Shark Bait Blog

Environment.. and Scuba Diving.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

The UK and the EU.. Better together.



The EU is not 'undemocratic'.. Shock, horror!


Why do Brexiteers present the EU Commission and EU Council as complicated and obscure, when they are not?

Very simply, the EU Commission, Council and President are either the elected heads of state of the member countries..or elected/proposed by the heads of (a sovereign state) member countries.
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The EU Commission operates as a cabinet government, with 28 members of the Commission. There is one member per member state, proposed by their member state (democratically elected) governments.

I don't get to democratically vote for the Chancellor of the Exchequer or any other Cabinet Minister, Civil Servants or Quango commissioners in the 'democratic and sovereign' UK government.. and judging by 'Expenses-gate', UK politicians are no more honest than any other nationality.

The EU has approx. 23,00 (unelected) Civil servants.
The UK has approx 406,000 (unelected) Civil servants
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The President of the EU Commission is elected, by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), who have been democratically elected, by the individual voters in the member states.

I do not get to vote for the Prime Minster of the 'democratic and sovereign' UK government, either.
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The EU Council, are the heads of state of the 28 democratic EU member states, the President of the European Commission and the the European Council President.

The European Council President (a once-renewable term of two and a half years) is elected by the heads of state of the 28 democratic EU member states and the President of the European Commission.

The President must report to the democratically elected European Parliament, after each European Council meeting.

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On the subject of democracy, many Brexiteers claim to prefer the UK system for electing British Members of Parliament at Westminster, which are run on a
'First past the post' system.. however as demonstrated below, the current UK system, is actually less democratic, than the Proportional Representation voting system, used in the UK, for electing our European Members of Parliament (MEPs). ..and that is before we get to the archaic, undemocratic House of Lords and a Prime Minister, chosen by his party, instead of a directly elected Senate and President.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrat parties appeared to deliberately undermine the entire issue of electoral reform and re-engaging with the electorate, during the last UK government, by hiding behind the fact it was a Coalition and engineering a so called 'Referendum', which merely gave a choice between the existing 'First past the post' system.. and a PR system, which offered to re-enforce a 'First past the post' process, by adding secondary votes to the primary one.
There was NO offer of the genuinely democratic, proportional representation, British voters have in the EU.

To take a current example:
Under the supposedly 'undemocratic' EU system of PR voting, UKIP would have had 83.. that's right, EIGHTY THREE Westminster MPs, after the 2015 UK general  election.
Odd how Brexiteer champions of 'democracy' are so keen on the 'First past the post' system, as opposed to a genuine PR system.. some might surmise, it is not PR's 'democratic' merits that are really being measured?




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