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> If 30% are voted out then that suggests more (perhaps 60%?) were at risk of being voted out to the point where it would influence their decisions. No, that's

> If 30% are voted out then that suggests more (perhaps 60%?) were at risk of being voted out to the point where it would influence their decisions. No, that's not how elections in the UK work > Which is again a big improvement in accountability over what MEPs face. MPs get to be voted out by their local parties MEPs in Ireland get to be voted out by the voters without the failures of the undemocratic FPTP system That's not a problem with the EU, it's a problem with the individual countries. Just like the power resting with the council (like nominating head of commission. The rest of the commissioners are more like US Secretarys who are nominated by the president and approved by congress) This is a failure with the nation states, similar to the days when states appointed electoral college directly from their senate rather than via popular vote.

lmm 6y ago
> No, that's not how elections in the UK work Incumbents losing 100% of elections would not be a sign of a healthy democracy; the obvious candidate for an ideal target would be 50% (given that the post-2010 UK is a de facto two-party system). So 30% is not so bad relative to that. > MEPs in Ireland get to be voted out by the voters without the failures of the undemocratic FPTP system Ireland's 13 MEPs are democratically accountable (though even then, an individual voter must split their attention 13 ways). The other 692 aren't. > That's not a problem with the EU, it's a problem with the individual countries. Just like the power resting with the council (like nominating head of commission. The rest of the commissioners are more like US Secretarys who are nominated by the president and approved by congress) So what's the practical fix? The EU passed a lot of unpopular measures for which no-one was visibly accountable (and it really doesn't matter if there was some legal mechanism for the UK to avoid implementing them, given that actually exercising any such mechanism was outside the Overton window of UK politics). Leaving the EU was a crude sledgehammer that's had a lot of collateral damage, but how else could UK voters have got away from laws written by party cronies and voted on by other party cronies? The EU's lack of accountability is not a superficial flaw that they're working on fixing; it's deep-rooted and it's hard to escape the idea that the powers that be like it that way.

lmm 6y ago

> No, that's not how elections in the UK work Incumbents losing 100% of elections would not be a sign of a healthy democracy; the obvious candidate for an ideal target would be 50% (given that the post-2010 UK is a de facto two-party system). So 30% is not so bad relative to that. > MEPs in Ireland get to be voted out by the voters without the failures of the undemocratic FPTP system Ireland's 13 MEPs are democratically accountable (though even then, an individual voter must split their attention 13 ways). The other 692 aren't. > That's not a problem with the EU, it's a problem with the individual countries. Just like the power resting with the council (like nominating head of commission. The rest of the commissioners are more like US Secretarys who are nominated by the president and approved by congress) So what's the practical fix? The EU passed a lot of unpopular measures for which no-one was visibly accountable (and it really doesn't matter if there was some legal mechanism for the UK to avoid implementing them, given that actually exercising any such mechanism was outside the Overton window of UK politics). Leaving the EU was a crude sledgehammer that's had a lot of collateral damage, but how else could UK voters have got away from laws written by party cronies and voted on by other party cronies? The EU's lack of accountability is not a superficial flaw that they're working on fixing; it's deep-rooted and it's hard to escape the idea that the powers that be like it that way.