Brexit the economy and house prices part 7: Brexit Harder

Masomnia

Moby wrote: »

Not true the legislature works closely with the commission:-



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

Co-decision with the Council. What about the Commission?

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?

No it isn't. The Commission has legislative initiative, the Civil Service does not. Sorry but that's really basic stuff.

Moby

Masomnia wrote: »

No it isn't. The Commission has legislative initiative, the Civil Service does not. Sorry but that's really basic stuff.

I never said the EU commission did not have legislative initiative. I was pointing out the relationship between the EU commission and Parliament was more complicated. Who do you think drafts legislation for and advises your national govmt though and I can assure you Olly Robbins had more sway over May and her deal than any politician or voter!
Brexiteers are forever complaining about civil servants influencing our democratically elected Govmt. It's Rees Mogg's favourite line!

VoucherMan

Tromking wrote: »

You only have to witness the current shenanigans as regards Junckers replacement to realise that Brussels is not the gold standard in the democracy stakes, and before you mention it, the House of Lords is a democratic abomination as well.

Interesting you should say that. Overlooking the irony that I spend more time looking at all things EU than I ever did when we were a fully committed member (or as committed as we were going to be), I had an alert pop up this morning that mentions the disagreement.
https://sciencebusiness.net/news/deadlocked-european-leaders-delay-budget-deal-again



Is it always this fractious around decision making time? They can't agree on who's going to take over the presidencies, and partly because of that they've had to delay budgeting decisions, so far by about 7 months if I've read it correctly. And there's no guarantee they'll all agree then!
If they're that busy arguing amongst themselves they're not going to want to waste much time on little old UK.

Theophile

VoucherMan wrote: »

Is it always this fractious around decision making time? They can't agree on who's going to take over the presidencies, and partly because of that they've had to delay budgeting decisions, so far by about 7 months if I've read it correctly. And there's no guarantee they'll all agree then!

Yes, democratically elected heads of government in disagreement over who they'll put forward to be approved by a democratically elected European Parliament.


Sounds pretty democratic to me.

Zuzel

Theophile wrote: »

Yes, democratically elected heads of government in disagreement over who they'll put forward to be approved by a democratically elected European Parliament.


Sounds pretty democratic to me.

You're acknowledging the union's major problem then in that getting everybody to agree before doing what needs to be done is a lengthy, time-consuming business.
Democratic it might well be.
Efficient it certainly is not.

Backbiter

Zuzel wrote: »

You're acknowledging the union's major problem then in that getting everybody to agree before doing what needs to be done is a lengthy, time-consuming business.
Democratic it might well be.
Efficient it certainly is not.

Unlike our current set-up.

Arklight

waamo wrote: »

We had a referendum in 2011 about the Alternative Vote system. The result was pretty conclusive.

The proposed AV system was silly. It wouldn't have led to anything like real PR. I am in favour of PR and I voted against AV.

Moe_The_Bartender

Basically, the heads of France and Germany are at loggerheads over which of their candidates should be chosen. The other 26 members don't appear to have a say.

Sounds pretty undemocratic to me.

SouthLondonUser

Arklight wrote: »

The proposed AV system was silly.

Why was it silly?
What was worse about it than FPTP?



For constituencies where one candidate gets > 50% of the votes, AV makes no difference whatsoever vs FPTP.



For all the others, ranking multiple preferences gives voters the option NOT to second-guess themselves. The typical dilemma of a voter who is keen on someone who is not Labour or Tory (in England) is: shall I vote Lib Dem? Or will my voting Lib Dem cause the Tory candidate to win, which would be worse? Or, similarly, shall I vote UKIP etc, or will my voting UKIP cause the Labour candidate to win, which would be worse?


An AV system can avoid these dilemmas. Of course, expressing multiple preferences is an option but is not compulsory, so if you like one candidate only, you can vote for that one candidate only.

I can see why the two largest parties are not keen on it. But I do not see what is silly about it, and in what way it would be worse than FPTP. Care to explain?

Arklight wrote: »

It wouldn't have led to anything like real PR. I am in favour of PR and I voted against AV.

I don't think anyone (other than the anti-AV camp who spread lots of fake news, like the lie that some candidates would have received multiple votes) ever claimed AV = proportional. If they did, they were clearly wrong, because it takes half a brain to realise that AV and PR are two very, very different things.


I am curious, though. If you are in favour of a proportional system, wouldn't AV have been better than FPTP anyway?

SouthLondonUser

Zuzel wrote: »

You're acknowledging the union's major problem then in that getting everybody to agree before doing what needs to be done is a lengthy, time-consuming business.
Democratic it might well be.
Efficient it certainly is not.

So now you acknowledge that it is, after all, democratic? That's progress, given how Brexiters like to shout from the rooftops that the EU is so undemocratic!


What would you propose to make it more efficient but still democratic? What is the democratic yet efficient way to get almost 30 countries to agree ? I do not have an answer - do you?


The Tory party can't agree with each other on almost anything, so it's a bit rich to expect a more 'efficient' way to reach decisions among almost 30 countries!