Ummm like what? Tell me what are there problems that we need to worry about where a battle over “economic resources” is you know… not a part of the solution or problem.

Also if we are talking democracy and representation- it’s quite obvious you are mistaken. We have the European Parliament elections so… you know democratically elected representatives.

Feel free to share you view on democracy but it will be in conflict with that the real definition of word is given your comment.

They represent me and my fellow non-extremist citizens. Is the EU perfect? No. Is it better than any alternative? Yes.

Calling people you disagree with "extremist" is a step too far.

So is calling our representatives "ghouls".

May I ask you to consider that possibly what you refer as ghouls are no more no less ghoulish than MBA's somewhere in the valley planning on maximum screen-addiction for ten year olds. At some point you have to face the possibility that the opposite of a bad thing may also be an equally bad thing...

> they do not represent anyone

As a european citizen, I really wonder what allows you to speak in my name. How arrogant can you get?

Agreed. I live in Europe and while it has its issues, in general I'm not too displeased with it. The comment above seems to have an unnecessarily vile tone.

> How arrogant can you get?

Could be that some of the people in here are fine with a "Parliament" that is not really a parliament and that they are fine with the unelected European Commission taking decisions that affect us all, but that has nothing to do with "arrogance", it's just them wanting to live under a non-democratic regime.

And facts speak for themselves, the technocrats in Brussels do not represent anyone because it was not the people of the EU who have put them there. Some of you may agree with their fiat decisions, but that is not "representation", it's just "sharing of interests".

> Could be that some of the people in here are fine with a "Parliament" that is not really a parliament and that they are fine with the unelected European Commission taking decisions that affect us all, but that has nothing to do with "arrogance", it's just them wanting to live under a non-democratic regime.

The commission is appointed by the member states, which are all, supposedly, democratically elected (and I only make this caveat because Hungary exists). There's nothing "non-democratic" about it.

> And facts speak for themselves, the technocrats in Brussels do not represent anyone because it was not the people of the EU who have put them there. Some of you may agree with their fiat decisions, but that is not "representation", it's just "sharing of interests".

Please, enlighten me how it was not the people of the EU who put them there. I'll wait.

> The commission is appointed by the member states, which are all, supposedly, democratically elected

Yes, that's what they say, if that's "democracy" then we certainly have a different understanding of it.

> Please, enlighten me how it was not the people of the EU who put them there.

Take 8 out of 10 people (and I'm being generous here) off the street and ask them what party they represents them in the European "Parliament" (which is not really a parliament, the same way as the Democratic Republic of Korea is not all that democratic), they won't be able to tell you (I certainly won't be able). As per the European Commission, asking them that would be futile, see my point above.

More generally speaking, this policy of putting one's head in the sand and shouting "I can't hear you! This is a democracy! The European Commission actually represents the will of the European people! Saying otherwise is vile talk!" when the European electorate starts noticing facts for what they are wont' really help this "European" project going forward, but that's the bed that they've decided to sleep in so it's up to the technocrats in Brussels now.

> Take 8 out of 10 people (and I'm being generous here) off the street and ask them what party they represents them in the European "Parliament"

So your argument for it being undemocratic is that randos don't care enough to understand who represents them in the EU?

And those technocrats doesn't force anything, and their role is not to represent anything. Every law needs to be voted by the Council, and this is your real representation. If you don't like where EU is heading, complain to your government.

I mean that's the basic flaw of democracy; what alternative are you suggesting? Dissolution of the EU and back to how it was? Have a look at the UK nowadays to see how that worked out.

It's not perfect, but it's the best we've come up with so far.

The UK is largely unchanged from before Brexit. Its economic performance is similar to the rest of Europe. It continues to trade with and cooperate with other European countries, whilst also building stronger links with the rest of the world too (see Aukus for an example).

The predictions of all the bad things that'd happen on leaving were all incorrect. There was no 800k job losses, closed airspaces, trade wars etc.

I'm guessing you live in GB. In NI tensions are higher due to it (unionist opposition to the protocol), shipping's often more expensive, or items won't be shipped to us (try putting a BT postcode into displate, or ordering batteries online), and it's more difficult for companies to operate on an all Ireland basis. We also have "only for Northern Ireland" items in shops which are items that can't legally be sold in Ireland or GB despite being identical, in a shop like Tesco that operates in all 3 areas, causing more difficulty to shops than necessary. Here we've only seen negatives, in an area with a complicated relationship with borders, where the single most effective thing we had to deal with that was a set of common laws and trade area (europe), and none of this was even considered by Westminster before the referendum.

Edit: forgot to mention this. Someone in my family has a vehicle in Ireland and in NI, we sort of live between the two countries, pre-brexit that was completely fine as their drivers licence was european so there was no issues, but post-brexit they cannot get insured in Ireland due to insurance companies refusing to give insurance to someone with a non-EU licence.