IT was encouraging last week to see so many people gathered before parliament to demand MPs obey the referendum result, their manifesto pledges and, in some cases, personal pledges.

The general assault on both liberty and democracy by our political class, on Brexit and in many other areas, has been gathering pace rapidly in the past two years and is pretty demoralising.

Given the costs of travelling to London on a work day I was astonished at how many people were captured on the circling helicopter cameras.

Nevertheless, just in case those of us watching at home were tempted to think this mass demonstration of support for popular sovereignty was inspiring, our betters were on hand to put this mob in its place.

“I’ve never seen so many white people in one place,” said veteran Channel 4 newsman Jon Snow.

We can leave aside the fact that this statement taken at face value is a lie, Mr Snow has over the course of his career many times seen more white people in one place.

This is also not the place to discuss the trend – the worst thing we have ever borrowed from America – to start collectively categorising people on the basis of their skin colour. I still hope this will prove a temporary fad, because if this continues and becomes the norm, the consequences for us all will be dire.

What Mr Snow was really saying of course was “I’ve never seen so many oiks in one place”. He said white because, amazingly, he can get away with dismissing people based on their skin colour, but admitting that his real problem with the protesters is that they won’t do what they are told by clever, well educated people like him, is just not the done thing.

The same sentiment lies behind the constant wailing over the ‘division’ in our nation. Division is, of course, the opposite of consensus – but consensus is sadly not usually the result of the truth winning out.

When a politician or activist complains about division, they are complaining that they are not getting their own way.

This was raised, for instance, by newly appointed Change UK (CUK) boss Heidi Allen, alongside her comrades who broke from the two main parties to form ‘The Independent Group’, or TIGers, a few weeks ago.

Ms Allen was very upset about the “division in our communities”, but what really upset her was that views opposed to hers are being aired at all.

Ms Allen and her fellow CUKers also laughably claim to represent change in British politics, despite being in every regard the purest and most distilled apotheosis of the status quo.

For starters, they are barely on nodding terms with principle – Ms Allen is on video after the last election explaining to her constituents that the result of the referendum must be respected.

Even their new name ‘Change’ is a statement so profoundly and transparently vacuous I am stunned they think they can pull it off.

Still, the CUKers are united with the majority of MPs on one thing, and indeed with the political class in northern and western Europe and the panjandrums of the EU.

This is the need to crack down on the dissenting opinions which are, apparently, causing all this division in the first place.

We can see this in the long-running campaign against ‘fake news’ on social media, the purpose of which ultimately is to have all news provided by identifiable and controllable sources and sanctioned by the state prior to release. Never fear, the arbiters of what news is acceptable will ultimately be the politicians.

The news this month that the French government has had its own political campaign blocked by Twitter due to the fake news laws it itself introduced in December is pretty heartwarming stuff, but only a temporary setback.

Brexit is just one part of a bigger struggle, which has been raging or bubbling in Britain since the 17th century at least. Who is the best custodian of our nation’s future? The people, or the elite.