This is exactly the issue why many people voted for Brexit. There was a feeling of disconnect between the people and the power. Now it may seem like a complete disaster, but we feel that our vote matters more now.
It's a shame the EU has not addressed this and they don't seem to be doing it anytime soon.
The most painful side effect of this is increasing corruption and lack of sense of responsibility among politicians. They feel like they can do whatever they want and there is extremely slim chance they get booted out or investigated.
Let's be real here... The reason why most people voted was because they didn't want the influx of (EU)-immigrants that they couldn't decide over.
That and the idea that they would have a lot more control after brexit while in reality the world is more complicated than that. E.g. they lose negotiation power in important trade deals because nowadays Britain is just a tiny island with little to say. A lot of other laws are influenced by international treaties between bigger economical powers as well.
Virtually nobody cares about trade deals. They care about how much the people that govern them reflect their own values and concerns. India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan probably would have benefitted economically from being one country with one common market. But nobody wants that because Indians don’t want to be governed by Pakistanis and vice versa. Trade is a red herring.
What reasons do people give to justify their vote choice for Leave or Remain? And, what are the reasons they think the other side voted as they did? New briefing note CSI Brexit 4: People’s Stated Reasons for Voting Leave or Remain. Summary of the findings:
Several different surveys and opinion polls have asked Britons why they voted the way they did in the EU referendum. The two main reasons people voted Leave were ‘immigration’ and ‘sovereignty’, whereas the main reason people voted Remain was ‘the economy’.
Analysis of data from the Centre for Social Investigation’s longitudinal survey on attitudes to Brexit bolsters these conclusions.
Among four possible reasons for voting Leave, ‘to teach British politicians a lesson’ is ranked last by an overwhelming majority of Leave voters, contrary to the claim that Brexit was a ‘protest vote’.
Among four possible reasons for voting Remain, ‘a strong attachment to Europe’ is ranked last by a sizable majority of Remain voters, consistent with the claim that Britons have a relatively weak sense of European identity.
When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making.
---end quote.
As for losing negotiation power, since Brexit the UK has negotiated multiple Billions of GBP worth of trade deals around the world. The OECD and the IMF are forecasting that the UK economy will be above the Eurozone economy. (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02...)
I'm not sure that posting research showing that Leave voters' highest priority was immigration and their lowest priority by some distance was teaching politicians a lesson is the best way to rebut the GP's claim that immigration was much more important than a sense that politicians felt they could do what they wanted...
I'm not sure I follow. The two main reasons to vote for brexit are the ones that I mention?
I'm not sure I follow your negotiation power argument either.
It was necessary. The UK needed to negotiate trade deals and they have them now, that does not mean this was done from a position of strength. I of course hope that they managed to negotiate the best they could.
Regarding the statistics you bring up... What exactly are you looking at and over what time period? An interesting question would be how the UK could have performed had they stayed in the EU.
I ask because your link mentions the following: > "For 2021 as a whole, UK GDP growth was 7.4%. This was the highest in the G7. The UK had the largest decline in GDP among the G7 in 2020 (-9.3%) and its relatively strong performance in 2021 was to some degree a recovery from weakness in 2020."
Inflation is currently highest in 40 years, the current forecast is recession and Scotland will break away from the UK next year and joins the EU as soon as they can, Northern Ireland and Wales maybe follows. Ahh and let’s not talk about the English government plans for the Brexit agreement.
> They didn't have a majority in 2014 and it's unlikely they have it now.
They didn't but they won the last scottish general election with the clear program that they want to hold another indepence vote and that they will go for independence. Together with the Green party (also independence supporters) they have a pretty decent mayority. If I assume that everybody who voted for the will vote for indepence, then it is a done deal.
Also I can put 2 + 2 together. At the last independence vote people vote to stay in the UK to stay in the EU. At the Brexit vote 62% of the people voted for remain and not just that: every council in Scotland saw Remain majorities. The next independece vote is about to go back to the EU, so I assume people who vote to stay in the EU will vote to be in the EU again.
Also, the average Scotish is angry, because in the UK there are 39,860,400 voter in England and 4,079,600 voters in Scotland so it rarely matters what does the people in Scotland voting for. Also, they will be even more angry and desperate when they will get the winter energy bill (which will be 2-3x the last winter energy bill and a lots of people need to think about if the want to eat or stay warm). And they will be even more angry every time they are going to be told that you cannot vote again on their independence, because they will feel ignored again and they will not vote rationally. They will vote against the UK and against the current UK government because they had enough of not being able to have a say in what happening in Scotland (and it does no matter if this is true or not, the only thing matters if people belive it is true)
How do I know the people are angry and why they are angry? I live here and I talk to people.
Most people voted for Brexit to stop immigrants "taking their jobs", and to try and piss off useless UK politicians. They might tell themselves after the fact it was for some other reason now they realise what they have done.
I've never heard anyone say they think their vote "matters more" because of Brexit. Aside from the fact it is patently untrue (we still use the least democratic and most divisive method, FPTP) the EU Parliament elections are actually more democratic by virtue using PR, which allowed UKIP to send a load of MEPs to Brussels.
More than a smaller party could ever get into Westminster even if they had a similar proportion of support due to our broken democracy.
Nope. Most people voted for Brexit because we wanted our sovereignty back. We welcome legal immigrants and 6 million or EU immigrants so have chosen to stay here after Brexit. We don't welcome illegal immigrants. While in the EU we had to take EU immigrants over non-EU which was hardly fair. Now both EU and non-EU immigrants are treated the same.
I don't get what you mean when you say you had to take EU immigrants over non-EU immigrants. No such policy exists afaik. There are (different) rules for both cases and if the rules are fulfilled, you're free to enter.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but: I am in the UK, and I absolutely 100% do not feel that any vote of mine matters more now that we have left the EU. (And, also, there are votes I no longer get to cast -- e.g., those for members of the European Parliament.)
While that was a rhetorical point in the Brexit campaign, in reality the nameless unelected bureaucrats in Brussels were simply replaced by nameless unelected bureaucrats in London
Every Western "democracy" suffers from the same fundamental problem - entrenched deep state, and a lack of feedback loop towards it. It's extremely hazy where, how and by whom decisions are truly made, and as a consequence, nobody ever faces any consequences if those decisions flop. People like Biden, Harris, Johnson or Truss are so glaringly incompetent that nobody even suspects them to have any input into the decision process, they're simple announcers. Elections allow us to change the announcers, but change nothing about the deep state that ultimately dictates the policies. Brussels works the same way, it's just makes the fundamental problem more obvious
Your statement strikes me as too generalizing and overly simplistic and the conclusion that basically the entire circus of Western democratic parties and elections is meaningless and we're all ruled by an anonymous, malicious class of fellow citizens that somehow want only the worst for us and we're gonna label them the "deep state" is as absurd as it is unnecessarily threatening the freedom we all cherish.
Two or even several things can be true at the same time.
Yes, some decision making transcends legistlative periods of elected officials.
Other decisions are actively brought in and executed.
Yes, there is a lack of feedback loop. Sometimes there are public compliance investigations after the fact.
Yes, some politicians are incompetent and have risen due to other qualifications, be it greed, be it communication. Some politicians may just not show their qualifications in the few moments when all the spotlight is on them.
Democracies are imperfect exactly not because there is a centralized hidden agenda going on but because people like you and I with emotions and ego participate in every step of the process.
Yes democracies are painfully slow to respond to change, don't catch all malicious actors in its executive branch and live with an oversized public servant body most of the time, but so help me any spiritual being you might know or believe in I'd choose to live in one any day of the week over autocracies where everything is nicely simple and announced by one, all competent super hero.
I'd recommend watching an annual People Congress of the CCP or how Putler auditions his inner circle and scolds them like school boys and then let's have a talk about the deep state.
Yes I agree and this is not all together a bad thing.
We need some stability otherwise fast talking demagogues and mob sentiment would routinely upset the apple cart. The bureaucracy (aka the "deep state") provides that.
But what you point out is also a problem. How do you get rid of corruption and incompetence when they routinely circle the wagons to protect their own and are beyond the reach of the voters? It is a big problem in Western society right now.
Note that the US has a specific mechanism to address this disconnect. Anyone who exercises any real power and discretion in the executive branch must be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The executive bureaucracy may be sprawling, but you can lay the blame for any significant policy failing directly on someone you voted for (or against).
Which is about the equal to the EU. Council of the EU [1] has similar function as the senate in the US. The council is made up of the heads of governments, as elected, by the member countries. The council proposes the commission, which is then left for the EU parliament to confirm.
This very close, pretty much about equal to the election process of the US senate before the 17th amendment in 1912.[2] The difference being no popular vote for the president. As is the case for the "head of state" for pretty much all European countries. Exceptions are only France?
The major difference is that only the commission has the right to legislative initiative. To balance this the EU parliament can dissolve the commission based on a vote of no confidence.
So all in all, it's a truly democratic system with all the checks and balances. The major difference is the lack of cross European parties, thus your choice becomes collected together in the same basket as what your chosen party thinks is the right path. Completely through representative democracy, either from the head of government or European parliament.
Not many Americans realize that the original vision and the implementation of the political organization of the United Stated was very resembling that of European Union. The US states were just a bit less sovereign than EU member states (with differences mostly about having independent militaries and foreign relations), and the role of the federal US government was closer to what role EU plays for its member states.
Then, suddenly, in early 20th century, the federal US government made a huge power grab, and now the states are mostly just subjects of it, with much less sovereignty remaining. That’s what some EU skeptics are concerned about as well: sudden sweep and becoming subjects of Brussels.
