The Gilded Cage.

There was a certain symbolism about where the UK’s permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow handed over The Letter to President Donald Tusk yesterday.  It was in the European Unions brand new futuristic new 321-million-euro headquarters, a building that “symbolised 'joy' according to the PR from the EU.   

A glass lantern-shaped structure inside a cube made of recycled window frames sourced from across the 28-nation bloc (doesn’t that word remind you of the USSR?), the Europa building has been dubbed the "Space Egg" because of its other-wordly appearance.   

At its heart is a huge room decked out in psychedelic rainbow carpets and ceiling tiles (sitting in it for too long you would wonder if you were “on something”) where European Union leaders will hold their summit meetings on the multiple crises that beset the bloc.  

If it had been in existence when David Cameron tried unsuccessfully to do a little bit of renegotiation before he put the Stay or Leave question to the people of the UK, you could maybe see there was a reason for the EU leaders weird behaviour to not to even give the crumbs off the table to our then Prime Minister.   

Perhaps that was his punishment for describing the Space Egg in 2011 as a "gilded cage" for leaders at a time when austerity was causing pain across a debt-hit continent.   

Perhaps if President Tusk and his colleagues had spent more time on listening to and dealing with the issues that afflict the voters across the EU they would not have been so dismissive of David Cameron and his attempts at getting just a few crumbs from the table.  

Perhaps we would not be leaving if some crumbs had fallen into our PMs lap.   

But of course, and the irony would not have been lost on David Cameron as he resigned as PM and MP and as he watched The Letter being handed over yesterday, at least he was elected by a constituency, real voters, back in Witney in Oxfordshire.   

President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, just like the other Presidents in the EU, President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker and President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, has no democratic mandate with a single voter.