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Why do the Brits have this idea that the EU is undemocratic?

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Original post by brainhuman
So why are you saying that you want British things to be decided by British people?


I don't know how I could make myself more clear. I want domestic laws to be decided by British legislators.

I'm actually perfectly content with common trade laws, so long as they don't extend into our welfare regime, employment, consumer, or financial regulations, or any other domestic affair.
Original post by TimmonaPortella
I don't know how I could make myself more clear. I want domestic laws to be decided by British legislators.

I'm actually perfectly content with common trade laws, so long as they don't extend into our welfare regime, employment, consumer, or financial regulations, or any other domestic affair.


Sorry, wasn't clear.

Why is local too small, why is British just right, why is EU too big?

Why can't regions like Bavaria or South Tirol decide for themselves?
Original post by brainhuman
Sorry, wasn't clear.

Why is local too small, why is British just right, why is EU too big?

Why can't regions like Bavaria or South Tirol decide for themselves?


The difference in this case is that we actually have the power to take the right to decide for ourselves. All we have to do is decide we want it.
Original post by TimmonaPortella
The difference in this case is that we actually have the power to take the right to decide for ourselves. All we have to do is decide we want it.


Sorry I don't get that.

What does "have the power to take the right to decide for ourselves" mean?

Also, even if you leave the EU, you not decide for yourself. You will vote for people, your own vote being irrelevant, and then some people will decide what they think is best. And half the country will whine about it, and next time the other half. But as long as those people are British, that is fine?

Cool. Get out. See you never :smile:

I am serious, while I personally believe it would be beneficial to both the UK and the EU if the UK stayed, by now I hope you vote out. Europe needs you much less than you need it, and if people don't want to be part of something together, then good riddance.
Original post by brainhuman
Sorry I don't get that.

What does "have the power to take the right to decide for ourselves" mean?

Also, even if you leave the EU, you not decide for yourself. You will vote for people, your own vote being irrelevant, and then some people will decide what they think is best. And half the country will whine about it, and next time the other half. But as long as those people are British, that is fine?

Cool. Get out. See you never :smile:

I am serious, while I personally believe it would be beneficial to both the UK and the EU if the UK stayed, by now I hope you vote out. Europe needs you much less than you need it, and if people don't want to be part of something together, then good riddance.


It means, if we vote to leave the EU, we leave the EU. Unlike, say, Catalonia.

What most of us don't want to be part of is a federal superstate. I don't know why this is apparently news to you, because we've been saying it for a while.
Original post by brainhuman
Dude stop. I did not say "germany has no uniform higher education" I said "Germany has no uniform education between Länder". Do you see the difference?

Bologna applies to all the Länder, so that's not true.

Do you also understand the difference why this was done for higher education but not (compulsory) primary and secondary education, because it's a rather important distinction.

It's important that the EU doesn't (as far as I know - if it did, I probably wouldn't know) have much control over primary and secondary education, but I don't think that is the point at issue. Brexiteers don't claim that the EU controls everything, only that it controls many important things.

Do you also see not see the importance of the fact that the UK is largely ignoring this policy?

Yes although I also see significance in the fact that Germany (and most EU countries) are following it.

And these random 8000 people come up with policy on their larry, completely independently, without any directive from anyone else?

I suggest that the social consensus among these people determines policy; that where that consensus differs from the view of individual commissioners or the parliament, neither individual commissioners nor the parliament prevail.
Original post by brainhuman
Sorry I don't get that.

What does "have the power to take the right to decide for ourselves" mean?

Also, even if you leave the EU, you not decide for yourself. You will vote for people, your own vote being irrelevant, and then some people will decide what they think is best. And half the country will whine about it, and next time the other half. But as long as those people are British, that is fine?

One can make an argument that more local government is always better than less local government, and one can make an argument that Britain in particular will make better policies than the EU average.

I think both of these arguments are both logically coherent and defensible.

Cool. Get out. See you never :smile:

I am serious, while I personally believe it would be beneficial to both the UK and the EU if the UK stayed, by now I hope you vote out. Europe needs you much less than you need it, and if people don't want to be part of something together, then good riddance.

Then what's your purpose posting here, as you've clearly been trying to persuade Brits to vote "Remain"? This is the weird and peculiarly German superiority/inferiority complex at work - on the one hand you think that your choices are best, on the other you needily demand validation from others than they are the best. Someone who really thought that Britain would lose out from leaving and did not care for the welfare of Britain would just be indifferent to the whole issue.
Original post by gladders
Only in the most salutory terms. In reality you know it's written by the Government, and approved by the Commons - just like the European Parliament.

Claiming that the Parliament is a rubber stamp does not do the Parliament justice. It is quite an active chamber and extracts concessions from the Council and the Commission all the time.

It's about as flawed as looking at the Commons, noticing the Government is rarely defeated, and assuming the Commons is therefore a rubber stamp.

The difference being that the government can write the Finance Bill because inability to write the Finance Bill means the end of the government and the end of the parliament. These functions are joined in the UK because the government is drawn from the parliament. The EU government is not drawn from the parliament.

In the UK, the government is an appendage of the Commons. In the EU, the parliament is an appendage of the government.

The EU Parliament's internal debating and voting procedures are its own and cannot be set by an outside agency. So MEPs, elected MEPs, are responsible for how the Parliament works.

Thus showing that the MEPs do not much care about winning or lose close votes, etc. They do not fight to the wire, because they realise their work is largely unimportant.
Original post by Observatory
Bologna applies to all the Länder, so that's not true.


It's important that the EU doesn't (as far as I know - if it did, I probably wouldn't know) have much control over primary and secondary education, but I don't think that is the point at issue. Brexiteers don't claim that the EU controls everything, only that it controls many important things.


Yes although I also see significance in the fact that Germany (and most EU countries) are following it.


I suggest that the social consensus among these people determines policy; that where that consensus differs from the view of individual commissioners or the parliament, neither individual commissioners nor the parliament prevail.


Why are you still going on about it?

I was talking about primary and secondary education. Which is compulsory. I told you as much. Why are you still going on about it. It is wholly inconsequential what is going on at university level.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Observatory
One can make an argument that more local government is always better than less local government, and one can make an argument that Britain in particular will make better policies than the EU average.

I think both of these arguments are both logically coherent and defensible.


Then what's your purpose posting here, as you've clearly been trying to persuade Brits to vote "Remain"? This is the weird and peculiarly German superiority/inferiority complex at work - on the one hand you think that your choices are best, on the other you needily demand validation from others than they are the best. Someone who really thought that Britain would lose out from leaving and did not care for the welfare of Britain would just be indifferent to the whole issue.


Do you know that I am the OP? Did you read the OP?

I am not saying remain. I am merely saying that at the start of this thread I did not know why the British say the EU is undemocratic. And that I dislike the fact the Leave campaign is essentially lying and misrepresenting.

And admittedly, I dislike your reasons for wanting to leave so that is why I might sound a little like I am arguing to stay. Sorry for that. But I intended this not to be a you must remain thread. Believe me.
Original post by Observatory
The difference being that the government can write the Finance Bill because inability to write the Finance Bill means the end of the government and the end of the parliament. These functions are joined in the UK because the government is drawn from the parliament. The EU government is not drawn from the parliament.

In the UK, the government is an appendage of the Commons. In the EU, the parliament is an appendage of the government.


Thus showing that the MEPs do not much care about winning or lose close votes, etc. They do not fight to the wire, because they realise their work is largely unimportant.


Like members of parliament in EU countries do?

In Germany they just vote what the party, read Angie, want. Sometimes you get rebels, usually doesn't matter and you find something to appease them and it's back to Mutti decides.

I think the whole idea of wanting to leave because it's supposedly undemocratic is simply silly.

And I just realized I wrote you this in the other post...so well let's call it quits.
Original post by brainhuman
I don't need to.

Don't you get it?

Nothing you have said makes the EU "undemocratic".

You guys are so funny, and I finally understand why you behave this way - it is all about "the British people" and the people in charge are "not citizens of our country".

I do get it now. But still, what I said last night, stop spreading the lie that it is undemocratic. Just be honest and say "we are giving up power and I don't like that". Just be honest, really...


Democracy is about how people relate to their political institutions, if you don't understand that then you have no grasp of the concept. For a democracy to work it has to have a 'demos', the people to whom the institutions are held into account. The EU does not have a demos because there is no such thing as the 'European people' in the same sense as there are British, French or German. It may have escaped your attention but the nations of the world are national democracies. The demos of the their democracy is the particular nation in question.

I clearly told how the EU is undemocratic, the officials with most legislative power are people that electorates cannot elect or remove.

Furthermore, you can disagree all you like but where did I tell a lie?
Original post by JIRAIYA-ERO-SENNIN
Democracy is about how people relate to their political institutions, if you don't understand that then you have no grasp of the concept. For a democracy to work it has to have a 'demos', the people to whom the institutions are held into account. The EU does not have a demos because there is no such thing as the 'European people' in the same sense as there are British, French or German. It may have escaped your attention but the nations of the world are national democracies. The demos of the their democracy is the particular nation in question.

I clearly told how the EU is undemocratic, the officials with most legislative power are people that electorates cannot elect or remove.

Furthermore, you can disagree all you like but where did I tell a lie?


But you are wrong. You elect those people that appoint and elect the leaders...

You can't then go cry it's undemocratic because you don't like their choices.

By the way, I actually do believe that the EU needs to change how it functions. And that it needs more accountability. But that is true for my national government, too. It is not unique to the EU.

In fact, I am completely disillusioned, as are many others, with the political institutions in my country. Does that mean my country is undemocratic?
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by brainhuman
But you are wrong. You elect those people that appoint and elect the leaders...

You can't then go cry it's undemocratic because you don't like their choices.

By the way, I actually do believe that the EU needs to change how it functions. And that it needs more accountability. But that is true for my national government, too. It is not unique to the EU.

In fact, I am completely disillusioned, as are many others, with the political institutions in my country. Does that mean my country is undemocratic?


I didn't say anything about liking or disliking their choices. It's the fact that people who have the greatest legislative power are in no way elected by a constituency of any nation. Not only that, they are explicitly told not to serve the interests of their particular country. So Commissioners are neither democratic or representative.

Furthermore, most decisions in the Council of ministers are conducted through qualified majority voting. So people who represent a country can be outvoted by people who don't represent that country and the law will have to be applied regardless of the objection of that country.

The EU has a parliament that isn't even a parliament because it doesn't propose laws.

You accused of lying. where is the lie?

The thing is, I'm not disillusioned with the EU, I was never illusioned in the first place.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by TheSuingEU
[video="youtube;3uVc06NK9i0"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uVc06NK9i0[/video]


Wonderful video, exactly speaks my mind.
Original post by JIRAIYA-ERO-SENNIN
I didn't say anything about liking or disliking their choices. It's the fact that people have greatest legislative power are in no way elected by a constituency of any nation. Not only that, they are explicitly told not to serve the interests of their particular country. So Commissioners are neither democratic or representative.

Furthermore, most decisions in the Council of ministers are conducted through qualified majority voting. So people who represent a country can be outvoted by people who don't represent that country and the law will have to be applied regardless of the objection of that country.

The EU has a parliament that isn't even a parliament because it doesn't propose laws.

You accused of lying. where is the lie?

The thing is, I'm not disillusioned with the EU, I was never illusioned in the first place.


Because a) you don't understand how it actually works and b) you are biased because you are mad that Britain is only a small fish in a big pond.

Admit it, if Britain was the major driver, deciding things, you'd be all for the EU.

I saw a quote apparently by Malcom X today. He was saying that he wants to be sincere. And that he has no problem with people who are wrong, if they are sincere.

You are not sincere in my eyes.
Original post by brainhuman
Because a) you don't understand how it actually works and b) you are biased because you are mad that Britain is only a small fish in a big pond.

Admit it, if Britain was the major driver, deciding things, you'd be all for the EU.

I saw a quote apparently by Malcom X today. He was saying that he wants to be sincere. And that he has no problem with people who are wrong, if they are sincere.

You are not sincere in my eyes.


You clearly have no arguments left so you're just resorting personal conjecture.

If you don't think I'm sincere then that's your problem.
Original post by JIRAIYA-ERO-SENNIN
You clearly have no arguments left so you're just resorting personal conjecture.

If you don't think I'm sincere then that's your problem.


Don't admit it then. But it's definitely the impression I get from people in this thread. Most people would have a much more favorable opinion of the EU, if Britain were running the show.

And my God this forum is a joke. What are your arguments other than personal opinion and conjecture.

We are not debating science here...this whole "I don't think you have proven me wrong, so I win" attitude is totally derp.
Original post by brainhuman
Don't admit it then. But it's definitely the impression I get from people in this thread. Most people would have a much more favorable opinion of the EU, if Britain were running the show.

And my God this forum is a joke. What are your arguments other than personal opinion and conjecture.

We are not debating science here...this whole "I don't think you have proven me wrong, so I win" attitude is totally derp.


Your last argument was simply a conjecture about me. You claimed to know things about my motivations. And you were wrong.

I don't care Europe, I want parliament to be sovereign. I want laws which affect me and my countrymen to be made by people from my country, who I elect and can remove. That's it.
Original post by JIRAIYA-ERO-SENNIN
Your last argument was simply a conjecture about me. You claimed to know things about my motivations. And you were wrong.

I don't care Europe, I want parliament to be sovereign. I want laws which affect me and my countrymen to be made by people from my country, who I elect and can remove. That's it.


So goodbye :wave:

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