Right. I'm fed up of these Westminster types fiddling their expenses but denying that they need to have any external oversight. Indeed, they are denying that they CAN have any oversight external to themselves. 

The central problem here is that Parliament is "sovereign". It cannot, while it remains so, accept any independent outside scrutiny, only scrutiny from a person or agency that is appointed by itself. We don't trust it enough to trust anyone it appoints, so we both spiral ever lower into the depths of contempt and ignorance.

In very simplistic (and probably blasphemous, but what the heck - I'm an atheist) terms, it's like expecting God to submit an expenses claim. God is supreme - to what authority can He defer? In the UK constitution, Parliament is supreme, so there is no authority to which it can defer.

Parliament wrested that sovereignty over many years from the monarch, starting with Magna Carta. This was the right thing to do in the historical context, where a corrupt and unaccountable monarchy was doing things that, despite their corruption, were internally consistent with ownership of sovereignty.

As with MPs today, the problem was not necessarily that every member of monarchy was a corrupt despot, but more that the constitution did not prevent them from becoming one. In other words, it was the perception of what a monarch might do, more than a suspicion of what every monarch really does (spurred by some real abuses), that was at the root of the shift from monarch to Parliament.

Now we are faced with a Parliament that many of the people suspect of corruption. Analogously, we don't generally think that EVERY MP is chiselling, self-serving and only interested in the status quo, but we know that some are. Also, there appear to be no barriers to prevent any MP from behaving in that way, nor any effective punishments for those that do so. It is the suspicion of what all MPs might do, spurred by some real abuses, that is the root of the next constitutional shift I believe the UK needs.

Also, everything that Parliament is doing to clean its own reputation is internally consistent with ownership of sovereignty over itself, despite the obvious desire outside Parliament that it should be a servant of the people, and that it is badly failing in that role.

1. The first action has to be a formal recognition among the people that soveriegnty should now rest with us alone - not the monarch, and not our elected representatives (however they are elected) They work for us, not the other way around.
   
2. The second has to be formal recognition by parliament that it must defer its own soverignty to the higher authority of the people.
   
3. Then, we can have a proper constitutional convention to determine the future roles of people, parliament and monarch in the running of the country and the decision making processes that determine how that can happen.

Government can only happen with the consent of the governed, and it looks increasingly unlikely that such consent can continue to be given without root and branch reform. Parliament has long passed the point where it can reform itself, because the sovereignty that currently defines it is the very thing that prevents it from reforming itself.

So, I think the people should organise an electoral vote ourselves along the lines of:

"We, the people of the United Kingdom, no longer have confidence in the institution of Parliament to effectively represent our foreign and domestic interests, be they individual, social or commercial.

We demand the immediate recognition by Parliament that it must, on a timetable of no less than one and no more than five calendar years from the date of this vote, hand over political sovereignty to us, the people of the United Kingdom.

Furthermore, a constitutional convention must be convened over the same period to determine how this handover of sovereignty is to be effected, and how the soveriegn will of the people of the United Kingdom is to be determined and applied.

This constitutional convention must involve representatives from among the people, selected fairly and randomly, in the final decision-making capacity. The people's involvement must not be a purely consultative or advisory one.

All the institutions of the state - including, but not limited to: the legislature, executive, judiciary, and monarchy; the armed forces and security services; and all departments and tiers of government, both local and national - must be aligned with this peaceful and ordered handover of sovereignty during the course of this process."

Providing the turn-out was more than about 50% of eligible voters, a simple ballot of "Yes I agree with this demand" or "No I do not agree with this demand" would have no legal or constitutional force under current laws, but it would have such a degree of moral force that I don't think any British government or Parliament could ignore it without formally becoming a dictatorship.

It does, of course, mean we'd have to take some responsibility back for the way we are governed. The argument that "all politicians in all parties are equally useless, so there's no point taking part or even paying any attention to politics" would be moot, because almost by definition we would all become politicians ourselves.

Especially if part of the constitutional settlement was to make the people's final decision-making powers permanent, through some kind of jury selection system (as I've argued would be the best way to reform the House of Lords before now).

It's our democracy, not theirs. Let's take it back from them and make sure they can't mess about with it any more.

Think about the text in blue. Would you vote in favour of it or against it? And if you think it's worthwhile, tell your friends and send them here. Maybe this is where it all starts - it's as good as anywhere else, surely?