David Cameron's contemptuous instruction to his MPs to ignore their constituents' views on Europe in the coming referendum has backfired spectacularly. And deservedly so.

Although the Prime Minister claims he was only urging them to vote with their consciences, there was a hint of arm-twisting menace aimed at those considering backing the 'leave' campaign.

The vast majority of Conservative party members are anti-EU, but MPs' career prospects are dependent on patronage from above. And the Tory High Command is desperate for a vote to stay at any cost.

David Cameron's (pictured) contemptuous instruction to his MPs to ignore their constituents' views on Europe in the coming referendum has backfired spectacularly, writes Richard Littlejohn

The inevitable backlash from activists can be summed up by these highlights from a letter in yesterday's Daily Mail from Andrew Nicholas, chairman of Enfield North Conservative Association:

'I don't think I can express strongly enough the damage that the Prime Minister's comments have done to his own party.

'Without the activists who go out come rain or shine to give time, effort and money to the cause of getting their candidate elected, he would not have a majority and would not be Prime Minister.

'Despite what he appears to think, he has no divine right to rule and if he thinks he can dismiss the views of those of us who helped to put him in Downing Street, he may well find himself in for a nasty shock.'

The anger and disillusion among lifelong Conservatives who worked tirelessly for a Cameron victory last year cannot be overstated.

There is a palpable sense of betrayal among those who thought the Prime Minister was serious when he promised to secure a fundamental change in Britain's relationship with Europe.

Cynical

He even hinted he might lead the 'out' campaign if he didn't get significant reforms — a hollow promise he had no intention of fulfilling. In the event, his cynical, weak-as-water demands failed to address any of the big issues and his attempts to frighten people into voting to stay are intelligence-insulting on an intergalactic scale.

Now he is trying to bully his MPs into backing him, even if that means riding roughshod over the sincerely held beliefs of thousands of men and women who are the lifeblood of the party at a local level.

Perhaps the implosion of the Labour opposition has convinced Cameron that he does have a divine right to rule. But that still doesn't give him the right to treat his own party's foot-soldiers with derision.

The anger and disillusion among lifelong Conservatives who worked tirelessly for a Cameron (pictured) victory last year cannot be overstated

The eternal problem is that, secure in office, Cameron now represents the political class who run Europe and not the people who pay his wages, or stuff his election leaflets into envelopes.

He has gone native, seduced by all those lobster suppers and grand summits.

They all do. So what changed him from a professed Eurosceptic to a stooge of the anti-democratic Brussels elite?

Given that Dave considers himself to be the Heir To Tony Blair (pictured), perhaps he sees his next career move as President of Europe

Given that Dave considers himself to be the Heir To Blair, perhaps he sees his next career move as President of Europe — something his hero never achieved.

It could be his rich reward for blackmailing the British people to stay in the corrupt EU club.

On reflection, I suppose we should never have expected anything else. All politicians, with a few honourable exceptions, are eventually seduced by the system. Parliaments are packed with careerist placemen and opportunist pygmies on the make, feathering their own nests and lining their pockets at taxpayers' expense.

Only yesterday, we learned MPs are to receive a £1,000 a year pay rise, on top of the inflation-busting £7,500 they trousered last year.

They are also outrageously demanding that any 'honourable member' arrested for, say, fiddling their expenses, should automatically be given anonymity — a privilege not extended to others accused of serious crimes.

You'd have thought that after the parliamentary allowances scandal they'd have a little more self-awareness and asked themselves how this would play outside the Westminster bubble. But, no, they're too busy navel-gazing to care.

This self-serving, self-regarding insularity isn't confined to Westminster. It is endemic within so-called Western democracies —from Brussels to Washington.

In America, we now have the bizarre spectacle of the two front-runners in the presidential race comprising a reality show demagogue and a septuagenarian, self-proclaimed socialist who makes Jeremy Corbyn look like a matinee idol.

Donald Trump may be an incendiary circus act, but he's the incarnation of angry populist reaction against the Republican Establishment's distaste for millions of its own voters.

Senior Republicans, like some senior Tories in this country, seem to despise their traditional supporters.

Rookie

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders owes his ascendency to widespread revulsion at Hillary Clinton's towering sense of entitlement.

Three years ago, I attended a Tea Party rally and was impressed by a young Florida senator, Marco Rubio, who gave an electrifying speech.

The 5,000-strong crowd loved him. These weren't the stereotypical stump-toothed, gun-toting Tea Party red-necks of Left-wing media mythology.

They were doctors, lawyers, small business owners, hard-working, fair-minded folk wanting the best for their country and their families. In Britain, they'd be natural Daily Mail readers.

Donald Trump (pictured) may be an incendiary circus act, but he's the incarnation of angry populist reaction against the Republican Establishment's distaste for millions of its own voters

They weren't exactly mad as hell, but they were determined not to take it any more and had decided to give this rookie senator a fair hearing. Rubio delivered the message they'd come to hear. The Washington politicians of both major parties had failed and it was time for a new kid in town to clean up.

I came away energised, believing that I'd just seen a future U.S. president in the making.

Rubio is running this year. He achieved an unexpected third place in the first primary, a whisker behind Trump. All the polls showed that he was the one Republican who had the widest appeal and stood a decent chance of beating Hillary.

And how did his party's Establishment candidates react?

Instead of throwing their weight behind him and turning their fire on the Democrats, the other candidates set out to destroy him — putting their personal ambition ahead of the greater good.

Rubio was badly wounded by the onslaught and slumped to fifth in New Hampshire this week, as the increasingly rabid Trump topped the poll by hoovering up the protest votes.

In Brussels, they don't even have to pay lip service to public opinion. No one ever accused the EU of being a democracy.

Bernie Sanders (pictured) owes his ascendency to widespread revulsion at Hillary Clinton's towering sense of entitlement

You can tell that by their reading material. According to a recent survey of 498 Brussels insiders, they consider an obscure American website called Politico to be the most influential news outlet in Britain, just ahead of the BBC, followed by the Financial Times and the Economist.

The only national newspaper to make the cut is — you guessed — the Guardian, terminally mired in mountains of debt and with a circulation shrinking faster than a low-budget supermarket burger on a barbecue.

None of the papers people actually read — the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, the Sun — are considered worthy of any attention whatsoever. Beyond the pale, most likely. This survey explains why the self-regarding political elite spend their time talking to themselves. And perhaps why the Prime Minister thinks he can ignore the views of the overwhelming majority of his party's members.

I wonder if he bothered reading the letter from his chairman in Enfield North in yesterday's Mail. Or the round-robin in a similar vein from 40 other Tory constituency chairmen which appeared in the Tory-loyalist Sunday Telegraph.

Shock

As it happens, I know a bit about Enfield North. I live in the neighbouring constituency. It's a marginal, a rare Labour gain at the last election because 4,000 people voted Ukip, denying the Tories victory.

This is where suburban London meets Hertfordshire greenbelt, prime Daily Mail country. It's in constituencies like this that the referendum will be won or lost.

Does Dave really think he can ignore the views of his constituency party workers, let alone the 18,000-plus who voted Tory last time? I shouldn't have thought he can count on the support of the 4,000 who voted Ukip.

At the start of Prime Minister's Questions every week, some eager MP always asks if the PM has any plans to visit his or her constituency.

If the Prime Minister hasn't got any immediate plans to visit Enfield North, as he shuffles between European capitals, then he should be revising his itinerary as a matter of some urgency.

You never know, he might learn something — although not necessarily to his advantage.