Brexit the economy and house prices part 7: Brexit Harder

Enterprise_1701C

A supranational organization is an international group or union in which the power and influence of member states transcend national boundaries or interests to share in decision making and vote on issues concerning the collective body.

It is the "transcend national boundaries" bit that worries me. They make the decisions.

If you want my opinion on immigration it is not about burning bridges, it is about those bridges having a requirement that the people crossing them have value to us.

It is about not becoming just another region of the eu, which has to be the intention once they have swallowed every country on the continent, why else would they have a parliament, why else would they have a single currency? Who really wants to travel through Europe and see no difference in the people throughout the continent, or that part that is still within the eu at that time?

Tromking

I think Big Tone had it covered.

https://youtu.be/dQY2CHx4d3U

Herzlos

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

A supranational organization is an international group or union in which the power and influence of member states transcend national boundaries or interests to share in decision making and vote on issues concerning the collective body.

It is the "transcend national boundaries" bit that worries me. They make the decisions.

If you want my opinion on immigration it is not about burning bridges, it is about those bridges having a requirement that the people crossing them have value to us.

It is about not becoming just another region of the eu, which has to be the intention once they have swallowed every country on the continent, why else would they have a parliament, why else would they have a single currency? Who really wants to travel through Europe and see no difference in the people throughout the continent, or that part that is still within the eu at that time?

That doesn't sound like a problem, it sounds pretty progressive actually.

You seem to miss the part where we're involved in the decisions; we're widening co-operation with our neighbours, we aren't being subsumed into an empire.

You do realise (because I've told you before) that the EU actively encouraged local cultures? If we become.homogenous over time it's more likely due to Americanization of media rather than the EU.

Masomnia

Herzlos wrote: »

No more than relying on your personal opinion of gravity to determine how something will fall. Democracy is well defined.

We live in a representative democracy - we directly elect people who vote on our behalf. Those people decide who become cabinet members, presidents etc. Both the UK and EU work in the same way, except we also have a house of unelected peers, so to claim the EU is less democratic than the UK doesn't hold up to scrutiny. What people seem to mean by that is that the EU didn't let us boss everyone around and they collective made a decision we didn't like.

The people did elect these roles- indirectly. So I'm not sure what cogitos point is meant to be.

UK cabinet ministers are pretty much always elected MPs, although I accept that sometimes Lords are appointed to Cabinet, same for the PM. We haven't had a government led by someone who wasn't an MP in living memory but that's what the EU does.

Cogito is right to say that Tusk and Juncker are not elected by the people. By Remain logic on this thread Mark Carney is 'democratically elected' as the Governor of the Bank of England. Our ambassador the Central African Republic is 'elected'. It doesn't stack up.

Yes we have unelected Peers, but they do not initiate laws like our elected House of Commons does, and the Commons can use the Parliament Act to circumvent the Lords if it needs to. The democratically elected body of the EU cannot initiate legislation either, nor can it propose to repeal laws; that's the fundamental problem.

SouthLondonUser

Many EU Commissioners happen to be MEPs or MPs in their countries.
The fact remains that, just like you do not elect British Ministers directly, you do not elect the EU Commission, either.
The fact that British Ministers are almost always elected MPs does not change the fact that the electorate had no direct say in who gets to be minister of what.

I ask again : why is indirect democracy OK in the UK and not OK in the EU????

Tromking

As a voter in the U.K. I vote for an individual lawmaker that almost always is member of a political party. The political party that wins most seats has an agenda that has a mandate from the people and enacts it in full sight of the British people and Her Majesty’s Opposition.
That political legitimacy does not exist with EU lawmakers in the Commission.

sevenhills

Masomnia wrote: »

Yes we have unelected Peers, but they do not initiate laws like our elected House of Commons does, and the Commons can use the Parliament Act to circumvent the Lords if it needs to. The democratically elected body of the EU cannot initiate legislation either, nor can it propose to repeal laws; that's the fundamental problem.

It does really come down to, do you agree with the rules that the EU brings in.
Yes the set-up of the commissioners is slightly different to the House of Commons and Lords; they both bring in clean air laws.
But for things such as car production, each country CANNOT bring in their own laws, it would not be practical, because of international trade and production.
We need EU rules for car production, we will still follow those same rules if we leave the EU.

Masomnia

SouthLondonUser wrote: »

Many EU Commissioners happen to be MEPs or MPs in their countries.

Are you sure about that?

The fact remains that, just like you do not elect British Ministers directly, you do not elect the EU Commission, either.
The fact that British Ministers are almost always elected MPs does not change the fact that the electorate had no direct say in who gets to be minister of what.

Obviously they don't; how would that even work? That isn't the crticism.

I ask again : why is indirect democracy OK in the UK and not OK in the EU????

Not saying indirect democracy is the problem. The problem is that you don't get to vote for the people who set the agenda. The people we vote for in the EU have no real power, the democracy is illusory because all they can do is rubber stamp or not what the Commission lets them; and you get no say over who gets into the Commission. Europe could vote for a majority of parties who wanted to end free movement but it wouldn't change anything because the Parliament has no power to do it.

The debate over proroguing the UK parliament was interesting because Remainers apparently thought it was 'undemocratic' to stop our Parliament exercising a power that the EU Parliament does not have!

Moby

Masomnia wrote: »

. The democratically elected body of the EU cannot initiate legislation either, nor can it propose to repeal laws; that's the fundamental problem.

Not true the legislature works closely with the commission:-

The Parliament is co-legislator, it has the power to adopt and amend legislation and it decides on the annual EU budget on an equal footing with the Council. It supervises the work of the Commission and other EU bodies and cooperates with national parliaments of EU countries to get their input.


The vast majority of EU legislation is passed through the ordinary legislative procedure, also known as “co-decision”. This is the procedure which is mostly used and gives equal weight to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. It applies to a wide range of areas such as immigration, energy, transport, climate change, the environment, consumer protection and economic governance.


There are a few areas in which other decision-making procedures are used. In areas such as taxation, competition law and Common Foreign and Security Policy, the European Parliament is “consulted”. In those cases, Parliament may approve or reject a legislative proposal, or propose amendments to it, but the Council is not legally obliged to follow Parliament's opinion, although it does need to wait for it before taking a decision

https://europa.eu/european-union/eu-law/decision-making/procedures_en

By the way how much say do you have on appointees in our Civil Service?....which is the equivalent of the EU commission. Our next Prime Minister is being decided over the next few weeks by 120 000 predominently old grey men?

Takedap

Masomnia wrote: »

The problem is that you don't get to vote for the people who set the agenda.

Exactly the same here though.


This leaves me with the problem that although I have a very good constituency MP, I won't vote for him at the next GE because I don't want Corbyn as PM or Abbot as Home Secretary.