Don’t stick your undemocratic nose in the business of the British people:
If these scenarios do not sound very democratic or judicious to you and your fellow Americans it is because they are not. Intentionally and by design. But this is the reality of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union and its associated bodies and institutions. UK membership of the EU has entailed a substantial loss of power from our democratically elected Parliament as it has been quietly and steadily transferred to unelected and unaccountable bodies abroad – all done without the people of the UK being asked to give their consent for it to happen.
While it may be in the geopolitical interest of the Government of the United States for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union, opinion polls show this anti-democratic situation is opposed by a majority of British citizens. Membership of the EU dilutes the voice of the United Kingdom. Seats on various world bodies held by the UK have been given up so the EU can supposedly represent the competing and disparate interests of 27 countries in a wholly unsatisfactory fudge that frequently fails to serve British interests.
I am sure you will recognise the obvious contradiction in the position of the United States, on one hand calling for Syria’s regime to heed the wishes of the Syrian people, while on the other calling for the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to maintain membership of the EU, despite the wishes of the British people. I am sure you will also recognise the obvious contradiction of the United States urging countries around the world to embrace democracy, while urging the United Kingdom to maintain its place in political and judicial structures that replace representative democracy with control by unelected and unaccountable aliens who are drawn from a pool of self-selecting career politicians and civil servants.
Actually, they won’t recognize it at all. Rule by unelected bureaucrats is exactly what they want, for Brits and Americans alike.
Here is what set this off:
…none of those British complaints are going to cut much ice with the Obama administration. The president’s enthusiasm for the EU is largely ideological; on issues ranging from immigration to the treatment of prisoners, his instincts are those of the European left. The days when American leaders supported closer European integration out of genuine national interest when Western Europe was a bulwark against Soviet expansion are long gone.
For those who conceived it, the European project has from the outset been about concentrating power in the hands of a technocratic elite that has become increasingly unaccountable to national governments and their citizens. It is an impulse shared by Obama and his fellow statists. In some respects Britain’s relationship with the EU is analogous to that of the U.S. states’ relationship to the federal government.
It’s actually worse, and it would be much much worse if we returned to constitutional government.
I can relate to the writer’s observations of how an unelected government (the EU) is passing laws. Here, we do it with countless government regulatory agencies like the EPA, IRS, and the like. They’re unelected and unaccountable, enacting thousands of new regulations a year enforcing their opinion of the law or what should be the law. In my more cynical moments, I call the bureaucracies the true government of America. The elected politicians are mainly for show. They come and go but the bureaucracy endures and grows.
Many US libertarian-leaning conservatives who criticise the EU seem not to realise that the highest legislative authority in the EU is the Council, not the Commission or the Parliament. The Council is made up of national government ministers from individual member states. The legislative procedure is closer to that of the US prior to the 17th amendment.
European Parliament ~ House of Representatives
Council of the European Union ~ Senate
European Commission ~ Cabinet
Of course there’s no real equivalent of the US President. The President of the European Commission is a bit similar to a Prime Minister or better yet Chancellor, originally a term of lesser dignity and power. The “EU President” is more like the US Vice President acting in his capacity as Chief Presiding Officer of the Senate.
So I read what you wrote Martijn, but then I remember this: Membership of the EU dilutes the voice of the United Kingdom. Seats on various world bodies held by the UK have been given up so the EU can supposedly represent the competing and disparate interests of 27 countries in a wholly unsatisfactory fudge that frequently fails to serve British interests.
Accepting everything you said, it does nothing to address the fact that UK’s voice in the EU has been diluted.
Sure, and if they prefer that, they are free to leave or if they want to renegotiate they are as welcome as anyone else to make new proposals. Cameron is about to do that on Friday, in a speech given in The Hague of all places.
I hope that the UK remains inside the EU and fights for the principles of free enterprise and subsidiarity*), but if they want to leave that’s their sovereign right. I was only reacting to claims that the EU is undemocratic. I think most readers here would prefer it if the US were run closer to the way the EU is once they found out how the EU actually works as opposed to how they think it works. I may be wrong about that, but that’s what I think.
*) Unfortunately Cameron has done neither.
It may be that some want to be run that way. But many of us like the Republic form of Government a bit more than Democratic, and that’s not just the parties by the same name. However, what you are describing hints at more the Republic form, but I’m not sure I agree; although I’m not the expert in the EU structure.
Also note that the UK has been given a commensurate say in the affairs of the EU partners, it’s a two way (actually n * (n-1) / 2 way) street.
Is that supposed to be a good thing?
Hey, you guys sent us Piers Morgan. Revenge is sweet!
Actually, it was the free market together with the very real cultural and historical ties between the countries of the Anglosphere that led to his move to the US…
[shifts eyes back and forth]
That’s just what they want you to believe. If that were true, why is he working so hard to destroy the market that supposedly attracted him?
Are you suggesting there was government intervention?
Isn’t everything? Long March through the institutions, and all.
[What? No, no, my tongue isn’t at all in my cheek. Just been to the dentist, is all, a bit swollen, there. ]