Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 5

[GnaGnaMan]

Well, I mentioned a few posts back the 'democratic deficit' of the EU. I think that needs to be addressed but without breaking the EU and building EU 2.0 I don't see how that can be entirely resolved. It's a tough situation because now the member-states are all pretty much fused at the hip, and the looming threat of Russia sure is a good incentive to bit one's lips and just endure the EU's problems because the alternative is probably much worse.

Changing the EU structure is entirely in the hands of national governments. The structure is determined by the EU treaties. The EU can't change these treaties. That power rests entirely with the national governments.
Wherever there is a democratic deficit in the EU, it results from the fact that the national governments were not willing to give power to the European Parliament but kept it for themselves.

There is no conceivable way in which leaving the EU helps with this.
In fact, it only makes the situation worse.

Consider how trade agreements are negotiated: Behind closed doors by unelected beaurocrats. They are adjudicated by private courts in secret. That's what the UK government wants to replace the EU with.

Well you can look up the term to get more info, but I'm concerned by the back-assward way in which laws are crafted and vetted in the EU, compared to the US or a parliamentary system. I think laws should be written by elected officials.

Elected officials hardly ever write laws. You need someone with legal qualifications do that. To have the desired effect, one must know how the judiciary will understand the language and how to embed it into the existing legal landscape.
What you probably mean is the right of initiative.

In the EU that right rests with the commission. The EC is appointed by the national governments and confirmed by the EP. Giving the EP a greater say over the EC means taking power away from the national governments.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Not really surprising, there are 4,000+ in UK jails.

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04334/SN04334.pdf

Very surprising if you think that the UK can't control EU immigrants as many seem to do.

Also notice the number for refused entry was 2700 in 2017. I believe but am not 100% sure that's in addition to those 5,300 who were deported. Which would give a total of 8,000 examples of the impossible being done every year. I've worked out why Theresa looks so tired now. It's now easy performing 22 acts of the impossible every single day.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Not really surprising, there are 4,000+ in UK jails.

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04334/SN04334.pdf

Thanks for that paper by the way. Looks really interesting. Totally off topic but this is a fascinating stat for example:

In 1900 there were 152 male prisoners per 100,000 men in the population.
This rate has increased to 348 per 100,000 in 2017. There were 27 female
prisoners per 100,000 head of female population in 1900. In 2017 this rate
had decreased to 16 per 100,000.

More than twice as many men now in jail as 1900 while less than half as many women. Guess that's a discussion for another thread...

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Changing the EU structure is entirely in the hands of national governments. The structure is determined by the EU treaties. The EU can't change these treaties. That power rests entirely with the national governments.
Wherever there is a democratic deficit in the EU, it results from the fact that the national governments were not willing to give power to the European Parliament but kept it for themselves.

There is no conceivable way in which leaving the EU helps with this.
In fact, it only makes the situation worse.

Consider how trade agreements are negotiated: Behind closed doors by unelected beaurocrats. They are adjudicated by private courts in secret. That's what the UK government wants to replace the EU with.


Elected officials hardly ever write laws. You need someone with legal qualifications do that. To have the desired effect, one must know how the judiciary will understand the language and how to embed it into the existing legal landscape.
What you probably mean is the right of initiative.

In the EU that right rests with the commission. The EC is appointed by the national governments and confirmed by the EP. Giving the EP a greater say over the EC means taking power away from the national governments.

The democratic deficit argument is usually rooted in two or maybe three camps:

1. People who don't know (or care) how the EU works and see random foreign people on TV seemingly telling us what to do and have been told by the media that these 'faceless bureaucrats' are now making our laws.

2. People who hate the EU for other reasons but have stumbled upon the 'democratic deficit' argument as a handy camouflage.

3. People who object to the EU on the grounds that it's not perfect and refuse to support it but seem perfectly happy to allow something much worse to take it's place while they pursue their unicorns (see Hillary, Trump, Sanders voters)

Or as a useful shorthand 1. Ignorant 2. Racists 3. Idiots.

 

[GnaGnaMan]

Sure.

IOW the underlying facts matter to the reasonableness of a position.

It sounded like you were accusing me of being opposed to the EU's high standards of human rights. It really, really sounded like it. Is that not what you said?

The UK can remove non-British EU citizens from its terroritory, provided it can show a good reason and subject to the rule of law.
I now realize you did not know that. But when I thought you did, how should I have interpreted your "shady character" example? Obviously I had to conclude that something about the EU remedy was not enough.

 

[Belz...]

as far as supra national bodies go the EU is pretty democratic. is there a better example that it could model itself on?

I don't know of one, so there's that.

 

[Belz...]

Changing the EU structure is entirely in the hands of national governments. The structure is determined by the EU treaties. The EU can't change these treaties. That power rests entirely with the national governments.
Wherever there is a democratic deficit in the EU, it results from the fact that the national governments were not willing to give power to the European Parliament but kept it for themselves.

There is no conceivable way in which leaving the EU helps with this.
In fact, it only makes the situation worse.

Yes perhaps. But I don't know if the member states can change something so fundamental. Can they?

Elected officials hardly ever write laws. You need someone with legal qualifications do that.

That's entirely true. Regardless, the difference is still there: elected officials can only block laws.

IOW the underlying facts matter to the reasonableness of a position.

Well obviously there are limits, either way, to what one can consider reasonable, true premises or not.

 

[Planigale]

Oh I was aware of the term but whenever its raised the arguments are either incorrect or would no different/better in the UK post Brexit.

Laws are not typically written by elected officials in the UK either and neither Cabinet nor PM are elected by the people.

I mean its fine to point out that the EU system is not perfect but it's a joke to say that Brexit is somehow justified on the back of that when we are now seeing a government who scraped in thanks to FPTP voting and being propped up by a minor party of bigots they bought arguing amongst itself on which public schoolboy should get to decide what the policy should be on a decision made on the back of lies printed on a bus and told barefaced on national TV by people who would rather resign that face the reality of what they persuaded people to agree to all the time ignoring the reality that their policies are unworkable and vehemently denying the right of people to vote on whether to go ahead with any of this, or of devolved nations to decide their own futures.

The UK is a walking talking democratic deficit.

There is no perfectly democratic system. The EU does have problems that were unimportant when it was essentially an association of independent democratic nations. As more power becomes devolved / delegated to the EU because of e.g. the Euro, the dominance of the unelected bureaucrat becomes greater and the relative lack of power of the European parliament becomes more marked. At some point the E.P. needs to insist on increased power. But that would be another thread.

I agree the EU is not so undemocratic as to justify Brexit.

 

[Planigale]

as far as supra national bodies go the EU is pretty democratic. is there a better example that it could model itself on?

I suppose the issue is that the EU is transitioning from a simple supra national body like e.g. the UN to one that is more of a nation, with citizenship, taxes, currency, laws, courts, potentially an army. It is required to move to an 'ever closer union'. The model may be more that of federal systems such as Germany or the US.

 

[GnaGnaMan]

Yes perhaps. But I don't know if the member states can change something so fundamental. Can they?

Of course! They have in the past.
It's the EU itself that can't change these fundamental things.

That's entirely true. Regardless, the difference is still there: elected officials can only block laws.

They can also make the commission propose laws.

But remember where the commission comes from:
The Commission is nominated by the national governments and confirmed by the EP. As such the commissioners have at least as much democratic legitimation as cabinet ministers.
By giving the initiative power to the EP, one would indirectly reduce the power of the national governments.

One should also remember the limits of the EU's power. There is no army; no power to raise taxes or spend money; no power to make penal laws...
The only thing it does is regulations of business or industry. Mostly these laws are only important to specific sector of business or industry. Writing such laws requires intimate technical knowledge. In national parliaments such laws are usually, literally co-written by lobbyists or even completely written by them. Is that so obviously better?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I suppose the issue is that the EU is transitioning from a simple supra national body like e.g. the UN to one that is more of a nation, with citizenship, taxes, currency, laws, courts, potentially an army. It is required to move to an 'ever closer union'. The model may be more that of federal systems such as Germany or the US.

But it isn't really.

Citizenship of the EU is gained by being a citizen of a member and members manage this

There are no EU taxes levied on EU citizens

It has a currency (which not all members belong to) but each state still controls economic policy individually

The courts are only there to regulate on the laws agreed to by the supranational association

And it doesn't have an army - but the UN does and is far less democratic.

A federal system would probably be more democratic in terms of directly elected officials but would be opposed by national governments and tellingly by the people who complain that the EU is undemocratic.

As is always the case it is notable that the people who want to leave the EU because of 'Issue X' are never interested in any solution to Issue X that isn't leaving the EU, even if leaving won't solve the issue. It's almost as if these reasons are just excuses to cover for more basic complaints.

 

[catsmate]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Indeed. Where is the spirit of Nagelmackers these days?

 

[catsmate]

It's always minorities and foreigners who get blamed for these things. I guess it's just easier and 'natural', for humans, to go after those perceived as different.

Well it worked for the Nazis...

 

[Aber]

There are no EU taxes levied on EU citizens

There is an effective EU VAT rate of 0.3%.

 

[KDLarsen]

To recap the week:
Chequers has been chucked by the EU27, with May insisting it hasn't and demanding the EU27 come up with their own plan.
Labour continues the "Brexit is settled", evidently betting on a snap General Election to swoop them into power. At which point they'll probably reveal they haven't got a clue what to do either.
Some Scottish MP's/MEP's/MSP's have had a case over Article 50 referred to the ECJ. Specifically whether or not the UK can unilaterally withdraw the triggering of Article 50 and revert to the present rebates etc. they have, or if they'll require permission from the EU27 to do so, which they argue isn't likely to be granted.

 

[Belz...]

But remember where the commission comes from:
The Commission is nominated by the national governments and confirmed by the EP. As such the commissioners have at least as much democratic legitimation as cabinet ministers.

Yes, but only as much as, say, SCOTUS judges, who are nominated by elected officials. I'd say the officials have more democratic legitimacy.

In national parliaments such laws are usually, literally co-written by lobbyists or even completely written by them. Is that so obviously better?

Don't get me started on those.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

There is an effective EU VAT rate of 0.3%.

Or to put it another way, there are no EU taxes levied on EU citizens.

 

[Aber]

Or to put it another way, there are no EU taxes levied on EU citizens.

Nope, the 0.3% goes straight to EU own resources.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Yes, but only as much as, say, SCOTUS judges, who are nominated by elected officials. I'd say the officials have more democratic legitimacy.

He did say cabinet ministers though. They are appointed by the PM and were only ever elected by their own constituencies.

For example former Home Secretary Amber Rudd was voted for by 25,000 out of the UK electorate of 47m voters. And she only had a job at all because of a majority of a few hundred votes.

Boris was swanning around like he owned the place on the back of winning 23,000 votes at the 2017 election.

Only 35,000 people voted for the PM ferchrissakes.

Add in the FPTP system, strong party loyalties and high profile names often being parachuted in to safe seats to make sure they get in and there really is no practical difference between between being appointed and being elected for some of the key cabinet positions.

No matter how much Boris screwed up there was literally no way for 99% of the country to express that opinion at a ballot box.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Nope, the 0.3% goes straight to EU own resources.

But its not an EU tax levied on EU citizens. Its a call for resources from members VAT receipts. That's why you used the word 'effective' because if it was an EU tax levied on EU citizens you would have just said that.