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I’ve heard a lot in the last few days about the new EU parliament, lack of democracy and a clammer for UK Sovereignty - Taking back the power, and at times things seemed to have been confused or wilfully misinterpreted. So wanted to get some thoughts down on virtual paper 1/
2/ so first let’s deal with the Sovereignty thing. Being part of a much larger beast means compromise, for everyone. If you’re on your own & you want a cheeky Maccers, fine you do it. If 28 of you are going to lunch & everyone else hates Maccers & wants Nando’s. Well...
3/ ...sorry, looks like you’re going to Nando’s the benefit being you get a 25% discount because it’s a group booking. So leaving the EU & taking back Sovereignty gives you that freedom to just do you, but you lose the 25% saving, & May find you still can’t get into McD’s due to.
4/ a group booking that just arrived. That’s right, the group you just left. So you end up in Nandos anyway. To put this into real context. One of the central pillars of the EU is freedom of movement. The UK wants more control over immigration. Leaving the EU grants this...
5/ but we have specific skill shortages (due to UK gov decisions) meaning that for healthcare and farming we will still need large numbers of EU immigration to cope, not to mention that leaving the EU does not affect commonwealth status, and likely increase in immigration from CW
6/ I do agree that some have used freedom of movement to game the system. I.e. gangs of young men brought across to live 8 in a 3 bed house for minimum wage. But UK gov could have set measures to close such loopholes. They just didn’t want the cost of enforcement...
7/ in terms of the other issue, about the EU being undemocratic or ‘faceless foreign bureaucrats’, I think this is grossly unfair. One ‘con’ or negative of the EU which could be a reason to leave is that it is overly bureaucratic and democratic...
8/ the EU can be notoriously slow at decision making, exactly because it is so democratic and has to offer round after round of debate. A good example being the Syrian refuge crisis. It was an urgent matter that needed decisive action. But the EU dithered because it needed to...
9/ ... follow bureaucratic and democratic processes and couldn’t reach consensus quickly enough, so nationally planning & interests took over. I’ve heard a lot of people point the figure at the Commission as having all the power & being unelected...
10/ in order to make informed sensible decisions you need to gather the evidence, consult, analyse, look at unforeseen impacts. The Commissions job is to do all this and then present the options (including preferred option) to the parliament to vote on...
11/ this is not a cake walk, or a box ticking exercise. The industrial emissions directive was rejected by the Parliament before it was accepted w/ amendments. An EU law on soil contamination has never been tabled as parliament didn’t want an EU law. The EU P. Has very real power
12/As far as the Council picking a new head of the Commission, chair of the Council, president of the ECB etc, it’s no different to our PM picking her exchequer, foreign affairs, home office etc. None of those roles are democratically selected, but have real power & impact.
13/ the head of the commission however still has to pass a vote in Parliament. When the head of the commission selects which country gets which ministry, there are still hustings and voting. It’s not cloak and dagger.
14/ so there, I’ve said my piece. It’s an opinion and you likely have your own. But please please approach these things with considered thought and not because you saw a meme on the internet that said the world was our to get you. Xx
