emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Urmm no it makes perfect sense actually.
UK Votes to Leave EU
- Thread starter Ponyutd
- Start date
free spirit
more tea vicar?
dp
free spirit
more tea vicar?
how?
Why would you bother voting in an election for a body you believe to be undemocratic?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
No, I expect it's a recognition of the lack of democracy.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
I'm sure you know about the difference between the Parliament and the
Commission so why slide together the voting system for MEPs and the operation of the EU as an institution under the single heading of democratic?
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
What killer b said
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Why not engage brain before posting?
ItWillNeverWork
Messy Crimbobs, fellow humans.
Tony Benn's test for democracy was pretty spot on.
People looking at the EU institutions, even if they aren't geeks when it comes to constitutional minutiae, can see clearly that they lack democracy.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Bingo.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
You can and I can and I dare say that all of us on these boards can but not the ill informed masses huddled outside the M25.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
free spirit
more tea vicar?
I do. I'm sure you also know that the commission can't pass any laws itself, the parliament and council of ministers have to do that, and that the various countries governments appoint the commissioners.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Where do the laws start their journey?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Ah an unelected body that can only propose laws most of which become law. Right. Got it.
Could you think of any other way to do that? Maybe, something like elected bodies proposing the laws? And maybe voting on them? Too dangerous?
elbows
Well-Known Member
On the subject of Europe and democracy, I remember being completely blindsided when I first learnt of the Council of Europe via the internet many years ago now, when I still felt young and naive. I'd never even heard of the thing before which was mostly what I found disturbing, and since then I can think of few occasions where I read much about it in the press. Rarely do the powers that be deem to educate us about this other European institution, I wonder if that will change at all now.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
we also don't elect the UK cabinet (or prime minister really) the prime minister chooses them himself, yet they decide the laws to be put before parliament.
The reason we don't get to elect commissioners is because that would undermine the role of national governments and be too far on the road to a federal EU for some countries, particularly the UK, to support.
We do elect the European Parliament, which then selects the president and approves the commission as a whole.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
tbh i'm not comfortable with all this talk of democracy anyway - any sort of fully democratic neo-liberal superstate would be just as horrendous given that politics are the shadow thrown on society by business. And the EU represents business not society.
Which bits?
And does anyone really believe in democracy? I don't. If you have a class of 30 kids and 16 vote to kick the other 14 in the nuts is it ok? Even if it would be pretty funny. People really meaning representative voting systems with a form of universal suffrage no?
mauvais
on reddit or something
Sod them - we need to extricate ourself from the Civil Service first. Unelected bastards!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
That's a terrible comparison. The bulk of the cabinet 90%+ is always elected. That means some measure of accountability- and they're chosen by someone who is elected. But like with mauvais, i get it, you don't care about that. Fine. Accept your loss.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Quite. That's really not where the battle is (or should be) right now.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
There are a good few posters on this thread who voted to leave. I doubt that any are racist. They, like me, had to wrestle with voting against EU neo liberalism, but also on the side as farage et al in binary political act (fwiw, I ended up not voting). And many other people in the country - up to 17m - had to do the same balancing act. I know you are pissed off, but presenting it as you are doing is unfair - and does you no favours.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Also clear attempt to obfuscate between being elected then being chosen to be in the cabinet and elected to be on the commission.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
I haven't gone back to check whether he was a vocal 'outer' before he actually joined the campaign, but have a feeling you might be right.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
at least that's a vaguely consistent position.
My take on it is that the crap about the lack of democracy from the vast majority of people* spouting it is just them repeating crap they've seen others banging on about for years rather than indicating that they've particularly bothered to investigate how it really works themselves. And if they were concerned then they really should at least be voting in the bit of democratic accountability that there was, rather than ignoring it. I think they'd have largely ignored it anyway however democratic the elections were largely because of the way the media fails to report on the EU at all, other than the occasional council of ministers meeting / summit.
*not particularly talking about posters on here in this comment.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
From what I remember he did not declare one why or the other until the referendum date was set.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
There's little difference in reality, we don't get to vote on cabinet members, only those in their constituencies get to elect them as constituency MPs who may or may not end up in cabinet in a post of the prime ministers choosing.
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