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European Parliament Elections 2014 |OT| The Undemocratic EU is Actually Elected

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as if...

If Cameron and his goons really intended to leave the eu, they'd have left a long time ago instead of pushing the ballot further and further back. It looks more like a bluff so they can blackmail other EU members to vote in favour of the UK on legislations. "Do what we want or we will leave". It doesn't seem to work (anymore) though. Most MEPs and Countries are probably as fed up with the UK as I am by now.

To loosely quote Merkel: Dear mister Cameron, if you dug yourself a hole, at least stop digging.

I don't mean to sound like a cunt or anything, but even a cursory knowledge of the political discourse in the UK would tell you everything you need to know; Cameron wants to stay in the EU. "Cameron and his goons" don't intend to leave the EU - he's already said that, should he be re-elected and a referendum occur, he'll campaign for us to stay in unless no reform is offered (in which case he'd still want to stay in but know it'd be political infeasible for him to campaign to stay in). This position is, whatever your views on Cameron, a relatively brave one; Like gay marriage, he's pretty far from both the party grass roots and his parliamentary party on this issue. He'd reep significant political capital with his party (and potential UKIP voters) if he came out as actually being in favour of us leaving, but he's not, and he doesn't. It's no coincidence that the leading Euro-sceptic in the party was Cameron's opponent in the leadership contest; In short, Cameron is very pro Europe and pro the EU. But it's not a "ruse" - it's because the idea of a referendum is incredibly popular in the UK.

One thing I can almost guarantee, is that this has nothing to do with voting in the European parliament. It's basically an open secret that even senior politicians in the UK don't give a shit what happens there (if they did, they might try a little harder - the European elections in the UK have basically one role, and that's to act as a political bellweather in a theatre that doesn't actually matter). What his posturing does have something to do with is in trying to gain concessions when it comes to reform negotiations should he win our national elections in 2015 and remain PM long enough to bring about the referendums, but that's almost entirely due to his genuine desire for the UK to remain in the EU.
 

grumpy

Member
What?? Could you explain what you mean?

Off the top of my head:

Unelected and unaccountable monarch that acts as the head of state/head of the judicial system/head of church and a royal family that have been caught vetoing parliamentary laws and no one has any real idea of what their constitutional limits are

Unelected House of Lords where members remain on the basis of hereditary principle and members appointed by political parties

Unelected "special interest" members in the house of commons like the Remembrancer, who are lobbying for the banks in the city of london

No actual written constitution which basically gives the party with the biggest majority in the commons unlimited powers

A broken and antiquated voting system (FPTP) that only favours the two biggest political parties

What south east england (london) wants, britain gets. SE England has more MPs in the commons than Scotland, Wales and NI combined

Scotland & Wales are governed by a tory goverment they didn't vote for

House of commons has the power to remove powers and shutdown the national parliaments of Scotland, Wales and NI
 

Zornica

Banned

I'm well aware of that, BUT that's not the image I (and many others) get when I look at what he actually does or tries to do. He comes across as a whiny child who must have his way or he'll start bitching and moaning. I know part of that is due to the pressure he's under from back home. But here's my issue: that's the UKs problem, don't try to make it a European one. I wouldn't want our stupid right-wing idiots bugging other member states either.

Also I'm not in favour of his blackmail-ish attempts of preventing junker. The UK is the only member state that constantly tries to have it its way by threatening to leave - even if, as you (and I) said, with no real intentions to do so. From my point of view, it's looks absolutely ridiculous and more like how a kindergartener would act.

I can't even count all the cameron-bitching articles from last few weeks.

I would be sad if you left the EU, but damn, I can't take this constant complaining and nagging anymore. Either you're part of it, or your not. But Cameron apparently lacks the willpower to make a decision like this.

lol, she said that? xD

apparently she did:

Angela Merkel soll ihrem jüngeren Regierungskollegen aus Großbritannien im Streit um die Nominierung des nächsten Kommissionspräsidenten sinngemäß einen guten Rat gegeben haben: "Wenn du schon in deiner Grube sitzt, dann hör wenigstens auf, weiter zu graben!"
http://derstandard.at/2000002073104/Cameron-steckt-im-eigenen-Loch
 
This is wildly off topic but it's quite interesting so let's bounce.

Off the top of my head:

Unelected and unaccountable monarch that acts as the head of state/head of the judicial system/head of church and a royal family that have been caught vetoing parliamentary laws and no one has any real idea of what their constitutional limits are.

You're vastly over stating things. They haven't been "caught veto'ing" anything. Furthermore, since the topic here is "democracy", there's a lot more to democracy than elections. The royal family - even the nutters - have popularity ratings that even the most popular politicians would kill their own mother to have. The fact they don't actually do anything active is, if anything, a shame.

Unelected House of Lords where members remain on the basis of hereditary principle and members appointed by political parties

Unelected "special interest" members in the house of commons like the Remembrancer, who are lobbying for the banks in the city of london.

It's a second chamber that can't produce legislation and can't veto legislation from the democratically elected Commons. All the power resides in the directly elected chamber, which is more than you can say for the EU (which is where this discussion originated).

No actual written constitution which basically gives the party with the biggest majority in the commons unlimited powers.

We have one of the longest running histories without despotic rule in the world - our organic and evolving constitution is part of the reason for this. You say that the party with the biggest majority in the commons have unlimited power - this is obviously not true, or else we might have seen a bit more radicalism, and the only periods during which we haven't had elections routinely in the past couple of centuries is during the two world wars - so obviously the party's can't do whatever it is they want, as they have the constant fear of losing the next election - in other words, democracy keeps them in check.

(So does that uncodified constitution and, until very recently at least, weak executive branch. Backbenchers can - and often are - "naughty" causing governments even with majorities to lose votes, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the USSR had a stellar constitution full of protections and fairness that got ignored as soon as it was inconvenient. The important thing isn't the manner in which a constitution exists, it's the degree to which it's respected; Parts of our constitution are literally a thousand years old, and it has respect.)

A broken and antiquated voting system (FPTP) that only favours the two biggest political parties.

I'll give you that one, but there are advantages to it, too. Our current government is showing the creaking limits of coalition governments, where people are never quite sure what they're going to end up with even if their party ends up in power. But there are obviously negatives, too.

What south east england (london) wants, britain gets. SE England has more MPs in the commons than Scotland, Wales and NI combined.

It has more people than those places combined, too. What erotic form of democracy ignores a population in favour of geographic size?

Oh yeah! The EU!

Scotland & Wales are governed by a tory goverment they didn't vote for.

That's democracy, baby. Not everyone can win. Coalition middle grounds are not a situation in which everyone gets what they want. The middle of any two positions is rarely the ideal solution. Again, since this post was in the context of the UK not lecturing the EU on democracy, you much surely see why this point obviously goes in the UK's favour? The larger an electorate, the more people you'll end up without the party they chose deciding their laws. This is basically tautologically true (and why I'd be more than fine with Scotland achieving independence).

House of commons has the power to remove powers and shutdown the national parliaments of Scotland, Wales and NI

Sure - parliament is sovereign, and a past parliament cannot bind a future one. We are one country, I don't really see an argument for a parliament being able to devolve power, but a subsequent parliament not being able to reclaim it - why would the democratic will of the former trump the latter? The same goes for devolving power down to local councils and Mayors.

Too much emphasis is put on Wales, NI and Scotland as being distinct entities. They're all part of the UK. Cornwall (in England) is very different to London - far more so than, say, Edinburgh. The North East of England has more in common with Glasgow than the South East, and at the last general election the Tories only got 2% less of the vote in Scotland than the Lib Dems (and double what Guy Verhofstadt's entire alliance got in the EU parliament elections). They were either the winner or second placed party in Scotland for every election in the 20th century except for 1. The idea that they - or Wales, or NI - are Crimea-esque enclaves that England is holding down with our menacing population that seems to be popular at the moment is ridiculous.
 
I'm well aware of that, BUT that's not the image I (and many others) get when I look at what he actually does or tries to do. He comes across as a whiny child who must have his way or he'll start bitching and moaning. I know part of that is due to the pressure he's under from back home. But here's my issue: that's the UKs problem, don't try to make it a European one. I wouldn't want our stupid right-wing idiots bugging other member states either.

Also I'm not in favour of his blackmail-ish attempts of preventing junker. The UK is the only member state that constantly tries to have it its way by threatening to leave - even if, as you (and I) said, with no real intentions to do so. From my point of view, it's looks absolutely ridiculous and more like how a kindergartener would act.

I can't even count all the cameron-bitching articles from last few weeks.

I would be sad if you left the EU, but damn, I can't take this constant complaining and nagging anymore. Either you're part of it, or your not. But Cameron apparently lacks the willpower to make a decision like this.

He's doing what he believes to be in the interests of the people that elected him (as opposed to the governments of various EU countries) - what would the leaders of your country do? He doesn't lack the willpower, he knows what he wants to do - he wants to stay. But the people he represents don't. That's why he's constantly bitching and moaning - to try and get as good a deal for the UK as possible (which you can't resent him for anyway) to that there's as big a chance as possible that the UK will vote to stay. These are international discussions, not some club house rule-creation session; Leaders will disagree, us more than others perhaps (we've always been to the right of most of Europe - that doesn't stop when you join the EU, it just means your population gets laws it wouldn't normally choose passed at a higher level), and that's exactly the way it should be; The day when all the EU leaders sit down and agree on everything, that's when we should be scared, just like when all the parties in a country agree to the same thing.
 

Walshicus

Member
Bullshit. Bullshit does David Cameron actually think Junker is a bad choice for the English electorate. Junker might be a bad choice for Dave's toffy chums, but that's a *whole* other matter.
 

TCRS

Banned
Yeah, that stupid meddling.

You have such great human rights:

prisoners don't have the right to vote so the UK has a terrible record of human rights. you're not even making any fucking sense.

Yea and Davy and his chums are doing a good job bombarding the only institution within the EU that has actual democratic legitimacy. No one here is arguing that the Commission is fine and dandy. I for one would welcome them being scraped and replaced by a government formed from the democratically elected European Parliament.

no institution in the EU has democratic legitimacy. the parliament is a joke. and no, we don't want the parliament to have more power either. fuck my country being controlled by some doofus voted in by someone in sicily or bumfuck elsewhere. the EU should never have been more than a trading block.

Hearing brits trying to lecture others about "democratic legitimacy" is the funniest thing in the world considering the huge democratic deficit within the "u"k.

yeah in that regard we have devolved parliaments. we have decentralised power for those countries. for more democracy. we've done, like, the exact opposite of what the EU has done.
 
Bullshit. Bullshit does David Cameron actually think Junker is a bad choice for the English electorate. Junker might be a bad choice for Dave's toffy chums, but that's a *whole* other matter.

The Juncker issue isn't about Juncker. All the candidates were largely federalist and none of them represented a "British" view, for obvious reasons. Juncker, Schulz, it makes no difference to Cameron's "toffy chums." It's backfired on Cameron to some extent (* though what's happened could strengthen his hand in other ways), but the idea was to demonstrate that things can change and it's not all just a bunch of people that the UK population haven't heard of and didn't vote for getting into positions of power again. Now, the * above is because this is exactly the kind of stuff UKIP love - the "See, we told you, our voice doesn't matter, why should we stay?" type stuff. So now we're getting into double-down territory - Cam is going to have to go to negotiations in 2016 (assuming he's PM) and say "You weakened the EU's position in the UK with the Juncker thing - we're going to need some real reform or the people will vote for us to leave. I'm with you guys, but you need to give me something here."

Juncker's a wet fish, no one actually cares about him.
 

Walshicus

Member
no institution in the EU has democratic legitimacy.
EUP has more democratic legitimacy than Westminster; First Past the Post!

and no, we don't want the parliament to have more power either.
Speak for your fucking self!

the parliament is a joke.
A joke parliament that somehow manages to outperform the cunts in Westminster at actually representing the average Englishman in every policy area it's been given a role in.

fuck my country being controlled by some doofus voted in by someone in sicily or bumfuck elsewhere.
Aren't you a "UK" Unionist?

the EU should never have been more than a trading block.
The EU was never just a trading block. Not ever in it's history has it ever BEEN just a trading block.
 
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