Brexit. We’re out!

[andyb]

How can the "leader of the free world" be just a symptom???

Inasmuch as the US was already polarized before 2016, he would not have got anywhere near power in a more balanced fair society.
It was the loss of the blue collar jobs and the inequality, with the rich getting richer by the day and the poor, or ordinary working class struggling more and more.
Millions thought, rightly in my opinion, that they were not being heard and so looked outside the ‘norm’ for help.
Look at 1930s Germany.

 

[Darkwood]

To stop US politics taking over here (guilty as charged), I have started a new thread here -

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[nicebutdim]

I never believed it would be easy exiting europe.
Resistance by Europe and our own parliament was inevitable. They would try to stop it or block it or be as aukward as possible Because deep down they do not believe in democracy.

after all europe is an un elected body so democracy is the last thing they want.

Look what happened when democracy raised its ugly head. We voted leave.

For me the greatest surprise of the last four years was all those MPs who stood for election having promised to respect the referendum result, then did their utmost to overturn it. The same MPs who accused an elected government of staging a coup, when they used established protocols, but themselves planning to install a 'government of national unity'.

 

[nicebutdim]

Paignton Pete, why do you say Europe is an unelected body?. I could have sworn we voted, along with the other EU Nations to elect euro MP's every 4 or 5 years.
Beaurocratic quite possibly but unelected no.

We did but, while MEPs are indeed elected, the European Parliament can hardly be described as a democratic institution.

I would urge anyone with an interest in the EU, UK politics or democracy to take the time to explore how EU institutions are structured, regardless of their position on brexit.

When the referendum was first announced, it occured to me that perhaps my general anti-EU stance was not entirely justified and, if I was going to vote on the matter, it should be from a relatively well informed position. While the UK's entire democratic process can be described reasonably well in a few short sentences, the EU's institutions are fiendishly complex and defy all attemps at explanation by most who try. This complexity is not accidental and some understanding of it can be gained by reading the Treaty of Paris and the Treaty of Rome (both now superceeded by Treaty on European Union and Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union).

It is generally accepted that in a functioning democracy unelected bureaucrats are employed to effect that which a democratically elected government legislates, however the EU runs on an almost entirely opposite principle, with elected representatives simply agreeing or disagreeing with legislation proposed by unelected bureaucrats.

In short; we did have elected representatives in the EU, but their powers were exceptionally limited and certainly not in line with those usually afforded to democratically elected representatives.

 

[andyb]

While the UK's entire democratic process can be described reasonably well in a few short sentences

I'll say you can.

Unelected head of state
Unelectected 2nd chamber
Unelected cabinet
Unelected Prime Minister often. Dont forget when Theresa May stood down, Johnson was elected Prime Minster by less than 200 000 Tory party members, including 16 & 17 year olds. That's 200 000 in a country of 66 million
Unelected special advisors who seem to have a large say in how this country is run.

Then when we do have elections party funding means that billionairs have a big say in policy for no other reason than that they happen to be stinking rich.

 

[nicebutdim]

I'll say you can.

Unelected head of state
Unelectected 2nd chamber
Unelected cabinet
Unelected Prime Minister often. Dont forget when Theresa May stood down, Johnson was elected Prime Minster by less than 200 000 Tory party members, including 16 & 17 year olds. That's 200 000 in a country of 66 million
Unelected special advisors who seem to have a large say in how this country is run.

Then when we do have elections party funding means that billionairs have a big say in policy for no other reason than that they happen to be stinking rich.

A head of state who has taken no part in the day to day running of the UK in our lifetimes.

Unelected 2nd chamber isn't ideal, but rarely do they block legislation. Generally they send controversial bills back to commons with recommendations. It's also quite likely that we see an elected 2nd chamber before too many more years pass.

The cabinet are all elected members of parliament. This is how governments are formed in a democracy- either from the majority party or a coalition of parties, where no majority exists. Frankly, the inclusion of this point is ridiculous.

Prime Minister is also elected to parliament. No one votes for the Prime Minister - they vote for regional party representatives who may form a government either by majority or by means of coalition. Consider that is entirely possible for an incumbent party leader to fail in their effort to be elected. Under such circumstances, that party must then choose a new leader. Your list is taking on the appearance of a handful of straws.

Unelected special advisors who advise. You realise that all leaders must seek advice from somewhere? Politicians are human beings who can not possibly keep themselves abreast of every single issue that may require government time. Would you rather that governments sought advice from Mabel at number 32?

The funding of political parties is certainly an issue, but we have a transparent system that requires all party donations over £7500 to be declared and donations over £1500 where finances aren't managed directly by party HQs.


All told I think you've helped make my point, so let's look at the other side of this coin...

Here's a list of primary EU institutions.

European Parliament
European Council
Council of the European Union
European Commission

Three out of these four are entirely unelected by the people of any member states.

The exception is that wonderful European Parliament, where MEPs can choose to vote in favour or vote against legislation, after a brief period of discussion. No MEP can table ammendments to bills. No MEP can introduce bills. Decades of European Parliament business has demonstrated that bills rarely fail in this parliament and those which do fail, tend to be resubmitted and subsequently pass. Perhaps a reasonable mind might ask why this is - that same mind is unlikely to conclude tha the unelected bureaucrats that make up the EU Commission are so prescient that they know what is best for almost thirty individual countries on every single occasion.

Maybe we should begin to list permanent members of the EU commission and document how many were political failures in the member state from which they came? Time constraints mean I won't do that right now, but I will remind you that the current commission president barely scraped through her election, despite being the single named candidate on that ballot paper - just think about that for an example of democracy in action!

 

[andyb]

A head of state who has taken no part in the day to day running of the UK in our lifetimes.

Unelected 2nd chamber isn't ideal, but rarely do they block legislation. Generally they send controversial bills back to commons with recommendations. It's also quite likely that we see an elected 2nd chamber before too many more years pass.

The cabinet are all elected members of parliament. This is how governments are formed in a democracy- either from the majority party or a coalition of parties, where no majority exists. Frankly, the inclusion of this point is ridiculous.

Prime Minister is also elected to parliament. No one votes for the Prime Minister - they vote for regional party representatives who may form a government either by majority or by means of coalition. Consider that is entirely possible for an incumbent party leader to fail in their effort to be elected. Under such circumstances, that party must then choose a new leader. Your list is taking on the appearance of a handful of straws.

Unelected special advisors who advise. You realise that all leaders must seek advice from somewhere? Politicians are human beings who can not possibly keep themselves abreast of every single issue that may require government time. Would you rather that governments sought advice from Mabel at number 32?

The funding of political parties is certainly an issue, but we have a transparent system that requires all party donations over £7500 to be declared and donations over £1500 where finances aren't managed directly by party HQs.


All told I think you've helped make my point, so let's look at the other side of this coin...

Here's a list of primary EU institutions.

European Parliament
European Council
Council of the European Union
European Commission

Three out of these four are entirely unelected by the people of any member states.

The exception is that wonderful European Parliament, where MEPs can choose to vote in favour or vote against legislation, after a brief period of discussion. No MEP can table ammendments to bills. No MEP can introduce bills. Decades of European Parliament business has demonstrated that bills rarely fail in this parliament and those which do fail, tend to be resubmitted and subsequently pass. Perhaps a reasonable mind might ask why this is - that same mind is unlikely to conclude tha the unelected bureaucrats that make up the EU Commission are so prescient that they know what is best for almost thirty individual countries on every single occasion.

Maybe we should begin to list permanent members of the EU commission and document how many were political failures in the member state from which they came? Time constraints mean I won't do that right now, but I will remind you that the current commission president barely scraped through her election, despite being the single named candidate on that ballot paper - just think about that for an example of democracy in action!

So, you agree with me re The Queen and the House of Lords.

You do not need to be an elected MP to be a member of the cabinet. The one that springs to mind is Andrew Adonis in Blair's cabinet. There have been plenty of others.

The Prime Minister we also agree.

Special advisors, you are correct, every PM and I suppose MP needs advisors. But surely you must admit that Dominic Cummins had powers far beyond that of an advisor, even going as far as sacking people and organising his own press conference in the rose garden.

So, The EU. I hate having to defend the EU as I agree with you up to a point. But you were comparing their lack of democracy with our so called democracy.

European Parliament, all directly elected using PR

European Council, this is the elected heads of government for each country. So all elected.

Council of the European Union, these are all government ministers, so all elected unless I'm mistaken. Happy to be corrected.

European Commission, I gather this is filled from within the EU itself, this is not unusual really, every legislative body in the free world has similar. Bit like our civil service, none of them are elected either nor should they be.

You put me in the position of defending an institution that I think needs reforming, so the above is really just me trying to point out that when it comes to democracy, the UK is not really in a position to preach to the EU.

 

[nicebutdim]

So, you agree with me re The Queen and the House of Lords.

You do not need to be an elected MP to be a member of the cabinet. The one that springs to mind is Andrew Adonis in Blair's cabinet. There have been plenty of others.

The Prime Minister we also agree.

Special advisors, you are correct, every PM and I suppose MP needs advisors. But surely you must admit that Dominic Cummins had powers far beyond that of an advisor, even going as far as sacking people and organising his own press conference in the rose garden.

So, The EU. I hate having to defend the EU as I agree with you up to a point. But you were comparing their lack of democracy with our so called democracy.

European Parliament, all directly elected using PR

European Council, this is the elected heads of government for each country. So all elected.

Council of the European Union, these are all government ministers, so all elected unless I'm mistaken. Happy to be corrected.

European Commission, I gather this is filled from within the EU itself, this is not unusual really, every legislative body in the free world has similar. Bit like our civil service, none of them are elected either nor should they be.

You put me in the position of defending an institution that I think needs reforming, so the above is really just me trying to point out that when it comes to democracy, the UK is not really in a position to preach to the EU.

You've raised some excellent points and one that I was unaware of was the fact that UK cabinet members need not be elected members of parliament. I learn something new every day!

Special advisors can wield significant influence, but it should be remembered that decisions aren't ultimately taken by those advisors. How our elected MPs come to make decisions is their own business, but if we aren't happy about that process they may find themselves not being returned at the next election. Similarly if we are dissatisfied with individual MPs, or an entire government, we can throw them out at the next election.

The Council of the European Union makes laws by qualified majority and the manner in which they do so directly contravenes the UK's constitution.

I'm not sure that I follow your logic on the European Commission. It is the executive branch of government within the EU, yet only commission members get to decide who joins. Member states propose commissioners, but the commission reserves the right to reject those proposed candidates. It was though this system of self-appointment that Ursula Von Der leyen came to be president of the commission. A list of candidates was drawn up by member states in the European Council, yet each and every one of those candidates was rejected. To resolve this unfortunate state of affairs, the commission put forward their own candidate and the European Parliament duly voted again - unusually that vote provided a single option - Ursula Von Der Leyen - and even in a one horse race she almost failed to secure the presidency!

One other huge issue is the European Court of Justice. This court is one of the EU's seven institutions, but isn't counted as one of the three legislative institutions. Despite not being a legislative institution, the ECJ regularly and deliberately ignores EU treaties and rewrites them as they see fit. This single issue was probably the main reason we came to hold a referendum on EU membership. No matter what member states agree, the ECJ has the power to ignore that which it finds inconvenient and implement new laws as and when it pleases.

Would you accept only having a say in local council elections and then trusting those councillors to decide who should govern the whole country? Neither would I but, while not directly comparable, that's as close an analogy as I can think of


I'm glad we agree on the need for EU reform, but it was on this very subject that David Cameron was sent home with his tail between his legs and found himself in the position of either delivering the promised membership referendum or going down in history as yet another Prime Minister who failed to fulfil such a promise. Maybe the EU will undergo reform, but I suspect much of that would be window dressing and, at this point, any future reform comes too late for those who wish to make the case for continued UK membership. Horse, door, bolted.

 

[Deleted account]

@andyb and @nicebutdim really nice to see a civilised discussion. I find myself agreeing with both points of view.

democracy isn’t perfect in either eu or uk.

 

[Midwest]

I think Cameron was the only PM who had the ️ ️ ️ to hold the referendum, other incumbents didn’t.

But interestingly there may be calls for the way we govern ourselves
U.K. Federal State

 

[nicebutdim]

@andyb and @nicebutdim really nice to see a civilised discussion. I find myself agreeing with both points of view.

democracy isn’t perfect in either eu or uk.

I'm happy for people to hold any opinion and can fully understand why many people wished to remain in the EU. While I wanted out, I fully expected to be disappointed and thought that undecided voters would be likely to stick with the status quo.

Given how Eu institutions are structured, it is possible to argue that they are democratic, undemocratic or even anti-democratic and make valid points for each position.

One other issue that was briefly mentioned in this thread is proportional representation. I'm broadly in favour of this in principle, but don't feel it is quite so great in practice. The political reality of NI dictates that it is the only practical system we can use, but would caution against its use in GB. PR rarely results in majority governance, with the result often being political deadlock and few decisions ever being made.

First past the post voting certainly isn't ideal, but at least decisions can be made. If those decisions are good, then people might re-elect a government. If the decisions are poor or unpopular, then other parties can be chosen a few years later. Fortune favours the brave and I see no benefit to never ending parliamentary debate.

 

[Spoon]

I think Cameron was the only PM who had the ️ ️ ️ to hold the referendum, other incumbents didn’t.

He only did a referendum cause he thought the majority of people were going to vote to stay in.

 

[Paul L]

Just shows how out of touch Cameron was with the country. I voted to stay in but we're out now and I'm not a 'remoaner', what's done is done and all the European laws apart from the trading ones are nothing to do with us any more so why are we even debating it further?. We will get what we get and i am sure we'll get by somehow, we usually do.

 

[telectrix]

we were doing OK before we joined the united states of eurine, we will do even better now.

 

[Midwest]

He only did a referendum cause he thought the majority of people were going to vote to stay in.

Just shows how out of touch Cameron was with the country. I voted to stay in but we're out now and I'm not a 'remoaner', what's done is done and all the European laws apart from the trading ones are nothing to do with us any more so why are we even debating it further?. We will get what we get and i am sure we'll get by somehow, we usually do.

But that’s the point people like yourselves, no offence, can’t grasp. He committed to something Cameron couldn’t guarantee to win. Previous PM’s didn’t want to risk it.

The debate had been around for years, with no one wishing to grasp the nettle.