Brexit will expose the EU’s democratic deficit

I considered voting for Brexit. After the referendum was agreed, but before the campaigning had begun, I could have gone either way. My issue was democracy. I didn’t like the fact that the European parliament could not initiate legislation; that turnout for European parliamentary elections had fallen 30% since the first elections in 1979; the way countries that voted “the wrong way” on EU referendums were effectively instructed to vote again (Denmark 1992; Ireland 2001, 2008) and get it right; the fact that Greece’s resounding democratic rejection of the terms of its bailout (2015) was treated with such contempt.

It felt increasingly obvious that this institution had growing control over our lives even as it became less obvious how anyone beyond its ruling bodies could directly influence it. It’s never been obvious to me that the EU’s senior leadership could satisfactorily answer all of the late Tony Benn’s five essential questions for people of power, namely: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? How do we get rid of you?

To frame this as a matter of sovereignty felt too limiting. International capital would have the run of the planet whether we stayed in or out of the EU. So our leaving would not give us “back control” but leave us more isolated than independent. The question was less who had the power than whether that power was democratically accountable.

Source: theguardian