Nigel Lawson has highlighted the importance of the view,largely neglected by the remain campaign, that membership of the European Union carries a “really serious democratic deficit” (Saturday interview, and 2 April). By legitimising a tit-for-tat exchange with Brexit campaigners that it’s all about the economy and potential job losses,the remain campaigners beget ignored the extent to which political decisions are framed in an “us and them” narrative in the favorite press. By asserting that we can stay in Europe for economic reasons but drawing a red line under ever closer political union, the remain camp colludes with the kinds of crude distortions that assert that EU commissioners can decree that our children are forbidden to blow up balloons and that murderers and rapists in our prisons must retain their right to vote in elections (both cited to me as genuine reasons for voting Brexit).How about a Guardian supplement that provides some substantive information on how EU legislation is agreed and implemented and the kinds of rules it implements? How many people know that there are 751 members of the European parliament and that 73 of these are from UK regions? Who knows that this parliament (all elected by proportional representation, and in 2014 on a 42.54% turnout of 375 million eligible voters) has legislative precedence over both the European council and the commissioners? Who knows that all the leaders of the 28 countries meet as the European council to thrash out a consensus approach to shared challenges? Far from faultless,the EU is subject to the inevitable pressures of the kind of corporate power that undermines humanitarian values. Nevertheless it provides a small step towards a principled union on a democratic agenda and one to which a (Guardian-initiated?) debate is long overdue.
Gwen Wallace
Emeritus professor, University of DerbyContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com