The thing about systems is that they are designed to work as a whole, each component interacting to produce the desired effect. To interfere with one part is to throw the whole out of kilter.

If it is your job to make hard decisions it is wise to consider and indeed consult the opinion of those who will be affected by them; but making the decision still remains your job, not theirs.

That goes to the heart of the awful slow-motion train-wreck that we in Britain are presently witnessing, where a government, shamefully aided and abetted by the leader of the Opposition, is in the process of railroading through both Houses of Parliament a bill which, given a free vote, they would certainly reject.

At this point, we might expect the comic figure of Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg to pop up and start trumpeting about ‘the will of the British people’ and how it ‘must not be thwarted’.

A compounding factor in this disaster* is the inability of people like Mr Rees-Mogg to tell the truth. Each time he or anyone, in discussing the European referendum, utters the phrase ‘the will of the British people’, he should be gently stopped, and told to say instead ‘the will of a large minority of the electorate at a time when the majority did not vote to leave Europe (and those who will be most lastingly affected – the 16-18 year olds – were excluded from the process).’

I grant it is neither as catchy nor as resounding as ‘the will of the British people’ but it does have the advantage of being an accurate statement of the truth, which ‘the will of the British people’, in this context, is not (something that Mr Rees-Mogg and his like know perfectly well – hence their unwillingness to discuss the point).

But Jacob Rees-Mogg, like Mr Punch, is not easily suppressed. Up he pops again and tells us that the government agreed that it would be bound by the result of the referendum, so it is a matter of honour, of keeping one’s word, of honouring a pledge made to the British people (and so on, and so on…).

But it is none of those things: it is, on the contrary, a complete abnegation of responsibility – shirking, in plain terms. To begin at the beginning: a thing is either binding or it is not; if it is not, no amount of saying that it is will make it so. ‘Binding’ in this case means ‘having the force of law’ – in other words, you would be breaking the law to go against it.

As was made plain in the House of Commons Briefing Paper (no. 7212) that set out the scope and powers of the European referendum, ‘The UK does not have constitutional provisions which would require the results of a referendum to be implemented, unlike, for example, the Republic of Ireland’. To have such a binding referendum would require new legislation : Parliament would have to pass a law to make it so; that is how the system works.

It does not work by the government saying (as it has done here) ‘this does not have the force of law, but we will treat it as if it does.’ You cannot treat something as a law: it either is or isn’t.

The reasoning that underpins this is worth examining. While the laws of physics – gravity, for example – have actual force and cannot be defied, the laws of the land are conventions – they only have such force as we agree to allow them (which is why they have to be backed by sanctions with a police force and courts to enforce them).

This act of endowing the law with compelling force is really a transfer of responsibility, largely for practical purposes: it saves us making our mind up in every case individually if we have a rule that we agree to apply in all such cases. Naturally, we want to think carefully before transferring power to an order of words in this way, which is why we have a system of parliamentary scrutiny before any legislation is passed.

And this means that, where something is not the law, the responsibility for deciding what happens in that case must lie elsewhere. In the matter of the European referendum, that responsibility lies with parliament, which has a duty to take full cognisance of the result and act accordingly, in the best interests of the whole country, now and in the foreseeable future (that’s their job, what we elect them to do). Yes, I know – tedious, boring, grown-up. But this is not a game show.

To put it in terms that even Jacob Rees-Mogg can understand –

A harassed mother of seven children, at the end of her tether because they are all squabbling as it is raining and they were going to have a bonfire, says ‘Right! we’ll have a vote – whatever the majority of you want to do, that’s what we’re going to do, all right? Only no more squabbling!’

Two of the children (twins) gaze round-eyed but say nothing. Two vote to watch telly and have the bonfire another day. The remaining three vote to have the bonfire now, indoors, on the living-room carpet.

Hands up all those who think mum is obliged to start gathering combustible material on the carpet?

*and with the continuing rise of Marine le Pen towards the presidency of France and the hitherto-unthinkable possibility that one of the two main foundations of the European Union will be removed (with others surely following), I grow fearful that it will be disastrous, not only for us, but Europe and ultimately the world. I hope I am wrong.