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Just found and read this over at 'The Public Discourse'
Why Britons Should Vote to Leave the European Union by Dr. Dominic Burbidge
Dominic Burbidge is Departmental Lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford, and Researcher at Oxford’s Department of Politics & International Relations.
Ending quote:
"This is the EU as an anti-democratic machine. It is not anti-democratic due to any lack of institutional checks and balances but due to its commitment to separating a notion of citizenry from that of peoplehood, in order to ensure that the legislative process remains ultimately unaccountable."
I'm very tempted just to copy and paste the whole thing here.
Please read it.
Then if anyone knows better, please counter his points.
TLDR Quotes:
"For the purposes of this essay, let us take the very weakest possible definition of democracy: a system of government in which, if 100 percent of citizens (politicians and voters alike) believe a law should not be introduced, it is not introduced."
"If an alien dropped into your garden and asked you what type of government you had, it would mean you could tell him yours is democratic. If he then asked to go there, you could take him to the sovereign institution that follows that rule.
But this is not the case in the EU."
"The main institution through which a people, when in unanimity, can affect political outcomes democratically is the legislature. That is why in Britain we used to be able to say that parliament was sovereign...
In the EU, the corresponding institution would be the European Parliament. However, the democratic criterion falters on three counts."
"First, not everyone in Europe knows that it exists... After we get past that hurdle, we see that the average voter turnout for representatives to the European Parliament has been in constant decline across the EU as a whole, year after year. For the most recent 2014 election, average turnout was 43 percent. For British citizens, it was a paltry 36 percent."
"But let us assume that turnout in European parliamentary elections is always 100 percent in the UK, and that everyone who votes wants to comply with parliamentary procedures for passing legislation. We then run into the second issue: UK representatives will (rightly) fill only 73 of the 751 seats in the European Parliament (10 percent). So even if all Britons strongly disagree with proposing a law, they still have very little chance of influencing the outcome."
"So let us also assume that unanimous agreement among all British representatives can manage to sufficiently influence parliament. We then run into the third problem: the European Parliament does not have the power to introduce legislation anyway."
"The European Parliament only processes legislation proposed by the EU Commission. As John Pinder and Simon Usherwood explain, “The Treaty of Rome gave the Commission the principal right of legislative initiative, that is, to propose the texts for laws to the Parliament and the Council.” In his book The Engines of European Integration, Mark Pollack explains that this was based “on the plausible assumption that the Commission, like the members of US Congressional committees, is a preference outlier with a strong preference for further [EU] integration.” Because there was fear that a European Parliament could strangle the agenda of integrating European states, it was deemed safer to have the EU Commission set what legislative proposals should be debated."
"So if I say to the alien in my garden that I live in a democracy, I am not so sure where I should take him to prove it. How about I take him to the EU Commission?"
"he EU Commission is made up of twenty-eight members, and—following the Treaty of Nice—only one is from the UK. Now suppose I compromise and say, well this is our one, so he (Jonathan Hill) is my leader? This would not work so well, either. Upon taking office, Mr. Hill actually had to solemnly declare that he would think and act fully independently of the UK’s interests—a requirement that seeks to ensure that the Commission works in the general interest of the EU. So legislative proposals ultimately come from a body for which all members must solemnly declare their support in furthering the EU project. Members of the European Parliament only debate what legislation is set by the Commission, and the Commission does not allow its members to disagree with any fundamentals."
"Many would argue that my notion of “us” or “the people” is wrong. What I should be asking is whether 100 percent of EU citizens can affect whether a law is introduced and passed. Yes, indeed: it is this redefinition of the people that is required by the EU project. Because sovereignty is being transferred gradually to EU institutions, the institutions can only remain democratic if the notion of “we the people” conforms.
What is meant by “the people” therefore matters most of all. It must come before any debate on particular EU policies that one may or may not like. "
"As things stand, the EU Commission may choose a policy because it is in the interests of the EU’s commitment to ever closer union, regardless of the interests of any member state or particular EU citizens. Unanimity among EU citizens is not sufficient grounds for not introducing such legislation in the European Parliament.
The French theorist Pierre Manent is most adept at explaining what this commitment to transitory peoplehood means in his book A World beyond Politics? There he states:
It seems that democracy, in the European construction, is striving to escape the sad necessity of having a body. So it gives itself a body without limits, this Europe with indefinite expansion, a Europe defined paradoxically as an indefinite expansion."
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Originally Posted by Galant
