David Cameron: Britain's EU Referendum to be held June 23

The point previously made was that the electorate couldn't have possibly been fit enough to make its own mind, that it was impossible. That's just nonsense. Like I said, the public has to be consulted about it. You can argue as to whether other factors should be considered such as geography and efficacy of the voting process but government should be by the mandate of the people.

And remember part of the reason Cameron won a majority in the GE was that he included a referendum on his party manifesto.

 

UKIP isn't far-right. Please, how are they far-right? How is controlling your own borders, regaining self-sovereignty and fighting against wage-depression caused by unlimited foreign labor far-right?

Joining the EU was a move by the Conservatives. Not joining the EU was the stance left-leaning Labour held when it happened.

I've been following Farage and UKIP since they won the EU elections in 2014. Fantastic lad.

 

as far as i understand, not even 1 of those 4 was elected.....all 'appointed', right?

 

None of them was elected directly to these posts by the people, yes. I agree that the EU has a democracy deficit and is a bureaucratic monster. Therefore, if people like Merkel and EU leaders think the correct answer to Brexit is "more EU" and "tighter integration", they are completely mistaken. The correct answer would be more subsidiarity (only what absolutely makes sense to be regulated on a European level should be regulated on a European level, not light bulbs, olive oil in restaurants, curvature of bananas, etc. etc. etc.), less bureaucracy, more direct accountability to voters, and so on. Otherwise, the EU will and should fall apart.

 

EU needs to get rid of the Euro and find a better solution to immigration from outside of the EU.

 

To shed a different light on this, the EU was designed intentionally to be a technocratic body that was insulated from democratic processes. The European parliament was created after the fact when people complained about this. Even today, the EU Parliament is still fairly limited in its power whereas the European commission still retains more power today.

I think there's a lot of understandable anger at the unelected nature of the EU but I'd argue that this isn't necessarily bad. EU rules and regulations should be free from political pressures. When you're writing rules to harmonize regulations and standards, the last thing you need is outside influence.

As an example, the EU standardized interchange rates for credit cards recently and standardized certain debit fees. In the US, that stuff would never happen because banks and card associations would lobby politicians and blitz us with ads to scare people. The EU is insulated from most of these pressures. Another example would be the EU rules that are eliminating roaming fees. Rules like that simply aren't feasible in the US.

 

You wouldn't need these rules because there are no roaming charges within the USA, so your comparison doesn't really make sense.

Also, if you think that no lobbying goes on in Brussels, I can introduce you to about 10 good friends of mine who do that for a living.

Furthermore, as to your sentence "When you're writing rules to harmonize regulations and standards, the last thing you need is outside influence" - it's not about what those who write rules need (and again, I personally know people who do this and know many who worked in Brussels), but what the people need who are affected by these rules.

 

Of course there's influence. Agencies in the US have outside influence even though they are also unelected. My point is that influence is greatly reduced in technocratic bureaucracies.

As for roaming charges, I'm more referring to international charges. We still pay out the nose (with the exception of TMobile) to roam abroad. Also on the topic of cellular, the EU also harmonized technology standards in the industry which is gigantic when it comes to reducing costs for consumers.

 

Nope, it isn't.

The EU can only regulate roaming charges within the EU. This is in no way different from the USA; actually, more difficult and has taken much longer.

I would say that this is one example of where EU regulation helps consumers. There are countless other examples of where EU regulation totally goes overboard. People who work in Brussels in an EU context also enjoy ridiculous benefits.

I am pro-EU, but anti-bureaucracy and excessive regulation. The EU urgently needs a reform. If it had reformed instead of becoming the undemocratic, over-reaching regulator it has become, Brexit would not have happened.

 

so i just got back from a week in london, and this seemed to be the overriding sentiment of people i met there. i can imagine outside london there was a lot more anti-immigrant sentiment, but in the 'the city' (financial district) people were simply fed up with the regulations from brussels, plus the inevitable transaction taxes and short-selling bans.

 

nm repost

 

I'm a big Farage fan, but I agree with this.

Not that those people don't deserve being taken down a peg or two.

 

God forbid the rulers be accountable to the people.

 

Yeah, that post was symptomatic for a leftist believing in big government.

 

[Premium Post]
Nigel Farage is a superstar. He is The_Conquistador of the European Parliament. Sharp-witted, confident, firm in his convictions, conservative policy positions, visionary, filled with bravado, and highly insulting!

Of course he has been unjustly smeared by the media with the anti-immigrant, racist label, as all defenders of sovereignty and states rights are. Defenders of the status quo often turn to this offensive smear as a last resort when all else fails. Calling someone a conspiracy theorist is another sign that the accuser has no rational argument left to turn to. But one must give significant credit to Mr Farage for his accomplishment. For 17 years, he consistently advocated for Britain's freedom from the corrupt, financially troubled, and needy European Union. As the EU pushed its one-world solution, Britain found its self governance threatened. Mr Farage knew this would drag Britain down the same path of destruction that so many EU member states have seen. Mr Farage will go down in history as saving Britain's proud history and preserving Britain's leading place among successful, sovereign nations on earth.

Look for Mr Farage to contribute to the Trump campaign in the coming months. Brace yourselves.


GOOD DAY

 

So you are saying there should be no body to govern regulations across 27 states? Than how do you manage it, the whole point of the EU was to simplify things to enable greater commerce and growth.

Imagine if in the U.S. every state had it's own FDA - a pharmaceutical would have to get approve 50 times, each manufacturer of a product would have to abide by 50 different sets of rules. The whole point was to streamline bureaucracy.

 

Industry and quality assurance standards can and do exist without their forcible imposition by unelected commissions.

Again, I reject the premise that standards would not exist without their imposition by the FDA.

But accepting the premise that their should be governance, that governance should be accountable to the people they govern over.

 

But they are not supposed to be the United States of Europe. What the EU project did was to stealthily rob nation states of their sovereignty.

 

I'm just not seeing how this is actually ever going to happen.

 

The Prime Minister will have to activate Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. That starts the two year period wherein negotiations between the state and the EU can commence. The state can leave earlier than that but after the two year period has ended membership will automatically lapse.

It's gonna happen. I have a number of Brit friends who voted out saying they'll riot and burn down every EU building they can find if they don't get out.