The British judiciary has begun to draw its sword. For the first time since the European Court asserted supremacy and launched its long campaign of teleological conquest, our own judges are fighting back.

It is the first stirring of sovereign resistance against an imperial ECJ that acquired sweeping powers under the Lisbon Treaty, and has since levered its gains to claim jurisdiction over almost everything.

What has emerged is an EU supreme court that knows no restraint and has been captured by judicial activists - much like the US Supreme Court in the 1970s, but without two centuries of authority and a ratified constitution to back it up.

This is what the Brexit referendum ought to be about, for this thrusting ECJ is in elemental conflict with the supremacy of Parliament. The two cannot co-exist. One or the other must give.

It is the core issue that has been allowed to fester and should have been addressed when David Cameron went to Brussels in February to state Britain's grievances. It was instead brushed under the carpet.

The explosive importance of Lisbon is not just that it enlarged the ECJ's domain from commercial matters (pillar I), to broad areas of defence, foreign affairs, immigration, justice and home affairs, nor that this great leap forward was rammed through without a referenda - after the French and the Dutch had already rejected it in its original guise as the European Constitution.