Thanks Sark, you’ve just released the genie…

That, too, was thanks to Sark and, as in all good fairy stories, this particular djinn has the power to undo us all. It’s also a warning that how States committees conduct themselves does matter, especially when exposed to outside scrutiny.

As an aside, why did Deputy Marc Leadbeater want to prosecute cyclists with flashing rear lights? That’s so petty, he clearly does need to get out more, don’t you think?

Anyway, we’ve always known that the UK – aka The Crown – reserved the right to intervene in island affairs if circumstances so dictated. That was set out by a Royal Commission published in 1973, which held that the Crown has ultimate responsibility for the ‘good government’ of the islands, and this concept has been developed still further over the years.

What remained unclear, however, was what might trigger intervention and what Her Majesty’s advisers might regard as ‘good government’. Or, indeed, the lack of it.

Thanks (ahem) to Sark, we now know what that means and what failures by the various States of the two CI bailiwicks could see Guernsey run like the Isle of Wight but just a bit further away.

So the objective tests the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) adopts are that: the island’s government has sufficient capacity and access to the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to govern effectively; that government decisions are made in a transparent way, based on objective advice; and that proper democratic accountability of the government to the people of the island can be restored, primarily through periodic contested elections.

You can see at a glance that Sark is a hopeless case – it fails on all three fronts and the pistol-to-the-head pre-privatisation of Sark Electricity was simply the final straw for an increasingly frustrated Ministry of Justice.

As the UK Government said in response to a Justice Select Committee’s report on the Crown Dependencies in 2010, ‘we note that, in a very small jurisdiction, there must always be the possibility that individuals wielding very significant economic, legal and political power may skew the operation of democratic government there’.

That caused much rejoicing in Sark at the time as it was seen as a warning shot across the bows of neighbouring Brecqhou. In reality, however, it was aimed at those exercising real power and influence in Chief Pleas, the island’s parliament, as a subsequent comment highlighted:

‘Just as the establishment of democratic government in Sark was a matter of good government, any threat to the ability of that system to operate fairly and robustly has the potential to raise good government issues which might require UK Government intervention.’

The MoJ was told to keep a watching brief on that, which is why Lord Keen, the minister with responsibility for the islands, issued his ‘three tests’ ultimatum a month ago.

This also poses the question of whether there’s a minimum size for a standalone, independent democracy if it has any chance of meeting the MoJ’s tests.

In Sark’s case, it doesn’t currently conform, although that might be down more to some of the personalities involved rather than a lack of individuals and resources to make democracy work properly. Whatever, with a community of just 450 souls, it’s going to be marginal.

But what of Alderney? How would that island of 2,000 stand up against the three-test criteria if it wasn’t receiving £6m. a year in subsidies from Guernsey taxpayers while the States here provides all the island’s key public services?

After all, that’s the equivalent of St Pierre du Bois (pop 2,099) declaring itself an independent free state.

The point I’m really making is that for the first time the UK has expressed a real willingness to deploy the nuclear option of direct intervention in island affairs and has set out the criteria for doing so.

I described them as objective tests. Yet you could equally suggest they had been tailored to ensure Sark failed them; that the MoJ wanted change and was determined to engineer it.

In other words, there’s a political dimension to this regardless of constitutional niceties. Was anyone outside of Sark really going to object to the threat of intervention since a) we can all see the island’s falling apart and b) the reasons for action were something no reasonable person could find objectionable?

So, since those advising Her Maj after the next UK general election might well be of a pinker hue, the threshold for ultimate responsibility for good government is pretty important.

The Wales Audit Office, you will remember, found in 2009 that Guernsey ticked not a single box of the six principles of good governance – and that’s before we learned politicians are telling the cops who to go and nick.

How serious would the Home Affairs row be if Matthew Parr hadn’t thrown the committee a lifeline – for reasons as yet unexplained – by trashing his own colleagues’ report?

I’m labouring this slightly but the genie Sark has released shows these islands that self-determination is an ancient privilege bestowed, not an inalienable right gifted, and that bigger boys decide when to take their ball back. And for what reasons.

The UK Government said in 2010 that ‘We respect the right of the Crown Dependencies to self-determination and agree that it would take a very serious circumstance indeed for the UK government to contemplate overriding these powers.’

That looked like quite a barrier to one of these islands losing its independence. Sark, which doesn’t really think it has done anything wrong, has shown otherwise.

Fail to get a budget through Chief Pleas, lose your chief civil servant and suffer a few resignations and the MoJ’s all over you like a rash…

So what would constitute ‘a very serious circumstance indeed’ for someone like Her Majesty’s Privy Councillor Jeremy Corbyn to improve the governance of islands he (wrongly) regards as abhorrent tax havens harbouring dirty money via company secrecy laws?

Quite a genie released indeed.