Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

The reality is the UK at best getting to realign with the Single Market. This will be in the form of enhanced cooperation.

"Representative Democracy as a name comes from having a representative to act for you in the legislature. It does not actually mean that that legislature must be perfectly representative of the national votes. That is a contortion of the name."

But commentary on the Copenhagen criteria "Functional democratic governance requires that all citizens of the country should be able to participate, on an equal basis, in the political decision making at every single governing level, from local municipalities up to the highest, national, level." This would surely imply that the parliament must be representative of the electorate, otherwise it could not meet the criteria highlighted

We're at risk of spinning off into a debate about the merits and demerits of competing electoral systems. A fascinating discussion, no doubt, but one for a different thread.

The truth is that their are almost always trade-offs involved here. Perfect proportionality is just one criterion against which we can measure an electoral system, and it's not obvious that that should be the sole, or even the primary, criterion of democratic legitimacy. For one thing, if it's achieved by paying attention to the number of seats each party has, that often comes at the expense of allowing the voters to choose which person will represent them. Thus the interests of parties may be given more attention than the interests of voters; there's an obvious problem of democratic legitimacy there. For another, there's a widespread view that an excessively proportional parliament can produce paralysis or instability; that's often cited as one of the reasons for the failure of the Weimar constitution in Germany, and it's the reason why Germany today does not give proportional representation to the candidates of a party that secures less than 5% of the national vote. Then you have countries with directly-elected officials (like the President of the French Republic); proportionality is obviously impossible there, where only one candidate can win and all the others must lose.

Etc, etc. The point is, there is no absolute answer as to the optimal electoral system. Among the countries that are generally accepted to be democracies, some of them must have electoral system that are seen as less democratic. Why should "some" not include the UK and the US? Having an electoral system which is less democratic than Ireland's, however, does not mean that those countries are not democracies.

The other point is that the EU is absolutely not going to set itself up as the arbiter of electoral systems, and start dictating to its members and candidates which electoral systems they must adopt in their domestic institutions. And we are especially not going to do that in a way that rules out electoral systems that, for 50 years, we have been perfectly happy to accept.

Too many people in the UK — mostly remainers — look to the EU to cure the weaknesses in the UK's political culture. It can't and won't happen, and the view that it might is a delusion that we in the EU should not encourage. The UK has to sort this out for itself.

@Peregrinus "We're at risk of spinning off into a debate about the merits and demerits of competing electoral systems. A fascinating discussion, no doubt, but one for a different thread."

Agree, and I have to hold my hand up for my part in perhaps leading off-topic.

However, my point wasn't necessarily that the EU would find fault with some aspects of the UK political and legislative framework ( although I gave a few examples and could add more, for instance the necessity of swearing an allegiance to a monarch disbars some republicans from sitting in parliament), where , if they were so minded, the Eu could find fault . But rather, that the EU had to examine the democratic and legislative framework of the applicant country , in this case the UK. and it couldn't do so in 10 seconds as was suggested by one poster.

Here are two extracts from two different application negotiations

2.1.1 Democracy

In xxx, polarisation,.. The proper functioning of xxx  institutions has been affected by political volatility, government instability and tensions 

within the ruling majorities, stalling decision-making processes and reform implementation.

2.1.1 Democracy

In February 2022, a set of new election laws was adopted, including the framework Law on election of Members of Parliament, Law on election of President, Law on local elections, Law on financing of political activities, and the amended

So for an applicant ( or candidate kip this process as EU prefer) country the EU has an obligation to make that assessment and recommend and insist on changes as it sees fit. , as hopefully the two extracts above, from two different countries, indicate.

It is worth recognising that new applicant countries in many way face tougher examination then did earlier member countries.

Finally, as regards any single country holding up accession talks, Bulgaria held up all accession talks for Montenegro for over two years.( it could have been more, I cannot remember now). So Greece could hold up UK membership talks, if it so decided. Whether it would do so is probably down to whether it feels that might facilitate, or not, a deal on the Parthenon marbles.

funny how parties can drastically discriminate in terms of background of candidates, but not gender.

The irony is that they can and do discriminate on the grounds of gender - both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have rules under which (I think) half of all "winnable seats" are subject to a requirement to have all-woman shortlists for candidate selection, mean that a man cannot be selected as the Labour (or LD) candidate in that seat.

This is of course a form of affirmative action. The object is to increase the representation of women in politics and the policy has been very successful in doing that — 51% of Labour MPs, and 64% of Liberal Democrat MPs, are women. But it clearly does involve discrimination the ground of sex.

(I've read that Labour will not be using all-woman shortlists at the next election because, now that women are not under-represented in the cohort of Labour MPs, there are questions about the legality of a discriminatory policy of affirmative action. If that's correct, presumably the Lib Dems are facing the same issue.)

Seriously, Kermit, Ireland, of all countries, know the difference between (a) not being independent, and (b) being a Member State of the European Union. If you have to conflate the two on a discussion board where literally everybody will spot how bogus that is, it just underlines the complete intellectual bankruptcy of the Brexit project.

Literally on line 1 you're talking nonsense. We have more control over monetary policy today than we had before we joined the EU, when we had none at all. Monetary policy was determined by the UK, with no input from us.

Ditto with migration. Before we joined the EU, our migration policy was a mirror of the UK's, which was necessary to sustain the common travel area. The UK's migration policy was determined with zero input from us.

Your analysis of Ireland's pre-EU situation treats us as having a degree of control over our affairs that anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with modern Irish history knows simply did not exist. By contrast, your analysis of our current situation treats us as having no participation in EU decisions, no agency in Brussels, and no influence. You present "Brussels" as imposing things on us without bothering to enquire what role we played in the Brussels decision, because you cannot admit that we play any role at all in EU decisions. Again, this ignores easily observable reality.

Just look at the issue of partition. For fifty years, while we were independent but not in the EU, partition was one of Ireland's major policy focuses, and the UK was able to — and did — completely ignore our wishes and interests in a matter of existential significance to us. Fifty years of Irish government pressure and campaigning about partition secured precisely nothing. But when the issue became live in the context of Brexit, the UK was not able to do this. Because we acted in conjunction with fellow-Member States, the UK could not ignore us any more — which came as something of a shock to a lot of backward-looking Brexiters. The whole course of Brexit was — and still is — shaped by Ireland's concerns about the Irish border; something that would have been unthinkable in the days when we were independent out side the EU. What this shows is that EU membership hasn't diminished our control over our affairs; it has enhanced it.

Irish people who talk like you are the mirror of the madder fringe of UK brexiters. The difference is that the Brexiters hark back to a degree of imperial control and world influence that the UK did once have. The Irish "independence" that you look back to never existed, and never could exist.

As usual with wannabee fascist dictators, the foot soldiers shouting in the streets will be the first sacrificed should their fascist dreams come true. Nazis eat their own.

We have all got it completely wrong apparently. The UK economy is doing much better post Brexit than the EU and Brexit has saved the UK from nasty nationalism "the UK has not witnessed the rise of the nasty nationalism seen across the Channel."

Who knew Brexit was such as success