Define democracy?
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
- Thread starter Silva
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Define democracy?
What does that mean?
I could agree to an extent of what you're suggesting in the past but times have changed - what can Britain offer as a cheap alternative to all the essential things they now need to import disregarding normal items such as which British car will they buy instead of a BMW and many other European makes, even BMW could easily decide to stop making the Mini in Cowley among many other foreign investors who could decide to pull out of the UK.
Imo it would be more close to "The people control by who and how they are governed" than 'the people can check a box every now and then to show which of the preselected candidates they prefer to make no difference for the way they are governed at all'.
So not the definition of democracy then.
The EU is incredibly democratic, by the definition of democracy. They're elected representatives that put issues to the vote of the countries they represent. It's literally the definition of democracy.
Unlike our house of lords, which are unelected but nobody up in arms about the EU seems to care about that.
Nigel Farage is an MEP. That's democracy for you.
It could be different this time admittedly, we shall see. I agree loss of foreign investment was a good reason to vote remain, but like all the other good reasons leavers just said 'it's not true' or 'it won't happen'. It's sad when a success like the resurrection of the British car industry is now under threat, when everyone it it has worked so hard to get where they are.
They should. But democracy is about power and you can use all kinds of processes which are associated with democracy to keep the power from the people.
I could write a whole page about the democratic shortcomings (to put it mildly) of the EU, but I won't because I think it's a fundementally wrong way of thinking about democracy if the burden of proof is on me and can be put there just by pointing to the superficial appearence of democracy by organizing an election. That would mean the old communist countries were assumed democracies too.
As was Nick Griffin.
The implication was always that the government would act upon the wishes of the people. Claiming that it doesn't amount to anything more than an opinion is sophistry. I seriously doubt you would have accepted that argument if it was used against something you voted for.
Implications aren't worth a sack of beans in politics. There was a reason why the referendum was non-binding, unlike the Scottish independence one.
I didn't know that Kenton. Why is one binding and one non-binding?
The Scottish one wasn't binding either. Westminster could have chosen to ignore that also.
You're moving the goalposts now. You initially said that the EU should introduce the concept whereby you vote for representatives and then if you're not happy with them you can vote for someone else at the next election.
You could easily make the claim that the UK General Elections belong to the latter category as well.
the tax implications for airlines, banks and countless other industries who work on a pan European basis moving their headquarters outside the UK could be pretty significant... certainly enough to increase austerity measures and/or raise taxes.
Airlines are almost a special case though because as an EU based airline you are allowed to open up flights wherever you want in europe provided the airport has slots and you can agree a price. But as a non EU country your have to negotiate access and numbers of flights separate and lets be honest I dont think the UK government is going to have much time to help easyjet negotiate a new route to a regional german airport for example.
I cant believe people were saying that the post-Brexit racism was nothing
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-36683083
Forget the Leavers, we should be shunning the racism defenders.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-36683083
Forget the Leavers, we should be shunning the racism defenders.
You can't not accept fact. You can choose to not like it, but that's it. It isn't binding at all. I don't think I would like it if someone used it against me but I'd have to accept it.
Yes, but that's with the assumption those representatives have the power to do the things you like or don't like. The representatives in the EP don't have the power to legislate, don't have the power to take initiatives, don't have the power to freely appoint the commission and don't have the power to sack an EC-member, and do not really have the power to sack the whole EC, because without an EC everythings comes to a hold because the EP has no real powers. Also you're not allowed to vote for the candidate of your choice, you can only vote for British candidates.
Therefore there will never be an election result that makes any difference. What the EU decides and does is completely independent from the election results.
Anybody seen this? He is not the one with the best words I guess.
And in a General Election, you can only vote for the candidates in your constituency. How is this any different?
The Council represents the executive governments of member states - these governments are democratically elected as that is one of the requirements of joining the EU. The members of the European Commission is nominated by the Council - that is, by the representatives of the executive governments of member nations. You might say it would be better if EU citizens were given the right to vote for Council members but that would be quite difficult to implement - would citizens of any given nation be allowed to vote only for their own representative? If not, how would the votes be weighted relative to population to keep up the principle of equal representation by all nations?
Also, the Commission has to be approved by the Parliament. The Parliament and the Council have the power to request legislation (though the Commission can reject this I think)
I'm not saying the system is perfect and there could be no reform to make it more democratic (by reining in the power of the Commission a bit, for example). But saying that Iran is more democratic is ridiculous and doesn't do you any favours in an argument.
I work with a lady in her early 60's who voted leave because "we shouldn't be ruled by random people in Brussels."
I asked her how being in the EU has had a negative impact on her life and she replied that it doesn't, it's just annoying.
All this negativity and uncertainty following Brexit and the only response I get from leavers is "it'll get better." I don't pretend to be an expert but I've seen nothing to suggest Brexit is going to improve the country.
Time to dust off the old TEFL certificate.
I asked her how being in the EU has had a negative impact on her life and she replied that it doesn't, it's just annoying.
All this negativity and uncertainty following Brexit and the only response I get from leavers is "it'll get better." I don't pretend to be an expert but I've seen nothing to suggest Brexit is going to improve the country.
Time to dust off the old TEFL certificate.
So much for the "Oh, its just being highlighted more because of the result"
What makes me feel physically sick is the fact we've gone through years and years of Austerity off the back of the recession and the pain caused to our national institutions like the nhs to protect our credit rating and "reduce the deficit" bollocks and in one fell swoop the last 8 years of heartache for the vast majority of people has been made irrelevant. and the ironic thing is the worst effected have voted for it.
Also, a note on the public displays of racism, a white british friend of mine recently returned from travelling and probably because she was tanned, a group of absolute goons shouted at her to "go back to your own country" in brighton
she isnt even remotely foreign.
Also, a note on the public displays of racism, a white british friend of mine recently returned from travelling and probably because she was tanned, a group of absolute goons shouted at her to "go back to your own country" in brighton
she isnt even remotely foreign.Every country in the eu is going thru austerity, that's what happens when all the pm's think exactly the same. Why should uk be exempt from austerity?
a question for Remainers..... and Leavers.
What can we do to improve the living wages of working people?
What can we do to improve the living wages of working people?
Stay in the EU.
I think he said improve, like they are already crap even tho uk is in the eu and has been for a while
To be fair that must be pretty brutal for him. I mean what can he really say there?
How do you increase unemployment in the UK?
As the pound has dropped 20% against the Euro in the last 8 months your wages are now 20% lower than they were 8 months ago in real terms
Leave the EU- what a good idea
As the pound has dropped 20% against the Euro in the last 8 months your wages are now 20% lower than they were 8 months ago in real terms
Leave the EU- what a good idea
If you want to improve working wages then definitely staying in the EU is a big factor. Unless you think shrinking the economy and vicariously job pool would be good for living standards?
Then on top you can introduce a higher minimum wage, living wage, positive discrimination, improve routes to skill progression etc
Above all keep those new jobs coming. Don't shut the door to foreign investment, free trade and our global competitiveness.
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Because that's a whole different system, it has disadvantages, but also democratic advantages like beeing represented by a local and that the winner takes it all principle will lead to one party having the majority, and doesn't have to compromise on it's idea's and plans. The EU has mixed the two systems, skipped omov and fragmented the political power of all the party's taking part in the different elections: Divide and rule.
Iran makes a preselection of candidates, like the EU does. Both are telling voters who they can vote for, but in Iran the voters choice has much more power. Of course the country of Iran is less democratic as a whole, I meant their system of election and government is more democratic.
In the EU, with the parliament kept weak artificially, there's always the situation that the majority of parliament has to negotiate with the executive branch. The executive branch has his own agenda, which is not coming from the member states governments. They don't have a veto since the Lisbon treaty (which was undemocratically approved btw) and are also in a majority in the position to having to negotiate with the EC. If the governments of the member states want something and it's the same as the parliament wants, than still the EC can push through it's own idea. That's even beside the fact that national parliaments don't control and check their PM's and ministers in EU-matters, because if they do it won't work. Where it comes down to is that the EC just takes care of the interests of the biggest business who spend billions to lobby them, and when the EP or the national governments disagree, the only thing they can do is to bring the whole EU to a standstill, and still won't get their way at least a year later with a new EC. In the purposely fragmented EP, there will never be a majority for that, and the national governments are divided among them by nature.
It isn't democratic, but it could be . We could have a real European parlement, that has the power to legislate, to appoint the EC and all it's members, and the power to make the EC do as they want or sack a member of the EC or all of them. And if we all could vote for the candidate of our choice, it would be a truly European parlement with Europeans voting for Europeans, that would make even landslide elections possible, victories that would actually make an impact on the way we are governed. Parliament would dictate the speed of integration and even federalization, and national governments would have to balance them.
But that won't happen, the European parliament is ironacally national in it's set up for a reason. It's because the EU solves the problem of democracy, that has been bothering big business interests between WWII and the end of the 20th century. We, 600 million Europeans, are now governed by mr. Juncker, who probably didn't even get 100.000 votes. He has decided to push trough CETA and TTIP and denying the national parlements the right to vote against it, and CETA and TTIP are designed to shift more power from democratic institutions, and put in the hands of big business right away.
I can imagine that Brits want to stay in the EU for short term economic self interest, but left wing people presenting the EU as a force for social justice, opportunity and wealth for ordinary people are just extremely naive and ill informed. They're taking sides with the City, Wall Street, Monsanto, Pfizer, Disney, Bayer and diesels from VW. This is not about beeing a bit more democratic or not, at least with the Brexit vote you're next vote will count and be able to make a difference. With a Bremain, that probably would have been your last vote that really mattered in all but local issues without economic relevance.
The point was that being in the EU real wages were going down. Ok. That was Tory policies. But there was no real alternative by the Blairites.
Economics is not your strong suit, Paul.
Unless the guy is carrying his wages to France on the weekend and spending them there.
The Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013 made it legally binding from what I understand (although I'm no lawyer!).
Thanks.