He's now a Lord.

There are flaws in UK democracy certainly but I don't think the EU got it right.

I also fundamentally have a problem with the scale of the thing - any government of a bloc that large is going to have problems with being unrepresentative. I look at Switzerland and Iceland with envy - the people can achieve change there. The USA, EU, even UK? Not so much.

The result was basically a giant hack on top of the existing systems by leveraging the authority that the member state governments have to act as agents of their state in carrying out their duties under treaties.

More and more power has been handed to the EU Parliament with various treaty changes etc., but there is a limit there in that ultimately without enshrining the power of the EU Parliament in the member states constitutions, it is impossible to cede the kind of power vested in the member state governments to the EU Parliament.

So the irony is that a lot of the centralisation of power in EU organs is a result of opposition to further integration. Pretty much nobody likes the current structure of the EU. The problem is people dislike it different reasons: Some because they want the power handed back to the individual states. Some because they want a federalised EU or similar.

The irony there is that Brexit might end up a catalyst for tighter integration, because the UK has been one of the biggest brakes on that process.

> I look at Switzerland and Iceland with envy - the people can achieve change there. The USA, EU, even UK? Not so much.

I don't agree with this. There are policy areas we can't easily change unilaterally, sure. But at the same time, when a change is agreed there is far more power behind it. Some policies only make sense to make at large scale, some makes to push down as far as possible. Ideally I'd like to see the end of modern day nation states through devolution of as much power as possible. But some decisions will still need to be taken at a higher level.

As it stands, in the UK there is still plently of power at the local level, and while I am very upset at Brexit, the UK at least has one thing going for it in an ongoing long lasting process of gradually devolving more and more power to local councils and regions.

Perhaps, don't?

If you can't take the people of a democracy with you on a project, perhaps it's best not to try and build such a thing anyway, and then end up with a hack?

On the rest - I would come to a similar state but from a different direction full autonomy for small democratic units, who voluntarily delegate some authority rather than get granted powers from "above"

But the EU now already exists and the UK has been so insistent on having a special status that Europeans have gotten used to the idea of the UK not "really" being in it despite being just another European country like the rest of us.

It's okay.

You can leave.

We no longer need you for the EU to be able to exist.

We tried to accommodate you and make it work but we've understood that the feelings aren't mutual.

We'll still keep in touch with your extended family, though, and maybe over the next two years we can find a way that you can still come over to party sometimes, or y'know, just hang out if you feel like it.

No hard feelings.

Don't be a stranger.

The UK's attempt to join the (forerunner to the) EU was vetoed multiple times, by France. Your first sentence about how the EU "always wanted to have the UK on board" is factually and historically false. It never needed the UK to exist and it doesn't need it now.

As for "no hard feelings", tell that to your politicians, not us. Because they seem to think most so-called Europeans want the opposite.

Bon Chance!

48% of Brits, 62% of Scots don't feel that way.

And literally no one in the UK voted for what the government is currently doing or how shittily it is treating it's EU partner governments or EU guests living in the UK.

We'll be back, hopefully less arrogant the next time.

I think that's a fair description of how these things tend to work. Your only mistake is the assumption that because it's very silly nobody would actually use it, let alone that it wouldn't be incredibly widespread.

But as for the list, the EU came into being after WW2 so the USSR was out, Austria was politically irrelevant and Spain was a fascist dictatorship. Plus Turkey is on the other side of the Black Sea and the Greek really don't like them.

The people have consistently voted for parties that wanted at least this level of integration. The problem has been that people disagree about how far to go, not that there has not been support for tighter integration.

Often to get from one local maxima to a higher local maxima you end up with options in between that are worse in various ways. Doesn't mean there aren't people who prefer to get there even if they're unable to get enough support to go further.

> On the rest - I would come to a similar state but from a different direction full autonomy for small democratic units, who voluntarily delegate some authority rather than get granted powers from "above"

That's how we got the EU.

I agree, the people have voted for parties that had these policies. The problem is, people vote for the same two (occasionally three or four) parties regardless, and then expect them to change. Somewhat silly!

Considering it was never intended to be a state, I think your argument belies the source of the complaints..

Churchill's efforts were a major factor in the establishment of the Council of Europe (not EU), and the European Court of Human Rights (CoE; not EU) and what became the EEC/EU.

So while many people involved also did not want to go all the way, historically the origin of the EU includes a lot of people who went into it with the explicit goal of eventually turning it into a state.

A core principle ever since the Treaty of Rome in 1957 has been to create "an ever closer union". You can't do that without eventually ending up with a state.

As for Britain's involvement in establishing the Council of Europe, I've heard Brits joke that Britain created the EU to keep the continent busy, not to be a part of it.

Edit: Replied to the wrong comment. :(

E.g. Switzerland's recent attempts to curtail freedom of movement.

Sure but the UK is not Switzerland or Iceland.

On the world stage Iceland is irrelevant. It's a lot like Switzerland without influence. Sure, Iceland can afford to be eccentric about world politics because it's not under the direct influence of other countries to the same extent as most are but it also doesn't hold any real influence itself. The UK doesn't want to be Iceland, it wants to be like Iceland but with the political weight of the US.

Switzerland is more relevant, especially financially, but Switzerland is in a unique position that is the result of centuries of European history and of course its location and geography. The UK is just a bunch of islands off the coast of France that used to be a naval superpower (like Portugal). The UK can't be Switzerland because it isn't already Switzerland -- Switzerland is Switzerland.

If anything, Brexit was fuelled by impotent rage: the UK used to be an Empire, now her citizens are supposed to bow to a council of European nations and become just another cog in the machine of the continent. We want our Empire back! We're important! We shouldn't be subject to Europe, we should compete with it directly.

Except the UK doesn't matter anymore either. The UK used to matter up to WW 2 where it exhausted its remaining military might to help keep the free world free (which btw as a German I fully acknowledge and am thankful for). But even then it had already lost (or was in the process of losing) its colonies and was largely confined to its homeland and some assorted junk territories that ultimately don't matter much (sorry, Falkland islands).

Geographically, the UK needs to establish a working relationship with the EU to survive. Before Brexit it had it all: it was a member of the EU but had been able to negotiate special statuses all along the way by threatening to leave. Now it basically has to start from scratch and has only its own worth to prop itself up during the upcoming 2 years of bartering.

And that worth isn't much, to be honest. Sure, London is one of the most important financial centres of Europe. But in a large part it only stayed that way because Britain heavily relied on special exemptions from EU rules while still drawing on the benefits of that market. Sure the UK now definitely gets to keep its currency, but it no longer competes with Frankfurt but with New York, Tokyo and Shanghai. It's not a big fish in a pond anymore. And the pond has no more reason to be impressed. Economically the UK relies heavily on extremely expensive imports (it's a bunch of islands after all) and those are only going to become more expensive after leaving the EU. The financial centre is the biggest asset and its importance is heavily impacted by Brexit. Things are looking grim.

So in other words: the UK won't be the next Switzerland. It may become the next Iceland. But only in the sense that it will be out in the sea off the shore of France, doing its own thing while occasionally pouting about how silly everyone is and nobody will pay any attention.

At least this is the course Brexit seems to have taken the UK on. And if Scotland makes true on its threats to secede from the union, the UK may just end up as the good old England and Wales all alone, surrounded by Europe. But on the plus side Wales may finally have some pressure to get the UK to put that dragon on the flag.

13% of UK GDP is from European trade (fact). So whilst the UK would quite like a trade deal it is hardly reliant on it. Any loss from tariffs on European trade may well be exceeded from the resulting drop in tariffs with non EU nations. Biggest difference post Brexit will be less BMWs and more Kias.

I think the thing you're missing is that the UK has a long history of democracy and slow improvements to it. Large parts of Europe do not have such a libertarian consciousness.

You seem very hostile to the UK generally. Weird given your last comparatively friendly comment.

We'd better get used to this. Just look at statements by European politicians since the vote. Occasionally they make a token attempt to be friendly, and saying how of course everyone wants what's best for everyone, but then they go right back to talking about how awful it'll be for the UK and how it's like suicide, how they'd never be stupid enough to let people vote on the EU, etc.

My experience of anyone who thinks of themselves as "European" or a supporter of the EU is actually, when the surface is scratched, extremely angry and vicious. They want the UK to bleed and bleed hard, because they think if it doesn't their dream of a united European future will end. And they are correct: at this point the only thing holding the EU together is fear. They unfortunately don't see how dystopian this makes them.

Well that's a delightfully insulting, sweeping and utterly untrue generalisation.

Whatever makes you feel validated in your choices though I guess. It's easier to assume your opponents are just full of hate and anger instead of trying to understand that they are people with actual thoughts and concerns that are opposed to yours.

There is a very real pro-Monarchy, post-Empire resentment of anything not British among a large section of the British people. They might not say it out loud, but it's clear in the things they say.

There is xenophobia but I think if you look closely you'll find that in most European countries as well. No doubt that instinct will now be directed at the British.

This is clearly about political systems.

Ignorant rage, perhaps.

https://www.google.com/search?q=daily+mail+eu&source=lnms&tb...

It would be even lower if other elections weren't tagged along with the EU ones (eg usually the UK has local elections at the same time).

There is an enormous amount of voter apathy towards the EU democratic processes. That starts IMO reducing the democratic legitimacy of the whole thing.

It seems much more likely that the voters are correctly detecting that the elections are not that important, either because the parliament has insufficient influence on EU policy, or because the candidates have insufficient influence on the parliament's decisions, or because the parties are all as bad as each other.

Using it as an argument against the EU is kinda circular, though. Only people who show up should et to complain.

I always have voted out of duty as a citizen to vote, but it always felt like a waste of time. The MEPs are unknowns you never see, and the proceedings are so divorced from regular politics that they seem like they serve little practical purpose in representing our views. Particularly when the people you are voting for are then members of supranational blocs with their own agendas. It's so far removed from the individual voter that it seems like they could do whatever they wanted and claim a mandate for it. I don't think democracy is particularly effective at this scale.

I think the Leavers were dissatisfied from the beginning. You can directly trace the formation of UKIP from the Maastricht Rebels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Rebels in the Major government.

UKIP was formed out of protest at what they saw as the EU going off in a highly political direction (i.e. becoming a lot more than just an economic area).

They may be wrong but the objections are based on fundamentals.

The EU might have retained popular respect with UK voters if the MEPs that the UK sent to parliament had voted in accordance with their electorate's desires rather than not-voted-because-they-are-a-protest.

Or not. Quite a lot of stuff in the media that is anti-EU, too. That might be more powerful.

I'm not sure what you mean by a tiny minority. IIRC the UK Parliament voted against Maastricht twice and it went through on the third attempt. I think UKIP has exploited and perhaps stoked the skepticism, but IMO did not create it.

As for polling, it looks like my memory doesn't quite match reality: http://theconversation.com/polling-history-40-years-of-briti...

This polling history shows wild oscillation over time, and the EU was formed from its predecessor just as things were close. I had been under the impression it was a gradual shift from the high of 1979 to the low of 2016.

Regardless, "stoked" sounds like a good description of UKIP's behaviour to me, so I think we may be agreeing with each other.

Do I need to point out why that argument is flawed?

I don't see how one is more democratic than the other.

I'm not saying that national governments should give up sovereignty. I'm saying that what powers the EU already has should be more directly democratic.

If your country's Council member doesn't represent your interests, that's not the EU's fault, that's your government's fault.

Literally every person who gets to do anything in the EU Parliament, Commission or Council is ultimately in that position because of a democratic election in that member nation -- be it via the direct vote for the Parliament, the national election for the head of state or the combination of those two for the Commission.

The EU isn't full of corporate cronies because the EU sucks. The EU is full of corporate cronies because the member nations' governments suck. And that includes the UK (which in the EU has been at the forefront of various things people like to complain about -- including in the UK itself).

Even assuming the citizens of member states were fully conscious that this was happening, who do you think would be appointed to those positions? Who would you say sucks in this scenario, the member state governments or the EU?

But we're not talking about slush funds for doing nothing, we're talking about who makes policy. And funnily enough in Westminster we also have a Cabinet and PM setting the policy agenda that are chosen not by some universal franchise but nominated by the representatives of different localities. The transfer of executive power from the MP for Witney to the MP for Maidenhead happened without the involvement of a single person outside the political class, and I didn't vote for any of the Bill Select Committees proposing new legislation or any of the individuals heading up any of the departments responsible for implementing it. And so yeah, I'm holding Conservative MPs rather than the public or the drafters of Britain's constitution responsible for how Brexit gets implemented

Weirdly, few of the people insisting that the UK must leave because of the terrible system of government the EU has are remotely bothered about similar democratic deficits in Westminster.

The UK was a major driving force behind many of the international trade agreements that are being criticised for infringing on the rights of EU citizens, for example.

The reason the EU Parliament isn't democratic is that its members can't actually change the law, which means it isn't a Parliament at all. Because MEPs can't change EU law, they can't have any policies. Because they can't have any policies, their "politics" such that it is simply boils down to how pro or anti EU they are. Inevitably, given the uselessness of the EU Parliament as an institution, the vast majority of people who run for election to it are ideologically driven EU-philes who are true believers in the vision and just want to be close to it. This means it is worthless even as a check and balance, so people tune out, which is why nobody knows or cares who their MEP is.

Moreover, even despite this withered and pointless setup, the EU Parliament fails to even be open and democratic within its constitutional limits. Last year all EU law was made in secret "trilogue" meetings that don't formally exist, so you can't find out when they happen, get notes, find out who attended etc. These meetings are not mentioned in the treaties for obvious reasons, yet they now are how the EU makes law. Only North Korea and the EU make law in secret this way.

Yes ... even if all these problems were solved, the EU would still have the problem of being far too large. But there's a thousand major reforms needed before that becomes the top issue and the EU's deceptively named 'democracy' has gone backwards over time, not forwards.

Somebody (Netherlands or Ireland, I think, but I forget which) has an election about an EU matter, and it goes "the wrong way". The EU's response: Well, they'll just have to vote again.

Forgive me if the details are wrong (I'm writing from memory, and I'm not even in the EU). But that kind of thing has happened more than once - "the EU" has decided on a direction, and democracy is not going to be allowed to change it. That is why people feel the EU is undemocratic (as I understand it). The structure of the EU Parliament has nothing to do with it.