Many many words have been written about how undemocratic the EU is, and its lack of accountability and responsiveness to its citizens and local demands – so I’m not going to talk about that. Instead I’ll just ask if anyone else has noticed how many of the remain campaign seem to actually see this lack of democracy as a feature? if the EU over rules a national government or local body to implement a policy they agree with then that’s a plus for the EU and who care what the people want. Of course no one is immune from that sort of thing, I’ve been quite glad on occasion myself when the EU has over turned some governmental action I think particularly stupid, but then even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The remainers though seem to be particularly in favour of the EU over ruling more local bodies, as this letter to the Guardian shows. All of the laws that they’re so keen on that have come from the EU, could just as easily have originated in national Government. There’s nothing at all to stop any Government looking at what some other country has done, or a post exit Britain looking at the EU, and going “hey that’s a jolly good idea, let’s do the same sort of thing”. It does in fact happen all the time in matters of public health. Some of the Eu regulations cited in fact originated from UK law and got weakened and made more bureaucratic as they went through the Eu. So what’s actually going on is the remainers are saying “I don’t like the current Government, but I quite like the people currently running the EU – so I want the EU to trample over the democratic will of the people in my country to implement the policies I like”.
I may have a bad friend group, but many of the arguments I’ve seen in my social circle from people who wish to remain in the EU basically boil down to “It will stop the Tories”. This to me seems an incredibly short-sighted view to take, as it’s quite possible that in a generation or two (or less) the powers that be in Brussels may be far less fluffy than the Tories currently in Westminster. Supporting a less democratic and accountable structure of Government just because it currently agrees with you more than your local Government – doesn’t seem terribly wise. In a similar way I can’t fathom the Scots who fought tooth and nail to free themselves from a remote an unaccountable Westminster in favour of an even more remote an unaccountable Brussels, just on the grounds that current incumbents agree with them more, and that somehow justifies ignoring the views and will of the local population. Historically this sort of centralization of power doesn’t have a terribly good track record. It does though seem that an awful lot of people want to sacrifice democratic accountable local representation in favour of ever more remote unaccountable elites – just because they currently don’t agree with the local and agree with the remote power. To repeat myself this is a very short-sighted point of view when deciding the course of a country for generations to come and the historical precedent of giving up local power in such a way really isn’t good.
