3 ms·

Welcome to Brexit, which is basically a 50/50 split between people who are convinced the EU is bad and people who are convinced the EU is good. :) It might be

Welcome to Brexit, which is basically a 50/50 split between people who are convinced the EU is bad and people who are convinced the EU is good. :) It might be as simple as it being both.

andai 8y ago
I enjoy many of the benefits of membership but I am troubled by the structure. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/21/is-the-eu-really-run-by-unelected-bureaucrats/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/21/is-the-eu-reall... A popular claim by many supporters of the Leave campaign is that the EU is run by ‘unelected bureaucrats’. How much truth is there behind that claim? This claim mainly refers to the EU Commission: the EU’s executive body. It is true that the Commission President and the individual Commissioners are not directly elected by the peoples of Europe. So, in that sense, we cannot “throw the scoundrels out”. It is also true that under the provisions of the EU treaty, the Commission has the sole right to propose EU legislation, which, if passed, is then binding on all the EU member states and the citizens of these member states.
- pjc50 8y ago
  "if passed" is doing a lot of work there, because the legislation has to be approved by two democratic bodies. As opposed to the UK, which has one democratic house, an unelected one, and a (mostly) rubber-stamp unelected head of state.
  - Silhouette 8y ago
    One key difference in the UK is that the elected House can always both initiate legislation and then override objections from the unelected House eventually, if it chooses to do so. While in theory the monarch could also block a law by denying royal assent, if they ever actually did that, we'd probably be a republic the following year. There are plenty of reasonable criticisms of our system of government and democratic processes, but in this respect we're clearly better off than some systems, including the EU.
repolfx 8y ago
Well, as a Leave voter I'd say that's not quite an accurate representation. Clearly, 51% are sufficiently convinced it's bad to want to leave. The remainder are not made up of people who think it's good. Many of them also think the EU is bad or deeply flawed in various ways, but that either leaving is too risky due to the EU's stated guarantee of severe retaliation, or that the EU is bad but the UK could stay and fix it. In my own family we split down the middle. Two voted out, two to remain. The two remainers voted to stay only because they feared the economic consequences, and the promised recession that was supposed to follow any vote to leave (it didn't). Neither of them are especially keen on the EU, although they don't dislike it either. They didn't really think about it much before.
- billysielu 8y ago
  heh I agree with you, I was being diplomatic.
Silhouette 8y ago
I live near Cambridge, which was one of the most heavily pro-Remain areas of the country. However, it was my experience during honest private discussions before the referendum that the vast majority of participants thought the EU had both pros and cons, and often fell quite centrally on the in/out scale. Extreme views were rare, and usually based on a single overriding principle, such as supporting Remain because of a belief that Europe would inevitably go to war within our lifetimes without the EU to keep it together, or supporting Leave because of a belief that the EU is fundamentally flawed economically and so our trade policy should be more global in ways that aren't possible as a member.

Welcome to Brexit, which is basically a 50/50 split between people who are convinced the EU is bad and people who are convinced the EU is good. :) It might be as simple as it being both.

andai 8y ago

I enjoy many of the benefits of membership but I am troubled by the structure. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/21/is-the-eu-really-run-by-unelected-bureaucrats/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/21/is-the-eu-reall... A popular claim by many supporters of the Leave campaign is that the EU is run by ‘unelected bureaucrats’. How much truth is there behind that claim? This claim mainly refers to the EU Commission: the EU’s executive body. It is true that the Commission President and the individual Commissioners are not directly elected by the peoples of Europe. So, in that sense, we cannot “throw the scoundrels out”. It is also true that under the provisions of the EU treaty, the Commission has the sole right to propose EU legislation, which, if passed, is then binding on all the EU member states and the citizens of these member states.

pjc50 8y ago
"if passed" is doing a lot of work there, because the legislation has to be approved by two democratic bodies. As opposed to the UK, which has one democratic house, an unelected one, and a (mostly) rubber-stamp unelected head of state.
- Silhouette 8y ago
  One key difference in the UK is that the elected House can always both initiate legislation and then override objections from the unelected House eventually, if it chooses to do so. While in theory the monarch could also block a law by denying royal assent, if they ever actually did that, we'd probably be a republic the following year. There are plenty of reasonable criticisms of our system of government and democratic processes, but in this respect we're clearly better off than some systems, including the EU.

repolfx 8y ago

Well, as a Leave voter I'd say that's not quite an accurate representation. Clearly, 51% are sufficiently convinced it's bad to want to leave. The remainder are not made up of people who think it's good. Many of them also think the EU is bad or deeply flawed in various ways, but that either leaving is too risky due to the EU's stated guarantee of severe retaliation, or that the EU is bad but the UK could stay and fix it. In my own family we split down the middle. Two voted out, two to remain. The two remainers voted to stay only because they feared the economic consequences, and the promised recession that was supposed to follow any vote to leave (it didn't). Neither of them are especially keen on the EU, although they don't dislike it either. They didn't really think about it much before.

billysielu 8y ago
heh I agree with you, I was being diplomatic.

Silhouette 8y ago

I live near Cambridge, which was one of the most heavily pro-Remain areas of the country. However, it was my experience during honest private discussions before the referendum that the vast majority of participants thought the EU had both pros and cons, and often fell quite centrally on the in/out scale. Extreme views were rare, and usually based on a single overriding principle, such as supporting Remain because of a belief that Europe would inevitably go to war within our lifetimes without the EU to keep it together, or supporting Leave because of a belief that the EU is fundamentally flawed economically and so our trade policy should be more global in ways that aren't possible as a member.