A Political Thread

[Deleted member 53362]

Do we vote for our own Prime Minister? I certainly didn't.


When did they vote to leave? They voted down the Lisbon/Nice treaties, and then voted for them after re-negotiation of the terms. It's no different to amending bills in the normal democratic procedure.

We voted in the party bassed on its leader among other things, the EU president is a appointed and no one outside the club has a say.

No one got a vote on the Lisbon treaty, France and Holland rejected the constitution so they call it a treaty because no one gets a referendum on treaties. Very under hand and very undemocratic.

 

[j'nuh]

The majority did I guess.

Tories picked Cameron to lead them, and Tories got the most votes. Hence Cameron as PM.
EPP picked Juncker to lead them, and EPP got the most votes. Hence Juncker as President.

We voted in the party bassed on its leader among other things, the EU president is a appointed and no one outside the club has a say.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2014#European_People.27s_Party

No one got a vote on the Lisbon treaty, France and Holland rejected the constitution so they call it a treaty because no one gets a referendum on treaties. Very under hand and very undemocratic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7290871.stm

 

[Deleted member 53362]

Tories picked Cameron to lead them, and Tories got the most votes. Hence Cameron as PM.
EPP picked Juncker to lead them, and EPP got the most votes. Hence Juncker as President.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2014#European_People.27s_Party


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7290871.stm

Oh yeah remember getting a vote on that....

 

[j'nuh]

Your problem is with your government that decided that it wasn't worthy of a referendum. But there's nothing undemocratic about your elected MPs making decisions via Parliament.

 

[Deleted member 53362]

Not true, Blair was going to have a referendum but the French and Dutch no vote made it null and void but because they had given the German's sorry the EU the wrong answer the EU simply pushed though a treaty that because it was a treaty didn't need a referendum to OK it. Yes I have some problem with the ruling Labour party at the time for just nodding in agreement with the EU but then Blair had his eyes on the top job but my biggest problem is with the very underhanded way the EU dealt with some very obvious unhappiness with their project. If the Russians had pulled something like that we would have all been calling for more sanctions against Russia (which hopefully we can drop once we are out the EU)

 

[j'nuh]

What do you mean they pushed through the treaty? All of the countries had to ratify it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_Lisbon#At_a_glance

 

[Deleted member 53362]

But they didn't have to get a referendum on it because they voters in France and Holland had said no and the UK was about to follow suit. So it was " right because you lot (the separate states) cannot convince your population what is good for them we will make a treaty that they don't have a say and you can all sign it oh and by the way top jobs will be given to any failed former leaders you have knocking around and their wives too if you want it

 

[j'nuh]

But they didn't have to get a referendum on it because they voters in France and Holland had said no and the UK was about to follow suit. So it was " right because you lot (the separate states) cannot convince your population what is good for them we will make a treaty that they don't have a say and you can all sign it oh and by the way top jobs will be given to any failed former leaders you have knocking around and their wives too if you want it

1. Referendums are crap anyway. Intelligent debates get dragged down to the lowest common denominator because most in this country are politically apathetic and everything needs to be simplified. The only advantage of direct democracy, to let the decision be representative of the people, doesn't even hold if half the people don't turn up. For something as complicated as the Lisbon Treaty, a referendum was not right IMO.

2. Can you prove your claim?

 

[Deleted member 53362]

So people cannot be trusted to make the right decision so the powers that be make it for them? Sorry that's not democracy.

2. If you have iplayer watch a program about us and the EU. Everyone was on it including the minister who had the job of defending the treaty after it had been signed...his comments are worth a listen to everyone before they vote.

 

[j'nuh]

So people cannot be trusted to make the right decision so the powers that be make it for them? Sorry that's not democracy.

It's indirect democracy, and we use it to make the vast majority of our political decisions...

 

[Deleted member 53362]

It's indirect democracy, and we use it to make the vast majority of our political decisions...

OK this is what happened: the EU wanted a constitution for greater powers to be given to the EU. So the government's of each country said OK fine but because the change was so great and because it's a constitutional change we have to, by law, hold a referendum on it.

So Tony Blair in a famous speech said "let battle be joined!" And called for referendum. Unfortunately for the EU the Dutch and French said no in there referendum so the whole thing was dead in the water, direct democracy had given the wrong answer so what did the EU do? Well it came up with the Lisbon treaty, this was everything that had been in the constitution but because it was a treaty the government didn't need to hold a referendum! Hey presto! Indirect politics saves the day.

And the lesson learned? If the general public don't know what's good for them, just ignore it and put whatever they didn't want in anyway!

 

[goat]

First post on the forum, and I suppose it shouldn't really be in the politics section, but anyway.

I'm actually sitting on the fence about Brexit, but on the subject of referendums, I really don't see why people see them as such a necessity.

It's almost impossible for any member of the public to make a truly informed decision about this - we simply don't have reliable data or analysis in the media, without which I can't see how anyone can really know what the pros and cons will be. Even if we did have this sort of information available, how many members of the public are actually going to sit down, read, listen to and digest economic, political, analysis about this before making their decision? Very few i'd imagine given that we all have to get on with our day jobs.

This is exactly the sort of decision that we elect MPs to make - people who have the time, and resources to actually make an "informed" decision, and tbh it's almost a cop out on their part that they would delegate this to the public when it is their job to do this for us.

 

[Deleted member 53362]

Wow! And so democracy dies

 

[goat]

When was it ever alive?

The only country I'm aware of to regularly use referenda is Switzerland....and that hasn't always worked out for the best

 

[Deleted member 53362]

We don't use them much either, it's taken 40 years for this one

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

When was it ever alive?

The only country I'm aware of to regularly use referenda is Switzerland....and that hasn't always worked out for the best

We have 'em here, had one for Lisbon too! It got through on the second attempt, a second attempt was probably needed though considering the canvassing campaign for the first one was hijacked by parties trying to become relevant and spreading misinformation.

 

[ncurd]

Last referendum was less than a decade ago on the way we vote. We had a choice of broken system (FPTP) and a slightly less broken one (AV). The general public is thier vast wisdom chose to keep the more broken one stopping any debate about political reform for a generation. It also allowed the Tories to scupper house of lords reform as well.
Well done we were on the cusp on a generally good for democracy revolution in the way things work and we chose to keep it the same. *sacastically applauds*


And yeah sorry j'nuh has you on this we live in a 'representive democracy' not a 'direct democracy' we don't make decisions we elect the people to make decisions for us. Don't like the decision being made for us? Elect better people to represent your views oh wait FPTP means that person elected may not represent what the collective majority want.....yey!

 

[Tony Manx]

EU democratic?!!

Run by the Council or Commission who are appointed by member countries' Government on strict understanding they become totally European and cannot be influenced by their appointees! Cronyism if the first order when the names of Mandelson and Kinnock are pointed out.

They appoint "el Presidente" and he is ratified by the Euro Parliament. He "should" be someone "in tune" with ideals and beliefs of the "majority" - what ever that may mean!!!!

They are the only ones who can make proposals on which the European Parliament can pass into law. MEP's have no right to introduce legislation.

So effectively the Commission is The Commons and the Euro Parl is the Lords!!!!

True democracy and no wonder it is rife with corruption and cronyism....

 

[Car]

The only country I'm aware of to regularly use referenda is Switzerland....and that hasn't always worked out for the best

The voter turnout for referenda in Switzerland often is awfully low, so it's begging the question how representative they really are. It seems people don't like to vote on all kinds of things all the time after all. Many of the topics are rather bizarre, but still.

Voter turnout in parliamentary elections saw a continuous decline since the 1970s, down to an all-time low of 42.2% in 1995.[4] In recent years however, voter participation has been slowly growing again and was at 48.5% in 2011.[4] The average turnout for referendums was at 49.2% in 2011.[5] Federal popular initiatives of little public appeal sometimes cause participation of less than 30% of the electorate, but controversial issues such as a proposed abolition of the Swiss army or a possible accession of Switzerland into the European Union have seen turnouts over 60%

Source

I'm in favour of (more) direct democracy, but a low turnout is a problem no matter what.

 

[The Prop]

Wow! And so democracy dies

Not having a go mate but we do not have democracy in this country.

The house of lords are un-elected officials (just like in the EU) who make the actually decision on laws being passed/amended etc. So I don't understand this belief that the EU being un-elected is somehow wrong yet our own system we have lived under for decades is the same. Each government just get as many lords in as possible to favor their political stance.