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Yes. But that's a far cry from somebody in Brussels creating laws and policies.
by muninn_ 9y ago
Yes. But that's a far cry from somebody in Brussels creating laws and policies.
- s73ver 9y agoYou mean the European Parliament? The body to whom British citizens did in fact elect members to?
- lmm 9y agoNo, the European Commission, the body on which Britain's entire representation for many years was twice-disgraced former MP Peter Hamilton. Who voted for that?
- s73ver 9y agoPresumably the people who voted for Britain's ruling government at the time.
- lmm 9y agoThe people of Britain vote for their local MPs, who vote for a government, who appointed a European Commissioner. Theoretically that's a chain of accountability (and purely theoretically it's also possible for the European Parliament to dismiss the Commission), but it's too weak for democracy to apply in practice - Mandelson could not have held an office that the British public had any real control over. The British civil service has a similarly limited level of accountability which is exactly why they're required to be politically neutral - it's a reasonable arrangement for a technical regulatory body, but obviously unsuitable for general-purpose lawmaking. Unfortunately the EU has subtly slid from the former into the latter without reassessing whether its institutions and conventions were still suitable.