most disturbing aspects of current political debate. Yet again we are at risk of ditching the very stuff that makes liberal democracy function.
8. Fascism is happening now in Britain in 2016. We have just witnessed the brutal killing, in cold blood, on the street, of a Labour MP by a member of a far right party. This is an incident that should shock us to very core. In other parts of Europe there are fascist or neo-fascist parties already in power and they play on exactly the kind of divisions that are developing in the UK. In Poland or Hungary they play on a largely poorly educated rural population to outvote the metropolitan areas and provide a foothold in power from which changes to the constitution and the whole apparatus of politics can be made. We need to be fully aware of what is happening because if we hide under the duvet we know that eventually 'they' come for you and by then there's no-one else left to help.
9. Populism is ugly. Classical republicanism was fundamentally a system the protects against the arbitrary exercise of power. It is the foundation of a free society. If we let our economic insecurity allow us to throw away the rules and mechanisms that allow us to make decisions in an ordered and grounded way through our elected representatives we will all live to rue the day.
So we are a discontented nation; increasingly angry and increasingly focused on purported remedies being sold by snake oil salesmen and charlatans. The experience of the Referendum should make us all worry about the degree to which our whole democracy is at risk if we do not start to come to our collective senses and make the arguments of principle about why, however imperfect, liberal democracy is better than anything else on offer.
