Brexit

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Worse still, if the current balance of power in the EU Parliament is maintained, it will remain a hegemonist institution focused on trumping the powers of national parliaments.

You Remainers, beware.

You forgot "perfidious"...

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by Hugh

With all of this talk of potentially having to participate in the upcoming European Parliamentary elections - can I just say that it’s bad enough being ruled by unelected bloody Eurocrats, without having to bloody vote for them!

Yes it's a real double whammy !

Originally Posted by Hugh

With all of this talk of potentially having to participate in the upcoming European Parliamentary elections - can I just say that it’s bad enough being ruled by unelected bloody Eurocrats, without having to bloody vote for them!

Don’t worry, the powers of the pretend parliament are somewhat limited and as there are no pan-European parties they rarely produce a coherent policy about anything. The European Commission is where all the serious directives are born, and it is a reassuringly unelected institution that is quite impossible for any voter anywhere in Europe to dismiss from office. You may be reassured that if we do have to go to the polls on 23 May that your vote will have token value for approximately 72 hours, after which we can all forget our new MEPs exist, as per the norm.

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Chris

Don’t worry, the powers of the pretend parliament are somewhat limited and as there are no pan-European parties they rarely produce a coherent policy about anything. The European Commission is where all the serious directives are born, and it is a reassuringly unelected institution that is quite impossible for any voter anywhere in Europe to dismiss from office. You may be reassured that if we do have to go to the polls on 23 May that your vote will have token value for approximately 72 hours, after which we can all forget our new MEPs exist, as per the norm.

Does the Commission self approve these directives or is there another mechanism for approving the directives they propose?

Originally Posted by jonbxx

Does the Commission self approve these directives or is there another mechanism for approving the directives they propose?

Nice try - but from your question it sounds like you don’t understand how the proposal, revision and acceptance of EU law actually works.

The Commission proposes and develops legislation. The Parliament must be consulted and may propose amendments (which the Commission does not have to accept). The Parliament must consent to the final formulation and may withhold that consent (but in practice, does not), and the Council of Ministers takes the final decision on whether to enact. In the Council, we have one elected representative out of 28 and an ever-shrinking number of areas in which they can exercise a veto.

That’s the process which I’m pretty sure you didn’t previously understand ... no need to thank me.

And I stand by my claim that the pretend parliament is more or less an irrelevance in the overall process.

And the reason most stuff gets passed is that it’s done by consensus, discussing and agreeing things first, rather than the adversarial system we have that leads to the farrago we have with Brexit.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Hugh

And the reason most stuff gets passed is that it’s done by consensus, discussing and agreeing things first, rather than the adversarial system we have that leads to the farrago we have with Brexit.

Please don't make the EU Parliament out to look good. It is currently hegemonist, dare I say perfidious, stuffed full of UK hating federalists.

Nothing I've said above pays any compliment to our wretched, dare I say perfidious, Parliament.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Chris

Nice try - but from your question it sounds like you don’t understand how the proposal, revision and acceptance of EU law actually works.

The Commission proposes and develops legislation. The Parliament must be consulted and may propose amendments (which the Commission does not have to accept). The Parliament must consent to the final formulation and may withhold that consent (but in practice, does not), and the Council of Ministers takes the final decision on whether to enact. In the Council, we have one elected representative out of 28 and an ever-shrinking number of areas in which they can exercise a veto.

That’s the process which I’m pretty sure you didn’t previously understand ..no need to thank me.

And I stand by my claim that the pretend parliament is more or less an irrelevance in the overall process.

No, but I will. Not a lot of people seem to appreciate that the EU is really not democratic at all.

The only way to have any influence at all is to elect disruptive MEPs. If we end up having to participate in more EU elections, all leavers should vote UKIP. Maybe that will get the message across, and there would be no adverse implications as there would be if we elected UKIP MPs.

---------- Post added at 18:58 ---------- Previous post was at 18:55 ----------

Originally Posted by Hugh

And the reason most stuff gets passed is that it’s done by consensus, discussing and agreeing things first, rather than the adversarial system we have that leads to the farrago we have with Brexit.

It would look a lot worse than that if you took off your rose-tinted spectacles, Hugh.

I mean - democratic? No way. No more so than in a Communist society, where elections mean nowt.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

No, but I will. Not a lot of people seem to appreciate that the EU is really not democratic at all.

The only way to have any influence at all is to elect disruptive MEPs. If we end up having to participate in more EU elections, all leavers should vote UKIP. Maybe that will get the message across, and there would be no adverse implications as there would be if we elected UKIP MPs.

---------- Post added at 18:58 ---------- Previous post was at 18:55 ----------



It would look a lot worse than that if you took off your rose-tinted spectacles, Hugh.

I mean - democratic? No way. No more so than in a Communist society, where elections mean nowt.

The Brexit Party would be better than UKIP and send a clearer message. Provided there is a candidate in their constituency.

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Chris

Nice try - but from your question it sounds like you don’t understand how the proposal, revision and acceptance of EU law actually works.

The Commission proposes and develops legislation. The Parliament must be consulted and may propose amendments (which the Commission does not have to accept). The Parliament must consent to the final formulation and may withhold that consent (but in practice, does not), and the Council of Ministers takes the final decision on whether to enact. In the Council, we have one elected representative out of 28 and an ever-shrinking number of areas in which they can exercise a veto.

That’s the process which I’m pretty sure you didn’t previously understand ... no need to thank me.

And I stand by my claim that the pretend parliament is more or less an irrelevance in the overall process.

Ok, so the democratically elected parliament and council do get to approve directives from the commission and do get to send back directives to the commission and our Council representation has an effect. All good then!

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by jonbxx

Ok, so the democratically elected parliament and council do get to approve directives from the commission and do get to send back directives to the commission and our Council representation has an effect. All good then!

Deluded. The "democratically elected parliament" is a sham as it represents 28 countries of significant cultural, political and historic differences. The process of electing this gravy train may follow conventional democratic lines, but there is nothing democratic about the ganging up, the groupings and the sheer intent to federalise the EU when none of the public want anything like that.

As for the Council, there is nothing democratic (nor undemocratic) about it. The members are the political leaders of the 28 countries. These are appointments to the Council, not elected to the Council; of course I have no objection to the Council - it needs to be there; but it doesn't fall into the "democratic" category. In the UK we don't elect a PM.

Perversely, it was better when there was no EU parliament - just the Commission (they were turds then) and the Council or whatever it was called then.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Chris

Nice try - but from your question it sounds like you don’t understand how the proposal, revision and acceptance of EU law actually works.

The Commission proposes and develops legislation. The Parliament must be consulted and may propose amendments (which the Commission does not have to accept). The Parliament must consent to the final formulation and may withhold that consent (but in practice, does not), and the Council of Ministers takes the final decision on whether to enact. In the Council, we have one elected representative out of 28 and an ever-shrinking number of areas in which they can exercise a veto.

That’s the process which I’m pretty sure you didn’t previously understand ... no need to thank me.

And I stand by my claim that the pretend parliament is more or less an irrelevance in the overall process.

Yup, winner of the most patronising post of the year so far. Your obvious bias invalidates any attempt at objective analysis.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Yup, winner of the most patronising post of the year so far. Your obvious bias invalidates any attempt at objective analysis.

Only come across as patronising as he’s trying to educate a blissfully ignorant person.

[Sephiroth]

Sarcasm sometimes works - as on this occasion it did.

[jfman]

Majority of the public want a second referendum.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a8857211.html