Referenda are dangerous political devices that play into the hands of demagogues and dictators. They threaten the stability of parliamentary democracies and should be outlawed. It is the height of irony that one of the greatest parliamentary parties of all times, the British Conservative Party, has got so tied up, and confused, by today’s referendum culture. We look at the nature of the Conservative parliamentary tradition as told in a recent history of the Carlton club — London’s club culture played an essential parliamentary role — and we consider this in the light of Britain’s one hereditary historical problem: her total misunderstanding of Europe.