Brexit vote Thursday June 23
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 11, 2023 17:26
VIEWED: 10465
PAGE 8 of 10
I have heard that the UK paid 18 Billion each year just to be in the EU, coming out of taxpayer's pockets, consumed by nobody in Brussells who is elected. And how much did UK taxpayers cough up for Greece keeping all of it's citizens sitting on their duff, avoiding work like the plague?
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Quote:The European Union is going to need a real opposition political party: One that can formulate a coherent alternate policy agenda and give dissatisfied voters the opportunity to “throw the bums out” without tearing down the entire institutional edifice they inhabit.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
I have heard that the UK paid 18 Billion each year just to be in the EU, coming out of taxpayer's pockets, consumed by nobody in Brussells who is elected. And how much did UK taxpayers cough up for Greece keeping all of it's citizens sitting on their duff, avoiding work like the plague?
So far, Europe’s main center-left party has been too intellectually timid, too hungry for patronage, and too subordinate to local agendas to play that role. But to save the European Project, someone needs to speak strongly against the people currently managing it. Excessive partisan polarization has its flaws, but Europe is currently being brought to its knees by an absence of partisanship.
The notion of a “loyal opposition” is in many ways the key innovation in the institutionalization of democracy. The idea is that an organized political movement may object stridently to the agenda of the current governing regime without being seen as disloyal to the state or the nation. This means that incumbent rulers face meaningful electoral accountability. If voters are displeased with their performance, a rival team waits in the wings ready and eager to take over.
Traditionally we think of a loyal opposition as being absent because of repression by the rulers. But the European Union suffers essentially from the opposite problem — too much consensus.
Rather than being a choice between competing teams, each successive European Commission has reflected an effort to achieve balance — doling out seats to the center-right EPP, the center-left PES, and the centrist Liberals roughly according to their weight in Parliament.
This leaves voters displeased with the status quo only the option of voting for one of a variety of fringe parties who don’t credibly propose to govern. Or, more to the point, it leaves them with the option of becoming sullen and deciding not that the specific current crop of EU policymakers are bad but that the EU itself is bad.
www.vox.com/2016/6/29/12033278/european-parliament-opposition-party
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Quote:The money that the EU lends to Greece does NOT go to its citizens so they can be "sitting on their duff, avoiding work like the plague". It makes a straight U-turn and goes right back into German, Nederlander, and Finnish banks. The Greeks DON'T want the bailouts and have voted against them twice, in fact have even RIOTED against "bailouts". Greeks want to get back to work, because many Greeks have become impoverished, homeless, or are even starving. (That refers back to the "starvation" thread.) You have an entirely wrong impression of what is going on in Greece; the Greek people DON'T WANT BAILOUTS.
I have heard that the UK paid 18 Billion each year just to be in the EU, coming out of taxpayer's pockets, consumed by nobody in Brussells who is elected. And how much did UK taxpayers cough up for Greece keeping all of it's citizens sitting on their duff, avoiding work like the plague?- JSF
Quote:There is no platform thru which "a" "European" opposition can make itself felt.
The European Union is going to need a real opposition political party: One that can formulate a coherent alternate policy agenda and give dissatisfied voters the opportunity to “throw the bums out” without tearing down the entire institutional edifice they inhabit.
So far, Europe’s main center-left party has been too intellectually timid, too hungry for patronage, and too subordinate to local agendas to play that role. But to save the European Project, someone needs to speak strongly against the people currently managing it. Excessive partisan polarization has its flaws, but Europe is currently being brought to its knees by an absence of partisanship.- SECOND
As you yourself posted, the European Commission is THE decision-making body (not the Parliament) and the European Commission is NOT ELECTED. In fact, all aspects of the EU are NOT ELECTED. The Council of Ministers, appointed. The head of the European Central Bank, appointed. The European Commission, appointed. All of those commissions, all of those Eurocrats in Brussels thinking about how to "harmonize" regulations and internal security - appointed.
The EU, in order to be at all democratic, would need an entire structural makeover. Key decision-making authorities would have to be made elected bodies. Until then, it is undemocratic in the extreme, and simply rolls over its member-states and their Parliaments no matter how they feel about
Immigration (Poland, Austria, Czech republic, etc)
Austerity (Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland)
Anti-Russian sanctions (Italy, France)
It's not a case of parties being "too timid", it's a case of there being NO ROOM FOR DEMOCRACY in the structure of the EU itself.
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I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.
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Quote:
KPO, wherever did you get the idea that I was anything but FOR ordinary working people?- SIGNY
So you believe this Brexit result that you're cheering will benefit ordinary working British people?- KPO
No. I believe Brexit will give ordinary working people the CHANCE to improve their lives by taking control of their government.
Until Brexit, the ordinary working people of Britain had no chance at all. They were in thrall to the European Commission over which ordinary working people anywhere in the EU have no say at all.
Nothing is certain, but if the Brits do it right, they can come through this like Iceland did.
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I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.
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Quote:I disagree with your "NO ROOM FOR DEMOCRACY in the structure of the EU itself." But you cleverly placed your finger exactly on why the EU is in trouble. The problem can be rather subtly fixed without nullifying every treaty and destroying the EU:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
There is no platform thru which "a" "European" opposition can make itself felt.
As you yourself posted, the European Commission is THE decision-making body (not the Parliament) and the European Commission is NOT ELECTED. In fact, all aspects of the EU are NOT ELECTED. The Council of Ministers, appointed. The head of the European Central Bank, appointed. The European Commission, appointed. All of those commissions, all of those Eurocrats in Brussels thinking about how to "harmonize" regulations and internal security - appointed.
The EU, in order to be at all democratic, would need an entire structural makeover. Key decision-making authorities would have to be made elected bodies. Until then, it is undemocratic in the extreme, and simply rolls over its member-states and their Parliaments no matter how they feel about
Immigration (Poland, Austria, Czech republic, etc)
Austerity (Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland)
Anti-Russian sanctions (Italy, France)
It's not a case of parties being "too timid", it's a case of there being NO ROOM FOR DEMOCRACY in the structure of the EU itself.
In institutional terms, developing a real opposition party would require entrenching the idea that the European Commission should be accountable to the European Parliament in the way that a normal national cabinet is accountable to the national parliament.
This is not exactly what the EU’s existing treaties set up.
Instead the treaties say that the commissioners should be selected by the European Council, which is a fancy name for a meeting of Europe’s various prime ministers. Out of habit, those PMs are not acting democratically. But luckily for the EU there’s a catch in the treaties that could fix this undemocratic mess — the Commission the Council selects needs to be approved by the Parliament. In the UK, Denmark, and other constitutional monarchies it’s generally the case that on paper it’s the king or queen who selects the prime minister, merely subject to the consent of parliament. But over time it’s become an overwhelmingly powerful norm that the monarch must pick as PM the winner of the election because the parliament won’t confirm anyone else.
And, indeed, the 2014 European Parliament election set up an embryonic version of this. Here comes half the fix to the EU’s problems:
The European People’s Party said that if they won the election, they wanted Jean-Claude Juncker to become president of the Commission. PM David Cameron strongly objected to this as a matter of substance, and several European heads of government objected to the process. But ultimately, Juncker was indeed picked even though the Council never formally agreed that Parliament had the right to force their hand.
Developing a real opposition party in the EU means pushing this logic a step further — claiming the right to name a full slate of commissioners in the event of an election win, in exchange for agreeing to name no commissioners as the price of defeat.
www.vox.com/2016/6/29/12033278/european-parliament-opposition-party
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It's more to that. The European Parliament can't even propose legislation (work programs, I think they call it).
The Treaty of Lisbon, which details the various functions of the EU commissions etc would need to be rewritten ... a constitutional amendment, so to speak.
So, just to give you an idea how non-democratic it is:
RUSSIAN SANCTIONS
French Senate Urges Government To Lift Sanctions On Russia
http://www.rferl.org/content/french-senate-urges-government-lift-europ
ean-union-sanctions-russia/27787635.html
... BUT ...
Merkel Says EU Will Extend Russian Sanctions Over Ukraine Crisis http://www.wsj.com/articles/merkel-says-eu-will-extend-russian-sanctio
ns-over-ukraine-crisis-1467156449
THE ORIGINAL EU CONSTITUTION
France Rejects European Constitution (2005)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/29/AR2005
052900644.html
Dutch say 'devastating no' to EU constitution
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/02/eu.politics
GREEK BAILOUTS
Greece debt crisis: Greek voters reject bailout offer
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33403665
MIGRANT CRISIS
Migrant crisis: Opponents furious over new EU quotas
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34331126
EU to fine countries 'hundreds of millions of pounds' for refusing to take refugees
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/03/eu-to-fine-countries-that-r
efuse-refugee-quota/
I'm in a hurry, I just took a few minutes to grab these headlines but there are a lot more.
People vote for one thing, and they get something entirely different. That's the EU for you!
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I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.
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Quote:Constitution ratification must be unanimous in the EU. The unanimous votes are why there is no EU constitution, just a bunch of piecemeal changes passed as treaties. That is why the EU countries’ Prime Ministers are being rude to everyone representing the UK. Luckily for the EU, the Treaty of Lisbon extended “qualified majority voting” to policy areas that had once required unanimity.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
People vote for one thing, and they get something entirely different. That's the EU for you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_European_Un
ion#Policy_areas
It is possible to fix the undemocratic EU, but not possible if the UK’s government is sabotaging it. That is why UK is being urged to leave immediately, despite the UK Parliament not yet triggering Article 50. The EU doesn't want the UK to even think about a second referendum.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215
David Cameron was not thinking when he called the Brexit vote and he forgot to make it a super-majority such as 66.7% or 75%. He left it at 50%+, which was very stupid of him.
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I think the UK should wait to enact article 50. This way nothing changes till they have planned a course of action. They have two years to do so. In the mean time they can start working on deals with non EU nations. Remember, the EU cannot act against England till they file.
When you do not have sovereignty of your own nation is it because of big business? Is that who is pulling the strings on globalization? From what little I understand I think the UK did the right thing by leaving. The EU plans to raise an army. Then what, each nation must disband theirs? Does the EU evidently become Germany?
I believe globalization is the way to go. It just needs to slow down so countries can mature into it and the people of the world needed to be in control.
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speaking of Boris
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