The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #166609 Message #4010331
Posted By: Steve Shaw
24-Sep-19 - 08:25 PM
Thread Name: BS: Brexit 'Take Back Control' D Cummings
Subject: RE: BS: Brexit 'Take Back Control' D Cummings
The present-day EU started in the fifties as a common market of six states, the sentiment being that the mutual benefits of a close trading relationship would diminish the prospect of any more bloody European wars. It worked on the whole. The club has expanded into a bloc of 28 states, each of which has to sign up to democracy, human rights, free movement and the rule of law. Every nation is fully in control of its own domestic laws and taxation system and most countries are still pretty nationalistic. As for currency, nineteen countries are currently in the eurozone. Most of the others may become obliged to join, but the UK can not be obliged to join. There are varying levels of veto available to the member states; generally the bigger you are the more powers you have. The European Commission is a body comprising one appointed representative from each of the 28 nations. It proposes legislation and ensures that treaties are honoured, among other functions of oversight, but has no legislative power. The European Council consists mostly of the elected heads of each nation and is more involved in the political direction of the EU. But the only body that can ultimately agree legislation or regulations is the elected European Parliament.
The eurozone has caused inequities and difficulties for smaller nations, and my view is that the project was a bad idea. Having said that, looking at Germany, I think the UK would have done rather well had we joined. Who knows. There are other absurdities and inefficiencies that result largely from the disease of gigantism. Overall, I think that the EU has on balance been a force for good in a world in which huge blocs have dominion. The term "United States of Europe" is simply vexatious. The EU did not evolve in anything like the same way as the US, and there will never be a time when all 28 countries will have ditched their sovereignty in order to exist under a single president. Other favoured brexiteer pejoratives such as ever-closer union (impossible without our agreement) and unelected bureaucrats in Brussels forcing laws on us (a simple lie) and the threat of a European army (impossible as we've vetoed it) are equally vexatious.