One of the strong elements of the debate over our departure from the European Union has been the theme of national sovereignty. Many people argued that the European Union determines British Laws without any mechanism for us to accept or reject their rules and this is what led them to vote for us to leave. The idea that an unelected Brussels quango, the Commission was making decisions on our behalf and refusing to be held accountable emerged many times, despite the errors in the argument. The fact is this quango is chosen by the 28 national leaders and approved by the 731 MEPs and the EU laws are proposed by the 28 leaders and approved by the MEPs before being agreed or rejected by national Parliaments. However on the days after we voted to leave the debate from many of us raised the question of how will Parliament respond to the referendum, after all, there is no statutory power built into referendum votes. For many months the Government in the form of a group of people, some of whom are elected as MPs and some of whom are appointed by Prime Ministers as Peers and are selected by leader of the largest political party in the House of Commons rejected these arguments until eventually they agreed to give Parliament which is the real constitutional power in our nation a vote and the real process began at the end of March 2017.

 The departure process has been long and so far fails to be clear as to where exactly it is going. On Monday in Parliament Theresa May stood up and said that 95% of the terms of our departure had been agreed with the EU. The remaining 5% is unresolved, it is the Northern Ireland border issue. Whilst some of us would consider this to be a much larger proportion than 5% the fact is that if everything else is agreed why not tell Parliament and then the country what that looks like. After all if it is agreed, the negotiations have ended and we could be informed as a matter of urgency so that businesses and residents of both the UK and the wider EU could prepare for what is going to happen, bearing in mind that things are not set in stone.

 A few months ago on 9th July after David Davis resigned as Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab was appointed as his successor. Just over a week later on 17th July he wrote to the Lords EU select Committee stating that he would “give evidence on a regular basis” and so 6 weeks ago the Committee wrote to him on 5 September 2018 inviting him to appear before the Committee as soon as possible after the October European Council. Bearing in mind he appeared on the Marr show on Sunday he pointed out that explaining where things were at would not happen on TV, but would happen first in Parliament. So on Tuesday the Committee that he wrote to on 17th July was told that he will be unable to attend or give evidence to the Committee until after a deal with the EU has been finalised.

 It appears that the idea of Parliamentary Sovereignty does not ring any bells in the understanding of Dominic who to be fair was elected by 35,071 people who voted for him in Esher and Walton in Surrey. However this is a constituency that was formed in 1997 and replaced Esher which was formed in 1950. In the 68 years since then it has been a constituency which has always elected a Tory candidate by a substantial margin of 25% to 30% of the votes. So the idea of accountability in Dominics experience is based on what his Constituency Party and then the Parliamentary Party decide, not on the local electorate or the rest of Parliament. However when we voted to leave the EU, part of the decision was made on the basis that there would be a return to Parliamentary Sovereignty which some voters outside of Esher and Walton assumed would give them a sense of their votes counting.

 It seems vital if we are to leave the EU in a manner that improves our national sovereignty that the appointed Minister Dominic reconsiders his response to the request from the EU Committee, or at least follows through on the promise he made on 17^th July and visits the committee which represents the second, albeit appointed Chamber of our national Parliament.