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If there were more such votes, especially in the EU with regard to policy - then Brexit would have never happened. There is quite a fundamental 'scope creep' g

If there were more such votes, especially in the EU with regard to policy - then Brexit would have never happened. There is quite a fundamental 'scope creep' going on in the EU, combined with unpopular views among the elite, which is causes massive tension that would not be there otherwise. A properly elected executive, more consensus WRT voters, and possibly more direct participation would be better not worse. All of the EU's many crises are self-inflicted, it's in permanent 'put out the fire mode' - which is consistent with pre-revolutionary situations. I'm not sure how well the paper applies to democracy.

switch007 8y ago
> If there were more such votes, especially in the EU with regard to policy - then Brexit would have never happened. Possibly. I think you're assuming people were interested enough in the EU to partake in such referenda, and that big influential campaigns would not have existed, and that had certain treated been voted down that people would still be content with the EU, and so on. And excluding other issues that possibly led to Brexit like nearly a decade of manufactured austerity. That seems too much of a leap to conclude that Brexit wouldn't have happened.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  You're right in that nobody cares about the EU. But they care about things like migration. Folks would vote en masse on clearly articulated issues, and if leaders took note of it, there'd be less calamity. Right now the Executive doesn't really care what Europeans think, because they assume they know best, it's appallingly clear. It happens everywhere there aren't proper checks and balances. FYI the treaty of Lisbon was shot down in a few referendums, and the leaders decided to go forward with some rather fundamental, 'constitutional' issues anyhow. As a result of failed referendums in some countries, they decided to skip referendums in the remaining countries because of the high likelihood of failure. Instead of truly reconsidering the legislation, they just went ahead and passed it. And now they are paying the price.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    As someone else pointed out, the EU is boring infrastructure: people don't care about power and sewers until they stop working. I'm not convinced that people intrinsically "care" about migration, rather that they have a set of material problems (employment, wages, housing, public services) and have been told to blame migration for them. And to the extent that they do care, how can they care about the "flow" rate of migration, which is impossible to see except in statistics; what they care about is the "level". This is far scarier because that's how you get ethnic cleansing.
    - agsdfgsd 8y ago
      >I'm not convinced that people intrinsically "care" about migration Lots of people do. For many people it genuinely is about maintaining the nations their ancestors spent hundreds of generations creating. Nations, not states. Somalians can never be part of the German nation, no matter how long they have citizenship in the state called Germany. You can't spend decades telling white people how evil colonialism was, and then say "by the way you have to allow your native land to be colonized and if you say no you are an evil racist and we'll throw you in jail". People have a natural instinct for fairness.
      - vidarh 8y ago
        Your idea of nations "their ancestors spent hundreds of generations creating is historical fiction. A hundred generations is around 2500 years. Look at some maps of migrations in Europe over the last 2500 years, and the idea of people mostly staying put over that time frame is demolished. Modern English is a West Germanic language, coming from the Germanic tribes that pushed aside the Celts, for example. The reason it doesn't sound more like Dutch and German being the Norman invasion and subsequent exchange with the French. Modern German on the other hand isn't closer to Dutch or Danish than it is because High German from the South has supplanted the Low German native to Northern Germany, parts of the Netherlands and Southern Denmark as political shifted in the last 100-200 years. And from the UK at least, it is clear that the people who care most are the people who have the least experience with it. It's about fear, where origin is a proxy.
tormeh 8y ago
>There is quite a fundamental 'scope creep' going on in the EU How can you scope creep from "ever closer union"? The scope was as big as it could get already. Now, that passage has been removed at the behest of Cameron, but I can't remember any statement constricting the scope, so now the scope is simply undefined, I guess.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  'ever closer union clause' is not tantamount to arbitrary Federalization of powers. It's mostly a strategic view. Change of power requires change in law, which happens every now in terms of treaties, the last of which, would have been roundly elected by the plebes went on to be put into motion anyhow. Arbitrary scope creep is happening in some fronts, for example, when there is a decision to be made about gray areas of federal/nation overlap in the course, the EU Courts rule on it, and generally rule in their own favour (i.e. they have jurisdiction, not the nation state) which is ridiculous because the courts are supposed to rule on the law, not decided on their own jurisdiction. If there is a political union, as many economists have indicated must happen in order for the Euro to survive - there will be a literal civil war. What you saw in France with the giletes ... imagine that about 20x bigger but in most countries. It will break down. There needs to be reasonable reforms on a bunch of things.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    What sort of reasonable reforms, given the fundamental freedoms?
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      The 'fundamental freedoms' are dogmatic and ideological, they need to be brought into question, or at least the interpretation of them, just as a start. The entire EU political landscape has been turned upside down and yet still the EU is not reacting.
  - vidarh 8y ago
    > 'ever closer union clause' is not tantamount to arbitrary Federalization of powers. It's mostly a strategic view. "Ever closer union" was a compromise, because those who favour full federalisation know it would be impossible for some member states to accept. The idea of a full "United States of Europe" been there from at least the early 19th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe
pjc50 8y ago
> All of the EU's many crises are self-inflicted, it's in permanent 'put out the fire mode' This is doubly true of the UK, no? Especially now with the self-inflicted decision to cut ourselves off and impose a registration/visa requirement on EU nationals which is going to result in a corresponding one on British nationals in the EU.

switch007 8y ago

> If there were more such votes, especially in the EU with regard to policy - then Brexit would have never happened. Possibly. I think you're assuming people were interested enough in the EU to partake in such referenda, and that big influential campaigns would not have existed, and that had certain treated been voted down that people would still be content with the EU, and so on. And excluding other issues that possibly led to Brexit like nearly a decade of manufactured austerity. That seems too much of a leap to conclude that Brexit wouldn't have happened.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
You're right in that nobody cares about the EU. But they care about things like migration. Folks would vote en masse on clearly articulated issues, and if leaders took note of it, there'd be less calamity. Right now the Executive doesn't really care what Europeans think, because they assume they know best, it's appallingly clear. It happens everywhere there aren't proper checks and balances. FYI the treaty of Lisbon was shot down in a few referendums, and the leaders decided to go forward with some rather fundamental, 'constitutional' issues anyhow. As a result of failed referendums in some countries, they decided to skip referendums in the remaining countries because of the high likelihood of failure. Instead of truly reconsidering the legislation, they just went ahead and passed it. And now they are paying the price.
- pjc50 8y ago
  As someone else pointed out, the EU is boring infrastructure: people don't care about power and sewers until they stop working. I'm not convinced that people intrinsically "care" about migration, rather that they have a set of material problems (employment, wages, housing, public services) and have been told to blame migration for them. And to the extent that they do care, how can they care about the "flow" rate of migration, which is impossible to see except in statistics; what they care about is the "level". This is far scarier because that's how you get ethnic cleansing.
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    >I'm not convinced that people intrinsically "care" about migration Lots of people do. For many people it genuinely is about maintaining the nations their ancestors spent hundreds of generations creating. Nations, not states. Somalians can never be part of the German nation, no matter how long they have citizenship in the state called Germany. You can't spend decades telling white people how evil colonialism was, and then say "by the way you have to allow your native land to be colonized and if you say no you are an evil racist and we'll throw you in jail". People have a natural instinct for fairness.
    - vidarh 8y ago
      Your idea of nations "their ancestors spent hundreds of generations creating is historical fiction. A hundred generations is around 2500 years. Look at some maps of migrations in Europe over the last 2500 years, and the idea of people mostly staying put over that time frame is demolished. Modern English is a West Germanic language, coming from the Germanic tribes that pushed aside the Celts, for example. The reason it doesn't sound more like Dutch and German being the Norman invasion and subsequent exchange with the French. Modern German on the other hand isn't closer to Dutch or Danish than it is because High German from the South has supplanted the Low German native to Northern Germany, parts of the Netherlands and Southern Denmark as political shifted in the last 100-200 years. And from the UK at least, it is clear that the people who care most are the people who have the least experience with it. It's about fear, where origin is a proxy.

tormeh 8y ago

>There is quite a fundamental 'scope creep' going on in the EU How can you scope creep from "ever closer union"? The scope was as big as it could get already. Now, that passage has been removed at the behest of Cameron, but I can't remember any statement constricting the scope, so now the scope is simply undefined, I guess.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
'ever closer union clause' is not tantamount to arbitrary Federalization of powers. It's mostly a strategic view. Change of power requires change in law, which happens every now in terms of treaties, the last of which, would have been roundly elected by the plebes went on to be put into motion anyhow. Arbitrary scope creep is happening in some fronts, for example, when there is a decision to be made about gray areas of federal/nation overlap in the course, the EU Courts rule on it, and generally rule in their own favour (i.e. they have jurisdiction, not the nation state) which is ridiculous because the courts are supposed to rule on the law, not decided on their own jurisdiction. If there is a political union, as many economists have indicated must happen in order for the Euro to survive - there will be a literal civil war. What you saw in France with the giletes ... imagine that about 20x bigger but in most countries. It will break down. There needs to be reasonable reforms on a bunch of things.
- pjc50 8y ago
  What sort of reasonable reforms, given the fundamental freedoms?
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    The 'fundamental freedoms' are dogmatic and ideological, they need to be brought into question, or at least the interpretation of them, just as a start. The entire EU political landscape has been turned upside down and yet still the EU is not reacting.
- vidarh 8y ago
  > 'ever closer union clause' is not tantamount to arbitrary Federalization of powers. It's mostly a strategic view. "Ever closer union" was a compromise, because those who favour full federalisation know it would be impossible for some member states to accept. The idea of a full "United States of Europe" been there from at least the early 19th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe

pjc50 8y ago

> All of the EU's many crises are self-inflicted, it's in permanent 'put out the fire mode' This is doubly true of the UK, no? Especially now with the self-inflicted decision to cut ourselves off and impose a registration/visa requirement on EU nationals which is going to result in a corresponding one on British nationals in the EU.