-
@MrsSCB: oh, ok. Yup, you are right. Not sure what my coworker heard. Maybe he was mixing up Nigel and Cameron.
-
@Cherrybee: This cracked me up... feels about right, at least until November when we have a chance to catch up:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/british-lose-right-to-claim-that-americans-are-dumber
-
@mrbee: Hahaha!! I consider myself well and truly burned!
-
@Cherrybee: I am from SA but here on an EU passport cos I also have citizenship of an EU country.. agree totally with what you said!
-
@Cherrybee: you mentioned upthread about the NHS being dismantled. What I am wondering is if this would have been on the table regardless of Brexit...can you elaborate, or maybe give me a source I can read? I am curious as to what will happen mostly in this space at the moment.
-
@travelgirl1: @Cherrybee: and anyone else that understands the EU.
In the US federal issues get heavily debated every 2-3 years with presidential elections. It seems like there's no good network right now for the general population to debate European issues. If the UK wanted/ needed changes in the EU - it seems wealth inequality has risen quite a lot in the last several years - did they have any real method to do that?I'm not an expert at all in EU politics, just what I know of it it seems much less democratic process than we have in the US.
-
@Maysprout: Every 5 years the EU parliament gets elected by the people of the EU. The thing with the EU is that some topics/issues are handled on an EU level and others are handled on a national/federal level. So it can be very confusing as to who is actually resposible. The thing in the EU is that all the countries have different needs and getting everyone on the same page is very difficult. It is a very democratic process though (involving the EU parliament and the individual governments as well as the EU commission).
-
@Pumuckl: but you don't vote for president. To me it's like if we only voted for congressmen and then wondered why no national debate or cohesion of thought ever occurred.
When is there debate or control over EU issues from the general population as a whole and not just country by country? -
@Maysprout: Well a lot of democratic countries don't directly vote for their head of state. My country (Germany) being one of them. The chancellor is elected by the democratically elected parliament and the president (who has very limited power) doesn't get elected by direct vote either. Still things are discussed at great detail when elections are due. There are a mirad of different parties here (and in the EU) so the political establishment is different. Does that make sense?
-
@Pumuckl: it makes sense just doesn't seem very democratic or like there's good opportunity for European debate on issues as a whole
I guess the crux of what I was getting at is I'm sure there was a lot of junk and misinformation in the UK vote. But there also seems like there were some real issues - did they have legitimate way to cause change in the EU other than leaving? -
@Maysprout: Canadians don't vote for our Prime Minister, we elect a Member of Parliament for each riding and then the head of whichever party has the most MPs is the PM.
-
@erinbaderin: I mean we don't have a complete direct vote in the US either. But it would be like then taking those representatives and put them into a North and South American government and never have any sort of public debate on the larger issues surrounding the Americas but still only stay focused on our country despite having a larger governing body.
Like I can't imagine as a US citizen just voting for state representatives and saying ok you guys take it from here. The presidential debates are toxic on some ways but also do create some progress in where the country's thoughts are and how they want to move forward.
-
@Pumuckl: this might explain a little better. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/the-difference-between-the-us-and-europe-in-1-graph/256857/
I'm still wowed in a bad way by austerity measures. That would be insane here for NY to decide to raise taxes and working hours on Mississippi because they were a poorer state. -
@looch: Well, the political party that are currently in power have a history of privatising things - the railways, the water etc - and there have been various reports written by prominent members of the party (health secretly Jeremy Hunt for example) calling for the privatisation of the NHS. Its one of those things the party always denies - its not a vote winner - but actions in the last 6 years say otherwise. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/08/surge-in-privatisation-threatening-free-nhs-treatment-unions-say
David Cameron took a slightly more moderate approach, but the people who aligned themselves with the leave campaign - Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith - are nasty bastards by all accounts. A vote for leave was always a vote for Cameron to step down, leaving a gap for one of these to fill - someone we didn't elect, with plans we didn't agree to.
I like to think it wasn't a possibility before all this, but now I'm legit scared!
-
@Maysprout: You make a very, very good point.....
I think the idea was that it was supposed to be more collaborative than directive - each country's elected members putting the country's views forward. We have elections here to determine our Members of European Parliament.
Decisions are made by the Council of Ministers (consisting of ministers from the elected governments of the member states) and the elected European Parliament, presided over by the European Council (all the heads of state). The idea that there is a European government in Brussels with independent powers is just a myth.
We COULD have brought about change, but it would be very, very difficult to find solutions that work for everyone. Europe is so diverse. But I for one thought the benefits far outweighed this and wasn't particularly unhappy with any of the decisions made at that level.
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
134 comments