Look at the people who were going to be the big winners of these European Elections, several of whom were already in governing coalitions and thus on the Council of Ministers. These are the people to whose legislative will the centrists wish to subject us. Again. They were often on the Council, and always in the European Parliament, before Brexit. It is no wonder that Volodymyr Zelensky wants Ukraine to join the EU. Svoboda and Pravy Sektor would fit right in, so to speak.
Centrism and right-wing populism are con tricks to sell exactly the same economic and foreign policies to different audiences by pretending to wage a culture war. Therefore, we hear calls for some sort of post-Brexit alliance between Britain and Viktor Orbán's Hungary, from people who were apparently unaware that Hungary was in the EU, but of course fully aware of it. In Britain, at least, centrists and right-wing populists alike support NATO, which subjects British military personnel to officers who were themselves subject to Orbán and to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. How moderate and sensible. What an expression of national pride and sovereignty.
If Ukraine ever did join NATO, then our Armed Forces would be part of an integrated command structure that placed them alongside, and sometimes even under, the National Corps, C14, the Azov Brigade, the Aidar Battalion, the Donbas Battalion, the Dnipro-1 Battalion, the Dnipro-2 Battalion, the Kraken Regiment, and possibly also the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps. Without formally admitting Ukraine, ways could be found of doing that, anyway. If they have not already been, then they very soon will be.
Likewise, Britain, which remains in close alignment with the legislation on which the EU's Fascists and Nazis deliberated and voted, will be aligned even more closely with it in the next Parliament, no matter who had won the General Election. Now that I am no longer a candidate, my interest is in what comes after this Election rather than in the immediate outcome of the thing itself, an outcome by which my projects will be as unaffected as my life in general. If I had not been politically active, then I would never have known when the titular Government had changed. Nothing next month will be any exception to that. But I shall be voting for the Workers Party of Britain. Assuming that George Galloway kept his seat, then for every 200 votes that it had received nationwide, the Workers Party would receive £38.75 in Short Money. There is no other party that I would rather have my 19p.
How does this mean they're going to be subject to the legislative will of these people when the EU Parliament doesn't have lawmaking powers?
ReplyDeleteIt has the power of codecision, which has been the ordinary legislative procedure since the Treaty of Lisbon. If you want a pretendy, rubberstamp Parliament that just does as the Executive tells it, then we have one in Britain. The European one is much more sinister.
Delete“If you want a pretendy, rubberstamp Parliament that just does as the Executive tells it, then we have one in Britain. “
ReplyDeleteNo we don’t- our Parliament is the sovereign body here and has the sole power to initiate legislation. Whereas only the unelected EU Commission can initiate EU legislation and the EU Parliament can’t even stop laws either. It is so powerless that the present head of the Commission von der Leyen was appointed against the opposition of the majority of the Parliament. It literally doesn’t have any power and it therefore doesn’t matter a jot who sits in it.
The present Prime Minister was probably appointed against the opposition of the majority of the House of Commons, and the one before him certainly was by a very wide margin. But it fell to the money markets to bring her down.
DeleteThe present prime minister was without doubt appointed against the opposition of the majority of the membership of the Conservatives. This will have consequences. And his predecessor, for whom a majority of Conservatives voted, was brought down by money markets manipulated by the People's Republic of China, making Sunak the member for Beijing Central and Hunt (who has a Chinese wife) the member for Beijing North.
DeleteGosh.
DeleteYou do know "codecision" (in reality a fraud) only means it gets to review whatever legislation the EU Commission has created but has no powers to make any laws itself. Whereas only our Parliament can make laws in this country. So I ask again: how will the outcome of the present EU elections make people "subject to the legislative will" of a body that cannot initiate legislation?
ReplyDeleteCodecison may be a fraud, but so is the idea that, in anything like the sense that you seem to imagine, Parliament makes the law. It approves Government Bills, and such Private Members' Bills as the Government felt like giving time, often ones that it had written for itself and handed over to someone amenable. Anything that entailed spending one penny piece has to be proposed by the Executive. Like the monarchy, we have a Parliament because foreigners will pay to look at its palace.
Delete“The present Prime Minister was probably appointed against the opposition of the majority of the House of Commons, and the one before him certainly was by a very wide margin.”
ReplyDeleteNo they weren’t-because no British PM can stay on without commanding the confidence of the House, and MPs can remove a PM at any time through a vote of no confidence. There’s no mechanism for the European Parliament to choose or remove an EU Commission President.
Parliament does make all laws in this country: because laws can only be initiated by a government that commands a parliamentary majority and a PM that commands the confidence of the majority of MPs, and all laws must be approved by a majority of those MPs who can also make any amendments that are able to command majority support.
Our glorious system is nothing like the undemocratic EU, where it is the unelected body that makes all the laws and in secret (the Commission doesn’t even publish minutes of its legislative meetings).
There can only be a motion of no confidence in the entire Government, and that would entail a General Election if it passed. No MP from the governing party would ever vote for that. Liz Truss never commanded majority support in the Commons, but there was no way of getting rid of her. Not there, anyway. The City could do it. And did.
DeleteOur Parliament makes all laws completely democratically-there is no “government” to decide what laws to bring before Parliament in this country without that government commanding a Parliamentary majority and there’s no PM without that PM commanding the confidence of Parliament (which could have removed Truss or Sunak at any time through a simple vote of no confidence). And even if the Commons approves new laws, the Lords can still block any legislation a government introduces that was not put before the people in a manifesto.
ReplyDeleteShocking how little you know about your own country’s Parliament, and the difference between ours and that of Europe. You sound like a Remainer.
Bless.
DeleteThe rest of the time, you people complain about the consequences of the fact that things were as I described.
Bless.