Have you noticed how the political establishment hates elections? It regards them as vulgar, foreign, exhibitionist and unpredictable. To those in power they are mere concessions to mob rule. If electors did not insist on them, elections would have been abolished long ago as Victorian gimmicks to appease proletarian sentiment.

There is no other explanation for Westminster's reaction to Ireland's weekend vote on the Lisbon treaty and to David Davis's resignation over 42-day-detention. Nor is there any other explanation for the welcome that will be given to Hazel Blears's forthcoming local government white paper. This will, it is rumoured, reduce the 95% of elections still held in Britain (local ones) to largely consultative status, to clear the ground for Gordon Brown's Putin-style appointed regional government.

In the case of Ireland, the rule is clear. Any change in the constitution of Europe requires unanimity among the nations of Europe. Irrespective of what moved the Irish electorate, the treaty has failed and must be redrafted. Yet Britain, France, Germany and the rest are proceeding with ratification as if the vote had gone the other way. They are saying that Europe's constitutional framework - good or bad - can be disregarded when inconvenient, for instance when democracy has rejected what they want.

Both the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties have blatantly reneged on an election promise to hold a referendum on the constitution after an earlier version was defeated in 2005 by French and Dutch votes. At the time Tony Blair and Gordon Brown instantly declared the constitution dead, adding that there could be no question of "bringing it back with a few amendments".

This time Ireland's rejection of a virtually identical proposal is met with an opposite response. Ireland is regarded as too small to matter, or too stupid to know what it was doing, or too irritating to worry overworked Eurocrats who might have to renegotiate the rejected document.

The treaty is defunct when rejected by a member of the Union. Yet I have heard commentators argue that 5 million Irish cannot be allowed to stand over against 500 million Europeans - as if the rule was not really a rule and as if the 500 million had ever been asked their view. None had, for the obvious reason that they would have agreed with the Irish. A writer in the Financial Times even depicted Ireland as a snivelling little country that should be kicked into the sea. That is how Belgium and Poland were once treated. European super-statehood seems to drive people mad.

Every time the new European constitution has been put to a popular vote it has been rejected. A YouGov poll yesterday indicated support for full EU membership in Britain is down to 29%. The reasons are many, but the contempt shown by Europe's governing elite for the wishes of Europe's peoples is dangerous. It indicates how far a noble postwar ideal has strayed into oligarchy and contempt for democracy.

The European Union's inability to clean up its governance, to audit its administration and to put its reform to public scrutiny has reinforced voter scepticism for politics generally. Members of the European parliament are now helpless popinjays, as incapable of controlling Brussels as of limiting their personal greed.

Davis's decision to stand down as an MP and fight a byelection over 42-day detention produced similar revulsion in Westminster. All political ambitions are mixed, but Davis was clearly shocked by the devious way in which the Labour government trampled on civil liberties last week. He decided to express that shock in the most public way available to a politician, to invite electors to debate with him and vote him back to office.

Westminster politicians and lobby reporters derided Davis as an exhibitionist, a loner and crazy. Why did he not wait for parliament to handle the matter? Why not stick within the club? Did he not realise that the public disagreed with him over 42 days, as revealed in Westminster's favourite franchise, the polls? Worst of all, Davis was currying favour with mere voters, as if he were consorting in the servants' hall.

By Sunday, when thousands of members of the public (and celebrities) had rallied to Davis's flag, Westminster was gulping and wondering if it had missed something. It had. As in Ireland, the public liked being asked its view. That is why 80% of people want a referendum on Lisbon, irrespective of their being more evenly divided on its virtues.

Blears's impending white paper on "local empowerment" is rumoured to be equally anti-electoral. With the rest of Europe moving ever further down the road to local devolution, Blears believes that only central control can yield better public services. The 2004 Planning Act and subsequent acts stripped local electorates of any discretion over their environment. Now their remaining powers are to be supplanted by forums, meetings and consultation sessions, subject to superior veto.

Pronouncements with such ironic titles as "empowerment", "organic change" and "strong and prosperous communities", from David Miliband, Ruth Kelly and Blears, have reduced English local government to agency status. An analysis of recent legislation - Botched Business, by Michael Chisholm and Steve Leach - depicts ministers with the same executive arrogance as the governors of Guantánamo Bay.

Today's councillors must contract with Whitehall, not with their voters. Blears's proposals will have no truck with elective discretion or tax devolution. The present Treasury minister, Yvette Cooper, wrote in 2004 that localism means "nimbyism and divisive inequalities". To her and her colleagues, Lenin was right and democratic centralism was all the accountability needed for better public services.

While these cases are clearly different they share a feature noted by such political observers as Bernard Crick and Jerry White - "fear of voting". It is every politician's dread at having to "meet his maker", the electorate.

In most countries that dread is disciplined by a formal constitution. In Britain it is not and democracy has duly atrophied. That is why Britons have fewer elections and fewer elected representatives than any other democracy in Europe. The tradition of monarchical deference is alive and well. As the week has shown, any chicanery will do to deny people's will.



simon.jenkins@theguardian.com