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 Goliath wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Remember that Dutch referendum in which the Dutch people rejected the Ukraine treaty? Yeah, the EU is ignoring it and proceeding anyway.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/659147/Dutch-referendum-EU-leaders-Ukraine-deal-Netherlands-no-vote-Juncker-Merkel-Hollande

I'm not surprised. At least the Dutch were given a voice on a matter, unlike the rest of us.

I know, right? If only we were given the opportunity to voice our opinions on a matter as a nation. We could call it some sort of "EU Referendum", and hold it on the 23rd of June!

We're talking about a specific issue, Ukraine's accession to the EU, not British membership of the EU. We have not been given a voice on this issue.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Goliath wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Remember that Dutch referendum in which the Dutch people rejected the Ukraine treaty? Yeah, the EU is ignoring it and proceeding anyway.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/659147/Dutch-referendum-EU-leaders-Ukraine-deal-Netherlands-no-vote-Juncker-Merkel-Hollande

I'm not surprised. At least the Dutch were given a voice on a matter, unlike the rest of us.

I know, right? If only we were given the opportunity to voice our opinions on a matter as a nation. We could call it some sort of "EU Referendum", and hold it on the 23rd of June!

We're talking about a specific issue, Ukraine's accession to the EU, not British membership of the EU. We have not been given a voice on this issue.

Except that he very specifically typed "A matter" not "this matter", implying that we are not consulted about anything at all, something which is proven false by the subject of this thread.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
A question:

What is the point of the EU parliament if it cannot pass or enact any laws and exists only to rubber stamp what the EU commission presents to it.

As was said before, to give the appearance of democracy. Remember that even if the parliament voted down legislation, the commission can just find a way to get it through anyway. There's a reason why people call them the EUSSR. It's disturbingly similar to the old Soviet Union in how it's organised and how decisions are made.

 Goliath wrote:
I know, right? If only we were given the opportunity to voice our opinions on a matter as a nation. We could call it some sort of "EU Referendum", and hold it on the 23rd of June!

You're being deliberately obtuse. If the EU was more democratically accountable, and listened to the people more often rather than carrying out the agenda of an unelected cabal that's detached from the people we might be more inclined to stick with them. Because we aren't asked about any big decisions we're now left asking if we should even be in it anymore.

EDIT:

Now I see you're complaining about a very specific word. OK, you got me. It was supposed to be 'the matter' but it came out wrong. Probably my tablets autocorrect.

That's a real bug bear for you isn't it?

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
A question:

What is the point of the EU parliament if it cannot pass or enact any laws and exists only to rubber stamp what the EU commission presents to it.

As was said before, to give the appearance of democracy. Remember that even if the parliament voted down legislation, the commission can just find a way to get it through anyway. There's a reason why people call them the EUSSR. It's disturbingly similar to the old Soviet Union in how it's organised and how decisions are made.

 Goliath wrote:
I know, right? If only we were given the opportunity to voice our opinions on a matter as a nation. We could call it some sort of "EU Referendum", and hold it on the 23rd of June!

You're being deliberately obtuse. If the EU was more democratically accountable, and listened to the people more often rather than carrying out the agenda of an unelected cabal that's detached from the people we might be more inclined to stick with them.

EDIT:

Now I see you're complaining about a very specific word. OK, you got me. It was supposed to be 'the matter' but it came out wrong. Probably my tablets autocorrect.

That's a real bug bear for you isn't it?

I'm autistic. I've learned to not try and assume what people mean if they might have made a mistake, so I base my arguments around the literal interpretation of what they've typed.

If they mis-typed then fine, it gets corrected, but it means that I don't misinterpret what people have written.

In this case it looks like you mis-typed, in which case I'll retract my point, but counter with the fact that we don't get consulted on UK legislation either.

And if national governments enact legislation we don't like we can get rid of them in elections. You can't do that with the EU.

Do you have any response to the accusations about the EU's lack of democratic accountability or are you just going to continue to monitor my posts for mistakes?

Previous referendums in the UK

8 March 1973: Northern Ireland – Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum on whether Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom or join the Republic of Ireland (yes to remaining part of the UK)
5 June 1975: UK – Membership of the European Community referendum on whether the UK should stay in the European Community (yes)
1 March 1979: Scotland – Scottish devolution referendum on whether there should be a Scottish Assembly (40 per cent of the electorate had to vote yes in the referendum, although a small majority voted yes this was short of the 40 per cent threshold required to enact devolution)
1 March 1979: Wales – Welsh devolution referendum on whether there should be a Welsh Assembly (no)
11 September 1997: Scotland – Scottish devolution referenda on whether there should be a Scottish Parliament and whether the Scottish Parliament should have tax varying powers (both referendums received a yes vote)
18 September 1997: Wales – Welsh devolution referendum on whether there should be a National Assembly for Wales (yes)
7 May 1998: London – Greater London Authority referendum on whether there should be a Mayor of London and Greater London Authority (yes)
22 May 1998: Northern Ireland – Northern Ireland Belfast Agreement referendum on the Good Friday Agreement (yes)
3 March 2011: Wales - Welsh devolution referendum on whether the National Assembly for Wales should gain the power to legislate on a wider range of matters (yes)
5 May 2011: UK – referendum on whether to change the voting system for electing MPs to the House of Commons from first past the post to the alternative vote (no, first past the post will continue to be used to elect MPs to the House of Commons)
18 September 2014: Scotland – referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent country (no, the electorate voted 55 per cent to 45 per cent in favour of Scotland remaining within the UK.

http://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/elections/referendums-held-in-the-uk/
All very important issues and worth spending the extra money on.

The key point about these referenda is that the government has followed the will of the people after one - the welsh even got a second go at getting their own parliment!

 Future War Cultist wrote:
And if national governments enact legislation we don't like we can get rid of them in elections. You can't do that with the EU.

Do you have any response to the accusations about the EU's lack of democratic accountability or are you just going to continue to monitor my posts for mistakes?

No, you can't get rid of them in elections. You can vote out your local MP, but the government as a whole is determined by the overall distribution of MPs, not by electing a specific government or PM.

I don't like any of the policies that the tories have instituted since they were voted in, but I can't just go "I want to get rid of David Cameron" and vote against him. I need to vote out my local conservative MP and hope that enough people agree with me to cause Cameron to be ousted.

It's the same mechanism with Europe. We don't specifically for Juncker, we vote in/out the local MEPs, the distribution of whom determines who is president of the commission. If you don't want Juncker in power then in the next election you can vote for an MEP who doesn't support Juncker, and hope that enough of Europe agrees with you to cause Juncker to be ousted.

As mentioned in the post above, I didn't "monitor your post for mistakes" I responded to it based on the words written. That you mis-typed and wrote something that you didn't intend to is not my fault.

Bad news for the OUT campaign: Trump's visiting Britain on June 23rd!

My response?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Bad news for the OUT campaign: Trump's visiting Britain on June 23rd!

My response?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

On the actual day of the vote??

Can't the yanks just keep their noses out of this?

Its on the 24th day after the vote and thats to open a new golf course.

Skullhammer wrote:
Its on the 24th day after the vote and thats to open a new golf course.

Thank feth for that.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Remember that Dutch referendum in which the Dutch people rejected the Ukraine treaty? Yeah, the EU is ignoring it and proceeding anyway.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/659147/Dutch-referendum-EU-leaders-Ukraine-deal-Netherlands-no-vote-Juncker-Merkel-Hollande

And? The whole point of a democracy is that one person or group does not get to dictate the actions of the majority. Or are we not criticizing the EU for being too democratic for listening to the majority of MEPs rather than one country?

But that's not at all what's happening is it? Only one member state out of 28 was allowed a vote on the issue. We don't know what the electorates of the other 27 states want, because they haven't been asked. That's not democracy.

Yes it is democracy. Just because you didn't get a referendum on something does not mean it is not a democracy. Just because one country decided to have a vote it does not mean that we all should. Like it or not the EU is democratic by any reasonable definition. Repeating "the EU is not democratic" again and again does not make it true.

Nor is repeating the opposite mantra.

Other posters in this thread have already explained the problems with the democratic deficit in the EU, so I won't bother repeating them.

Those all go along exactly the same lines "it's not democratic because I say so". No one has provided any evidence that the EU is not democratic, just conspiracy and ignorance of how the EU works.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:


Can't the yanks just keep their noses out of this?

Can we re-use this for all the times the poms post in US politics/current events threads?

 wana10 wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:


Can't the yanks just keep their noses out of this?

Can we re-use this for all the times the poms post in US politics/current events threads?

If you like. I generally don't comment on the US politics threads.

In any case, what I'm specifically referring to (and should have made clear) is foreign political leaders sticking their noses in and interfering in the democratic elections and referenda of other nations. Obama etc. I resent being told what to think and how to vote by my own country's leader, never mind foreign leaders.

I'm sure you can sympathise with the US Presidential election thats going on.

 Steve steveson wrote:
Those all go along exactly the same lines "it's not democratic because I say so". No one has provided any evidence that the EU is not democratic, just conspiracy and ignorance of how the EU works.

At best, a single nation has control over less a tenth of the European Parliament and 1/28 of the European Council.


As far as democracy goes, it's about as close to undemocratic as you can get.

Source: I spent a year of my law degree studying the European Union. I know exactly why it works and that is why I want to leave.

 Steve steveson wrote:
Those all go along exactly the same lines "it's not democratic because I say so". No one has provided any evidence that the EU is not democratic, just conspiracy and ignorance of how the EU works.

Have you read through this thread? I could have sworn people posted a dozen or so examples of the EU's lack of democracy.

The larger an electorate is, the less valuable each individual vote is and the influence that voters wield.

In the UK, I am one voter out of some 45 million. My vote is weighed up against the other voters of my constituency, and then my constituency's choice of MP is weighed up against the chosen MP's of some 600 or so other constituencies.

Whereas the EU has a population of 500 million. I can't find a number for the size of the EU electorate, so let assume 2/3. 333 million, which is a low estimate. My vote is now not just being weighed against the other votes of my UK EP constituency (North East, which is a lot bigger than the UK Parliament constituency) and against the other constituencies of Britain, its being weighed against the votes of 300 million other Europeans.

Thats a massive dilution of my electoral influence. Even if the EU is democratic, I don't care. I don't want to be part of such a huge electorate, because it diminishes my influence as a voter over the government(s) that govern my country and enact the laws I have to obey. The largest electorate I wish to be a part of is the nation state. Britain. I do not want a political union and integration with 450 million other people.

Democracy does not work on a large scale. The larger an electorate becomes, the less valuable our votes become and the wider the gap between the governed and the governors.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:
Those all go along exactly the same lines "it's not democratic because I say so". No one has provided any evidence that the EU is not democratic, just conspiracy and ignorance of how the EU works.

Have you read through this thread? I could have sworn people posted a dozen or so examples of the EU's lack of democracy.

He has his narrative and he wants to stick to it.

You know, if you'd just stick to arguing that the dilution of the value of votes is bad I think you'd have a much stronger point than claiming that the EU isn't democratic. There's a difference between the two points.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You know, if you'd just stick to arguing that the dilution of the value of votes is bad I think you'd have a much stronger point than claiming that the EU isn't democratic. There's a difference between the two points.

Well, no, the two points are not mutually exclusive.

We elect the Members of the European Parliament, but the European Parliaments powers are very limited, hence the complaints about the democratic deficit. If we did away with the Commission (unelected bureaucrats appointed by politicians), and treated the European Council as the upper House of the Parliament (like an equivalent of a Senate or the House of Lords) and transferred most powers to the lower house/Parliament, that would go some way to addressing the democratic deficit.

As it is, the EU has a veneer of democracy, but the balance of power favours the unelected bureaucracies, not the directly elected representatives. And thats not good enough. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, the EU is not democratic enough for our liking.

If its hyperbole to claim the EU is not democratic at all, its also hyperbole to claim the EU is some shining beacon of democracy to the world. The answer lies somewhere in between.

The EU sadly has a track record of ignoreing referendum vote - just look at what happened when the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty, and before you jump up and say that it was democratic because 27 nations voted it in the rule originally said that ALL nations had to vote yes, until the Irish said no so the EU decided to just change the rules.

As for democratic there are arguments on both sides - but what you cannot argue is this simple fact. If something is bad for Britain and good for the rest of the EU then Britain will probably be forced to do it whilst we remain in the EU. Even if 100% of the British electorate and our MEPs didn't want it we would get out voted, I do not like this fact - I fail to see how this is any good for Britain.

So regardless of the fact of if you think the EU is democratic or not (I personally think not but you may disagree) the simple fact is that for the people of Britain it IS less democratic than our own governement because even with a 100% vote from us we could still end up being rules by people we don't want. Maybe you are happy with this situation, I am not.

And considering that the President of the EU just today came out and admitted that they 'forgot' that they were supposed to enact the will of the people (see my link on page 46) then you can surely see how many people feel it is undemocratic.

Yes, I've been sharing that link on face book. No comment from myself was necessary, I just quoted straight from the horse's mouth.

"Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe do not share our Euro-enthusiasm."
-Donald Tusk, President of the European Council.

There are 3 things that I picked up on from this sentence alone.

1) He admits that their aim is total integration. A United States of Europe as it were.
2) He admits that European voters do not want this.
3) He describes ordinary voters as "Ordinary people". They're an out of touch Elite, and they know it.

:double-take:

Everytime I see "Donald Tusk" my brain translate that to "Donald Trump" and I'm like whaaaaa?

Don't mind me... carry on!

Just for those who are interested.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/31/tusk-blames-utopian-eu-elites-for-eurosceptic-revolt-and-brexit/

European Council president Donald Tusk has warned EU leaders in the bluntest terms that their “utopian” illusions are tearing Europe apart, and that any attempt to seize on Brexit to force through yet more integration would be a grave mistake.

In a passionate plea to Europe’s top conservatives, he accused the EU elites of living in a fool’s paradise and provoking the eurosceptic revolt now erupting in a string of countries.

“It is us who today are responsible,” he said, speaking at a conclave of Christian-Democrat and centre-right leaders in Luxembourg. “Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our Euro-enthusiasm.”

Also here:

http://www.politico.eu/article/donald-tusk-calls-on-epp-to-fight-radical-and-brutal-populism/

....“Disillusioned with the great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now. Today, Euroskepticism, or even Euro-pessimism, have become an alternative to those illusions,” the Council president said.
“We will either understand that the views of Angela [Merkel] and Viktor [Orbán] are compatible with each other and only together can they provide a full answer, or people will search for other radical and brutal recipes for how to solve the crisis.” Merkel and Orbán who have clashed over migration, are both EPP members.

Tusk’s predecessor as Council president, Herman Van Rompuy, said: “We can no longer be in agreement in Brussels yet blame Brussels whenever things go wrong.”....

Transcript of the speech:

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/05/30-pec-speech-epp/

In a passionate plea to Europe’s top conservatives, he accused the EU elites of living in a fool’s paradise and provoking the eurosceptic revolt now erupting in a string of countries.

“It is us who today are responsible,”

That...is remarkably self aware.

He says that and yet the five presidents report says that they're still persuing closer integration.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
He says that and yet the five presidents report says that they're still persuing closer integration.

Just means they've come to the realisation they need to hide it better. Basically he's saying they were too impatient, and tried to rush integration.

The EU's lack of democratic accountability stems from a much wider problem; a complete and utter inability to trust the 'little people' to do anything for themselves.

All those rules about bendy bananas and straight cucumbers and how to legally define what chocolate is just go to show that they are completely incapable of letting ordinary people make up their own minds on what's acceptable to them. If the person felt that the fruit on offer was too curved or whatever then they don't have to buy it. They can simply pass and go look for ones that are more to their standards. But no, that's simply not acceptable to the EU. You have to pay through your taxes for them to sit down in long drawn out committees to figure it out for you and issue a directive.

If we were free of that crap we could have one simple rule...is it toxic? No? OK then, this is food.

OK, maybe that's a little simplistic but sometimes I think that 90% of laws are laws for the sake of laws.

I too dislike quality control regulations. Enforcing standards of what consumers think things should be like.