Comments on: An Affront to Our Democratic Dignity

By: Zuri

Zuri — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:52:10 +0000

The idea of world revolution and workers’ control is clearly alien to people whose political aspirations end with ‘democratically electing a national government with the mandate to implement a socialist agenda’. In their minds, we could have socialism in one country if it wasn’t for those damn Europeans trying to fuck with our lovely little Island. As if.

Fortunately, ‘Euroskepticism’ is largely the reserve of reformist outfits such as the CPB and their pathetic No2EU – Yes To Democracy type campaigns – so the assertion that petty left nationalism separates the men from the boys (or the hard left from the soft left) is a bit rich.

By: modernity

modernity — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:34:47 +0000

Yeah Blair’s a shitbag and a liar, and he might even become President of the EU, but you would do well to look at the *historical* opposition to the EEC/EU in Britain and then think about how British nationalism ties into the rejection of Europe as a sense of identity, there’s a lot of history here, etc

By: Tendai

Tendai — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:39:05 +0000

I guess one of the problems with democracy and Europe is how we can measure what we should actually expect from an order as politically weird as the EU. On the one hand, it’s a hell of a lot more democratic than virtually any other intergovernmental body — you won’t get the UN even thinking about what the electorates of its member states might want out of resolutions, and there is nothing like the parity of status among states in the UN, that exists in the EU. On the other hand, it has a Parliament that’s not really Parliament at all — it doesn’t initiate legislation, and can only reject it in limited cases.
*
After reading the treaty, my understanding of the post of President of the Council was as an almost, ‘administrative’ role, merely making permanent the rotating role that already exists. Initiation of ‘legislation’ would remain, to my understanding, in the Commission and the Council. As the Council is composed, as it always has been, of elected officials, one wonders what we’re really losing democratically here. I can sort of see the benefit of a president. For a start, it answers the question Kissinger once asked: “Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?” And it means that, unlike the present situation, the titular head of the Council is not a primarily political animal.
*
The truth with Europe is that much of what the EU does is so boring that nobody really cares. Voter turnout in elections seems to show this. People are much more intersted in how regularly their bins will be collected, than the minutiae of fishery quotas and standardising units in the manufacturing sector, or making sure suprmarkets are using the same amount of salt in their food products. The idea that most people would want to vote for this post, seems to me, a bit like wishing to vote for the head of the civil service.

By: Reuben

Reuben — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:22:02 +0000

indeed – such as nationalising certain industries.

Of cour executives know this and are much happier when their hands are tied in certain ways – when enforced displine insulates em from popular demands. Pre 1973 this was done by the Bretton woods system. Today it is the EU.

By: Chris H

Chris H — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:14:56 +0000

The other aspect is that a democratically elected national government with a mandate to implement a socialist agenda will be tied up in a legal assault through the executive structure of the EU. The EU will give us a situation where what we vote for has to be in line with accepted EU norms or they will feel free to declare it unacceptable.

By: Reuben

Reuben — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:00:11 +0000

Cheers dud:).

By: Dave M

Dave M — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:56:22 +0000

Here here to every word. That is all.