Cameron claims he defeated EU 'ambush' over British rebate

@ Volker Meyer

"What an ignorant, selfish, ruthless and hostile character."

Calm down my friend its all part of the very stupid game that is the EU. Your statement could refer just as easily to Merkel or Hollande. In fact did not Merkel recruit the Irish in the form of Mr Kenny to break an agreement from a previous meeting to reduce exhaust emissions from cars as Mercedes and BMW were not yet ready.

I can see that some of our EU partners see the UK as the awkward squad, which can all be solved with a referendum.

Volker Meyer - there is a saying in English "People who live in greenhouses should not throw stones".

See "Germany blocks car CO2 limit deal" - European Voice 27.06.13. Dr Merkel could teach David Cameron a few lessons on how to be a "selfish, ruthless" character. At least the British rebate does not directly and adversely affect my children’s' climate-changed future on this planet.

David Cameron is simply open and honest in his comments if overly blunt and undiplomatic. Don’t forget he has to come home and face an electorate that is overwhelmingly hostile to the political and redistributive elements of the EU. The loss of anymore of the rebate would be simply unacceptable to the public.

Remember Tony Blair gave up approximately £9.3bn from the UK rebate from 2007 – 2013 (and of course this loss carries on into the future) in return for reform of the CAP. Once the rebate had been reduced the discussions on CAP reform mysteriously stopped; seems that we are better Europeans than many.

As for the view that what would Europe look like if everyone acted the same way ? We just need to look at it today, each and every country in the EU is in it for what they can get out of it, to pretend otherwise is naive.

Cameron is a noble prime minister, as indeed was Don Quixote. He will go down well in history as the Sir Gawain of Britain. Did not Boudicca (nee Roberts) put up a sterling defence over the rebate? Thin one I fear will run and run - until Serbia and Turkey join the EU; then we can take our cricket bats and stumps and play sterling all by ourselves in splendid insularaty and win every game...

Cameron is more donkey than Don Quixote

More Sir Lie- a-lot than Sir Gawain

He comes across as a rude Little Englander - shout loudly and slowly and these damned European natives will just do as the British Empire tells them.

Do they not know that GCHQ is watching them all ?

The simple fact is that the UK is a net contributor even after the rebate. The French are the biggest reciepiant of monies from the CAP, but no one complains about that even though it is a far greater amount than we get, Germany get a rebate that is never threatened.

The rebate is supposed to balance out not getting any monies from the CAP so anyone who wants to stop our rebate I agree with, just as long as the CAP is completely revoked.

I wished every country had more Camerons !! Merkel and Co should be much stronger than they are and spend much less for all these "great projects" which turn out in paying 16 years long the household of Southern Europeans which come back later and say: sorry guys, all money went down the drain (buying houses around the world with our ty money) and we need even much more money from you.

Stop this practice of an European household ! Keep the common budget as small as possible !

Thank you Mr. Cameron for acting in the right direction !

We know it is all a game. But Mr Cameron plays with fire, and he may well one day regret what he said, or rather, how he said it. These problems are complex and cannot be reduced to easy slogans, but thumping one's chest to impress the electorate at home isn't going to procure friends to the UK in the other EU member states. And that creates a vicious circle, of course, and in my view the UK stands to lose much more than it gains. If the EU is such a bad choice, why has Croatia just celebrated loudly their adhesion? Which was, of course, completely downplayed by the british press, too busy in showing Mr Cameron's iron fist...

Croatia hasn't seen any subsidy from the USSR for over 20 years; and the EU is very different to the USSR - obviously. This slant on the debate (I am gracing it with this term for now though I think it is a very low level of debate) is totally unhelpful. Just because there are things wrong with the EU - and there are - you can't equate it with a totalitarian regime.
And maybe you want us to go down the road of freedom mark US where everyone is under surveillance - even so called allies.
The EU will be the better for informed, mature discussion and citizens who are not blindly pro or anti.

@ Barry Davies

“The simple fact is that the UK is a net contributor even after the rebate. The French are the biggest reciepiant of monies from the CAP, but no one complains about that even though it is a far greater amount than we get, Germany get a rebate that is never threatened.”

Barry Davies is correct, the UK gets a rebate and the French receive theirs in the form of a CAP payment. It's as broad as it is long.

@ Martina Weitsch

"Just because there are things wrong with the EU - and there are - you can't equate it with a totalitarian regime."

I am interested, in what manner would you fix things while keeping the voters or citizens onside. It may not be a totalitarian organisation but it certainly lacks most forms of true democratic accountability.

"The EU will be the better for informed, mature discussion and citizens who are not blindly pro or anti".

I think you may be a tad naive on that one! This is a full on blog where strong opinions are expressed.

Final point, how would you solve the language barrier problem. As I see it that is a deal breaker!

UK_skeptic you have no idea what you are talking about the UK is a net contributer we are not subsidised by the eussr we subsidise most of the nations in the eussr. Which part of that do you not understand the rebate is a very small amount, when compared to what we actually give away to the eussr. Yugoslavia stated it was independent in the cold war, it was still very much a USSR sattelite just like Czechoslavakia and Hungary if it had tried to break away it would have been invaded. The USSR was a totalitarian regime from its inception Leninism, not Stalinism, until its break up, which is waht will happen to the eussr as well. We can only hope it does not take as long to break up as the Warsaw Pact bloc did.

It doesn't matter though as parasites claiming back their rebate are for us just cheap dominions, easy to buy off so they keep quite after putting their rebate's money in their pockets, and go back silently where they belong, financed for doing nothing.

Augustin its simple maths a rebate is not the entire amount of moneies paid in The UK is a net contributer, as is Germany and only since 2005 france, the others are the parasite nations so I would be quiet about not giving a parastie nation any say whatsoever, there will be 25 cheap dominions, who take out not put in to the corruption ridden democratically deficient eussr. Perhaps you want them to go back to being silent as that is where they belong in your mind.

The four largest net contributors in per capita terms are Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy.
The UK contributes only 50% of the average per capita contribution of these nations.

The four largest net contributors as a proportion of GDP are Denmark, Italy, Germany, Finland.
The UK contributes only 63% of the average proportion of GDP contribution of these nations.

Is that really just?

@ Paolo
And you accuse me of having a rant! The points I have made in my posts are valid. Dispute them if you can but throwing all your toys out of the pram does you no favours. You need to raise the level of your game quite a bit.

And there was me thinking that people commenting on Euractiv would at least understand the basics.
GDP does have something to do with net contributions because you can express net contributions (and net receipts and all sorts of other things) either on a per capita basis (i.e. divide the amount by the number of people in the country) or on a % of GDP basis, or in absolute terms.
If you do it in absolute terms then all the small member states will seem to be paying in very little; but if you do it on either per capita or on % of GDP you have a way of comparing countries with very different populations and economies on a basis that is more comparable. So if a country h as half a million inhabitants and a small GDP you'd expect them to contribute little in absolute terms compared to a country with 80 million people and a large GDP; but how fair that is can only be determined if you have a comparator that puts the numbers on 'an equal footing' so to speak.

As to Barroso having a vote as a member of the general populace on the question of his appointment: that, too, is rubbish. The general public (i.e. citizens eligible and registered to vote) have a vote in terms of electing the national parliament/government and the European Parliament. The European Parliament appoints the Commission (including its president) on the nomination from the Council (i.e. the member states). In other words, Barroso would have been party to electing the government and parliament of his country (Portugal) and in that sense had a very remote personal influence on his nomination; and he would have had a vote in the European Parliament elections and thus a relatively remote influence on the appointment of the Commission.

If you think his influence (as a citizen, rather than as a politician with good connections in all sorts of places of power) had an influence over his appointment you see the democratic legitimacy of the Commission on a stratospheric level. I'm not a europhobe; but I don't think we have that level of democratic legitimacy.

So, everybody, do a little bit of homework before boring the rest of us with half digested drivel.

Barry, If you believe authoritarianism and totalitarianism are the same, you equally think Marocco, Jordan, or Malaysia have no difference with regims as Hitler's, Stalin's, Pol pot's or Kim Jong il's, which is another example of your telling capacity of distinction, as far as democracy is concerned.
For your information a regim is called authoritarian when its powers aren't, like in totalitarian regimes, based on an official "revealed truth" (but mostly on just this individual's private merits), diving in personality worshiping of a charismatic leader, suffering no pluralism on the political stage what so ever. On the other hand, autoritarian countries aren't either enjoying low corruption and popular enthousiasm as in totalitarian systems.

George just put it in a referendum for once in 3 centuary, if it is this democratically wanted to have "not anymore useful" unelected members of parliament or heads of State. We have already seen the will of the UK to obbey the european commission, as the British people were consulted for that matter in a referendum. Let's see once how it is like about whether unelected aristocrats can inherit for life seats in Westminster (your legistlator).

You can still contest referendums which have absolutly have taken place within regular procedures (not at all ever contested more than any other poll organised in England for the last centuary), this only proves your endavor for democracy even when it happens not to match your own personal opinions.

"History" and "truth" are so vast that not only foreigners can't grasp them fully, english people themselves do also happen sometimes to acknoledge it comprises a certain amount of doubts, even to their own understanding, but you are probably even superior to them all.

I have a question, has uk-skeptic morphed into Augustin Chamarbois ?!!!

For your information in any democracy the parliament is formed of an upper house and a lower house. In the United Kingdom both are in Westminster: the house of Lords and the House of commons. Some "foreigners" are also living for decades in parliementary monachies (sweaden, the netherlands, danmark...) they got rid of their house of Lords a long time ago.

I have no idea what you are talking about concerning the executive power (in practice it is definitly long in Downing street anyway), but were it only the legislative power, which the hereditary Lords openly accessed in Westminster, anyone assumes (if you bloating around about democracy calling everyone Pol pot)that you should be slightly more critical than say it's all right (especially if you are bloating around in the same post about the EU being totalitarian and commissioners some polpot junta).

In the name of Democracy, either you find it ok to have unelected heads of state, house of Lords or European Commissioners (not for life and not hereditary though) or you don't want such positions to be hold by unelected people (so far democracy IS quite simple). What you can't do in the name of democracy is coming up saying "we cope with unelected authorities in our country and try hard not to think they work in westminster, Buckingham Palace but for the rest we are fond of democracy and hate therefore the commission".

A good example for this is Baroness Ashton, your former leader of the House of Lord (such a democracy fighter as you can't possibly assume she wasn't as such given any powers) who wasn't more elected by the time she lead the upper house in Westminster, than she is now, in Brussels's Comission you suddently call the KGB! Come on, I'd be happy to disagree with you on solid arguments, not on obviously false assumptions.

It's all fine if you love such aristocratic settings for your political institutions (and traditional political culture), and there are probably a thousends of reasons also to not worship the European Commission, just don't get so shocked when it comes to institutions you may dislike bloating around about your unlimited faith in democracy and freedom but in your own country. You can keep your lessons.

If the UK as you say is ONLY NOW "phasing out the automatic peerage in the House of Lords" it's a good thing, you are progressing! But don't give to many lessons to others as far as democratic standards are concerned, because these reforms have long been achieved in the free world.

You will find Augustin that I am as much against Ashton being on the commission as all the other political failures who sit on it, I have always said that it should be disbanded and the members banned from any office, they are the epitome of the democratic deficiency endemic to the eussr. The structure of democracy is in no way dependent on the electorate, indeed the electorate who voted against the eussr constitution were completely ignored and the constitution renamed the lisbon treaty was forced on to us by the unelected commission. I am not surprised that you don't understand the meaning of the term executive powers because you don't understand the meaning of the word democracy.

Happy to see you are following Iwantout. Democracy doesn't give a toss whether Elisabeth II is highly popular or not (Delia Smith, David Beckham and Adele are also popular, Hitler was popular and also had masses and masses of crowds at his ceremonies) nor whether she is "known" or "less known" to have rather served her country in a particular way or another. She is unelected and holds power for life. Were she (or her predecessors / successors) different it wouldn't change anything anyway as a matter of Law. Democracy is much simpler. By the way who knows whether the Queen of England is or not corrupted as she is probably the only head of state in the democratic world who never could be accountable for her acts in a proper tribunal). I wonder why England has never held any referendum on the monarchy, the House of Lords etc, if these are such popular institutions and their access to British making of Law or privileges believed to be so insignificant?

Because the house of lords doesn’t ultimately make laws, that’s enough democracy for you apparently? Democracy doesn't either give a toss whether the House of Lords "can" more or less "suggest" or "delay" any process of LAW MAKING, ultimately or not ultimately. Let's also have the judges from strictly come dancing not "ultimately" able to stop legislation it would all be just as democratic, but if the European commission only PROPOSES laws to the European council of sovereign heads of government, this is suddenly Maoist junta sabotaging England’s pure democracy…).

To be honest I haven't followed all your dissertations about the nuances and sophistications according to which, basically life appointed and hereditary powers may in a form or another be in fact compatible with democracy specifically in the UK, but let's admit it is rather confusing to any understanding (British brains are still human reassure me)! Democracy is much more simple, it doesn't require to be English or otherwise to grasp the content of it (i.e. principles of universality, public control, representativness, equity and merit, all things that the Queen or the house of Lords precisely stand against, and I guess, work hard to keep it so).

Anyway the question isn't here whether the UK should or not have a Monarchy now. I really can't bother spending the slightest of my time on this matter. I just said it is weird to hear such poor criticisms from people like Barry concerning hereditary aristocratic powers in his own country when he calls Barosso Pol Pot because he is unelected! If he were part of this republican minority you seem to know so much about (in the absence of any proper campaign or referendum so far about the Monarchy), I may better understand his crusade against the European commission as the missionary of democracy he claims to be, but he apparently lives fine with hereditary functions for head of state or member of the house of Lords in his own country. That is not to pre judge what England should or shouldn't have. I'm just saying it is contradictory. I wonder why you assumed this was necessarily becoming a debate on whether England should, in 2013, keep the monarchy.

I have faith in my government elected by the people even if the party I voted for isn't in power, it is the ELECTED house of commons that has the power, I have no faith in the bunch of unelected commissioners, including Ashton to be of any value to the whole of europe with their lowest common denominator one size fits all edicts they after all are not elected and generally speaking would be unelectable in their own countries as they are all political failures. The house of lords has no executive power it can make recomendations but those recomendations are not enforcable, they simply are a sounding board to assist the house of commons, I realise that you need to clutch at straws to try to make out the eussr is democratic but yu really should try to understand what you are talking about before you attempt to do it. Neither the Queen nor the house of lords holds the powers you attribute to them, that is a fact.

Augustin Chamarbois goes on at length on the contaddictions of nationalist notions. Basically you cannot discuss anything with these Fascisti del cazzo because they hold a simple view of life: all foreigners are not to be trusted whether it's the Pope or Barroso it does not matter. Perhaps it might dawn on them that in history the Gotha desendants behaved themselves as monarchs (whether in England, Belgium or Germany etc) as did the only Italian Jew when he was prime minister. It is a sad reflection of History that it takes foreigners to sort the natives out, whether it was Claudius, William the Bastard, The Cymru Tudors or the Caledonian Jacobeans. Perhaps it should be put to them that the Forests of Germany where most of the Eurosceptic ancestry came from are still a very welcoming refuge for them should they choose to return there. Well integrated we are in Europe and we should rejoice in the colourful notions of some of these islanders.

Guys, it's true that Britain had a Magna Charta in the middle ages, habeas corpus and a functioning democratic Parliament before most European countries. Let's give appropriate credits. However, time flies and what was avant garde 400 years ago may be a bit passe' today. One of the problems with the Brits is that they think they can teach all the world lessons on democracy, freedom and the rule of law. And they see straws in everyone's eyes... which are there, but... you know the rest.

Isn't it time to understand the the Empire is no more, that Britain is an overcrowded island with little if any natural resources (OK some North sea oil), and that it would be much better off in a EU of still largely independent countries, than in splendid isolation?

The EU is unlikely to be that much affected if the UK leaves, I would not be so sure of the contrary. The game is clear for me: the UK MPs play the Europhobe chords to get votes, their PMs (Lab, Lib or Con) are not so stupid to leave (which can be done any time as you know, with just a 3-year notice), but use the above MPs to try to obtain better conditions in Brussels. But it's a dangerous game, because if a REAL referendum is done, the people will vote on emotions and not on reason (as always), and might take a decision they will much regret later.

Why, instead, don't we all work on what can be done to improve the Union, instead of just criticizing? The EU is undemocratic? OK, so what do you suggest to improve this? Otherwise it's just like a kid's tantrum ("it's not fair mummy, I do not want to play anymore").

Augustin Chamarbois

You are certainly right in that you “haven't followed all your dissertations about the nuances and sophistications according to which, basically life appointed and hereditary powers may in a form or another be in fact compatible with democracy specifically in the UK, but let's admit it is rather confusing to any understanding.” The lack of understanding on the Continent was actually part of my earlier posting.

Try to understand regardless of the form of words used by the Queen, ‘ My government’ etc., she actually has no power. She ‘invites’ the winner of an election to form a government and be a prime minister, this is simply another form of words, she has in fact no power or control over this. The arbiters are first and last the voters, hence our claim to be democratic. Indeed the monarchy has had little real the power for several centuries.

Clearly the function of the House of Lords is beyond you. Never, mind, as I and others have pointed out several times it is only a revising chamber. Many countries have committees or groups who offer advice, but as long as the final decision is made by the elected chamber then the composition of the advising chamber is of much less importance. The problem with the appointed and unelected Commission is of course that it is the sole organ of the EU that is able to initiate legislation. This makes it immeasurably more powerful than the House of Lords. Essentially you are trying to compare two vastly different bodies.

Part II of Richards post which again is an absolute classic.

The European Union is democratically controlled

Part II – The European Parliament

In Part I, we looked at the UK Representation of the European Commission’s answer to the charge that "Europe is undemocratic and that power lies with unelected, faceless bureaucrats," and dealt with the claim that the Council of Ministers conferred a democratic element to the European Union.

In this second part, we look at the European parliament, the only directly elected institution in the EU, and assess whether it confers any democratic element to the European Union.

All the Commission claims of the parliament is that “direct elections” have “created a body with a clear mandate from the electorate”. “MEPs”, it continues, “are accountable for their work on legislation and in scrutinising the other EU institutions”.

The use of the word “mandate” in this context is interesting. It is generally held to mean the sanction given by electors to members of parliament to deal with a question before the country. In other words, the candidates for the election set out their stalls, the electors look at the rival offerings and choose between them.

In national elections, this choice has some validity because the winning party – or coalitions – go on to form a government, which then (in theory at least) executes the voters’ mandate. But in the European parliament, this cannot happen.

For a start, the election does not produce a government, so the parliament has no power or authority to execute a mandate. It cannot, for instance, decide to repeal any EU laws – it cannot even initiate any laws. Those powers lie elsewhere. Therefore, the candidates – or the parties they represent – cannot produce manifestos in any meaningful sense of the word, as they have no means by which they can deliver on promises made.

Furthermore, in a parliament of 732 members, Britain elects only 78 MEPs, and then from different parties. But even if all were from one party and were clearly set on one course of action, they do not have the numbers to dictate terms. Even as a united bloc, they are swamped by the members from other member states.

Therein lies one of the central defects of the European parliament. The essence of a parliamentary system is that it is the core of a system of representative democracy, where the members go to parliament to represent their electors’ views (and safeguard their interests). But British MEPs cannot represent the interests of their electors – there are not enough of them to do so.

Furthermore – and this strikes at the heart of the concept of a supranational parliament – there is no commonality of interest in the peoples of the member states that would enable discrete blocs to emerge that could be adequately represented by a multi-national coalition of MEPs. In other words, there is no European demos and, without that, there can be no European democracy.

As for being “accountable for their work on legislation and in scrutinising the other EU institutions”, as the UK Representation of the European Commission claims, the suggestion that the EP is “accountable” begs the question of to whom? Without any meaningful manifestos, the electorates have no yardstick (metrestick?) against which to measure the performance of their supposed representatives, so there can be no way of holding representatives to account.

Further, due to the arcane voting system in the parliament, MEP voting performances in the main (plenary) sessions are most often not recorded. By far the bulk of votes are settled by a show of hands, which means there is no record kept of who voted for what. The average voter has no ready means of determining how their MEPs behaved.

But the ultimate indictment of the system is the way that legislation goes rolling on, even when a new parliament is elected. In the UK system, when parliament is prorogued prior to an election, all outstanding legislation – not yet passed – falls. Not so in the EP. Newly elected members can and do find themselves voting on the second or third readings of laws that were introduced to the previous parliament. The names and faces may have changed – the voters may have completely shifted their allegiances – but that makes absolutely no difference to the nature of the progression of legislation through the parliament.

Then there is the scrutiny of “other EU institutions”. In fact, there is no EP scrutiny of the Council, but the only scrutiny worth a light is, in any case, of the Commission. Here, commissioners do put themselves up for questioning by MEPs but, as recalled in an earlier Blog, anyone who has seen this done knows full well what a charade this is.

The strategy is well established and cynically transparent. First you have a sympathetic "chairperson", who is able to make sure the "right" people are picked to ask questions - and also allow for the token antis (just to prove they are "democratic"). Next you pack the committee with patsies who can be relied upon to "soft-ball" the commissioner. Then, you take questions in blocks of five, so the commissioner can "cherry-pick" the bits of the package he/she wants to answer.

You also impose a time limit on the whole session, and let the commissioner waffle on as long as he/she likes, until time runs out without any of the awkward questions from the token antis being answered. And, of course, supplementaries are either not allowed or severely curtailed. As a result of this, the questioning sheds light only on this issues which the commission wants to reveal, and no serious examination every takes place. Sessions end up as an opportunity for commissioners to propagandise or, as the case may be, evade accountability, while giving the appearance to the outsider of being open to scrutiny.

Some apologists for the EU, however, take a different tack when discussing the democratic legitimacy. They point to national parliaments, like Westminster, where most law is passed in the form of regulation, passed automatically through parliament without even a vote; where the government majority can ensure the passage of Bills without being troubled by the opposition.

But there is a difference. Individual MPs do represent their constituents and, if the nation really gets worked up about something, the House collectively can force a change. Even the mighty Thatcher government was forced to look again at the poll tax. Even at a minor level, with technical regulations that are causing problems, chances can be secured by the intervention of an MP, concerned at the loss of votes, or seeing the opportunity to attract some favourable publicity.

That difference tells the whole story. No matter what individual MEPs might think about an existing piece of EU law – and even if all 732 members wanted it changed (which is highly unlikely) – it cannot force a change. The unelected commission has the absolute right of initiative, and can ignore parliament completely.

This makes the parliament a toothless entity but – more to the point – its existence does not confer democracy on an essentially anti-democratic organisation.

The question isn't what Europeans may think of the British royal family, it is how the finicky freedom fighters of euro scepticism in Britain can worship so much Elisabeth II of England, legitimise all the aristocratic traditions and legal processes in their own country, as well as underestimate so much the power of the class system, to the point it never ever matters at all (whether in Law, in practice, culturally, for the symbol of it or in terms of tax spendings, everything is absolutly fine).

They find every argument to justify monarchy apparently but when it comes to Europe, they transform into passionate ayathollahs of unlimited democracy as if it were the alfa and omega of their reason for living, they screem out loud their faith in freedom as a midwest televangelist may talk about liberty and the american constitution. All their posts and contritions to hide this obvious dilema only make their claimed endavour for holy democracy seem partial, contradictory, disengenious and ultimatly just an adjustable value, only good at legitimising or not their own pulsions and personal opinions toward a "foreign" system depending on whether they fancy it or not.

Paolo said:-

"So the UK Queen has no power, eh? Interesting: she nominates the Prime Minister",

No she doesn't after the election the leader of the party which is most likely to form a government goes to the plce where by tradition he/she is asked to form a parliament the Monarch has no say on who is the leader of the prty or who is to be Prime minister

Paolo said "she speaks of "my government"",

So do I it is the legitimate government of my country not like the eussr which is unelected, and only has the parliament to try to show it is democratic.

Paolo said "she is one of the biggest landowners of the country, but she has no power".

Well you might think that money equals power but fortunately we don't live in America, the church is also one of the biggest landowners, and it also has no power, you clearly live in a different world to me if you think having money is the way to run a country.

Paolo said "Fine. You Brits must then be a right bunch of masochists to finance and fund an entire Royal Family, that has no power at all, just for ceremonial reasons".

Well for a start off we don't finance the entire Royal family Prince Charles for example gets his money from the Duchy of Cornwall, and as the Royal family attract millions by attracting foreigners to come to the country for their holidays and they pay tax as well it seems like a bargain to me.

Paolo said "Not to mention an entire House of Lords, with their wigs and robes and all. Talk about wasting the taxpayer's money: wasn't that one of the primary problems with the EU?"
By :
Paolo
- Posted on :
06/07/2013

The entire House of Lord pay for their own Robes only the law lords wear wigs which they pay for, they are actually paid far less than secretaries at the eussr, so for the job they do they are a bargain unlike the money grabbing people at the corruption riddled eussr.

George Mc a wonderful piece of writing but somehow I doubt if the europhile posters on here will understand it

The problem is not only the unelected commission but the constitution that was forced on to us despite the democratic rejection, simply renaming it the lisbon treaty didn't alter its content one iota.

The EP unfortunately is not in line with democratic parliaments, you have to belong to a group acceptable to the eussr, this drastically reduces choice of the parties and only the leader of one of these groups has anything like the ability to speak in the parliament, the others are severely restricted which means that true debate is stifled.

The so called competencies, i.e. the power which the commission and the EP continue to take for themselves, micro managing every area of life once taken can not be repatriated, so the amount of areas that should be dealt with at national level that are now being dealt with at this level are ever expanding and nation governments powers are becoming more restricted.

As the competencies of the eussr can not be negated within it the best option is to leave, and regain the power to govern your own country away from the corruption ridden democratically deficient eussr.

@ Paolo

“You say: "The UK should get out of the EU because it is undemocratic"
Surely, this is true for all other EU member states!”

Absolutely correct! However unlike Europeans we are not arrogant enough to preach to continental Europe what should be acceptable for them.

“The problem then becomes, what should change for this to become acceptably democratic? “

You Answer your own question below:

“But I suspect that the fundamental problem here is that many British people are not happy to delegate or share sovereignty, however small, to "foreigners"

It does tend to dilute just about everything that we believe in about our country. However most would accept that if we have a common market there needs to be common rules and penalties for abuse of same.

“They are still thinking that Britannia rules the waves, and the empire, and the natives should be done as they are told, for their own good.”

If you are going to sit on the sidelines and snipe at my country without understanding a bit more about our modern history then you will naturally make stupid, inaccurate and nonsensical statements like this. You should know that there has been no British Empire since around 1955/56. Therefore we are now some 57 years on with only people in their mid 70's plus who may know much about it.

“For this problem, there is no solution I am afraid, apart from exiting the EU (and taking the good and the bad of it). “

I have no faith in being able to sort the problems from within so I have therefore got to agree with your conclusion.

Right so if Hitler, Pol pot, Stalin, or Mugabe had been known to boost tourism, they would be democratic for you but the european commissionners they belong to the USSR...

My idea of democracy has nothing strange as such (though I feel very proud when you say you wouldn't find in my mouth much of the ordinary ready-to-think "idea of the world" you can hear about all day in every pub. I do try hard not to ever end up with such brainwashed opinions were they so much happening to be shared around me (neither do I ever read horoscopes) and this is also because I think in a democracy critical views are always preferable (whatever their value) than mainstreem common beliefs which actually happen most of the time to be based on false assumptions (you necessarily need to torn reality if you want something to be believed the same by masses of people).