As you may know I don’t actually think that democracy is a good thing; at best it’s the ‘least worst’ political system as they exist currently. However I was drawn into a debate (again) recently about the European Union. The accusation was that the laws that we receive from the EU were somehow less democratic than those enacted unilaterally by the UK Government, that the EU is unrepresentative and so its laws are forced on us.
As I pointed out all legislation has to be passed by the European Parliament, where elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), such as Nigel Farage, sit. These are democratically chosen by the UK electorate, in a Proportional Representation (PR) process, so therefore more democratic than the way that Members of Parliament (MPs) are elected to the UK Parliament. The European Parliament “may approve or reject a legislative proposal, or propose amendments to it.”
The argument against this process being democratic was that the European Commission alone creates the legislation, not the European Parliament, and that the Commission is ‘unelected’.
There is a Commissioner for each of the 27 member countries, elected by its own national government (which in turn is elected by its own electorate), so this is still democratic with respect to each national electorate. The Commission (the cabinet) and the President together comprise the executive of the EU. The European Parliament then has to elect the President and the Commission, so the nationally-elected MEPs vote on whether to accept the President and Commission: still democratic so far.
So the argument that the EU is ‘less representative’ can be seen to be specious: every step of the way in creating EU legislation involves a decision by the MEPs, who are elected nationally by a ‘fairer’ democratic process than our First-Past-The-Post (FPTP). Yes, the Executive aren’t directly elected, but so what? Let’s compare that to the UK system, shall we?
We will ignore the anachronism that is the monarchy, for the Queen is generally regarded as only a figurehead, although constitutionally she is the final arbiter and the government acts in her name.
Within the UK we have two bodies involved in proposing and enacting legislation. The ‘lower’ house is the House of Commons: the ‘upper’ house is the House of Lords.
For the House of Commons in the UK we elect MPs via a FPTP electoral system, which is widely regarded as ‘unfairer’ than the Proportional Representation system that European Parliament elections utilise. The leader of the party that wins the most seats (usually, in a simple majority situation) becomes the Prime Minister (PM). Note that constitutionally they don’t even need to be an MP, though it’s a long time since this last happened (Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister twice between 1855 and 1865 for over 9 years).
Although the winning party leader may be elected as an MP, he is not elected directly as PM by anyone other than his own party, often years previously. So already the European Parliamentary system is more democratic.
This unelected head of government then chooses his own cabinet, which along with the PM forms the executive: this is analogous to the European Commission. They alone decide the legislation that the government introduces in each session of parliament (yes, I know there is a very limited mechanism for lone MPs to introduce their own legislation, but this is often thwarted in each parliament without the majority government support).
The elected MPs within the House of Commons then vote on this legislation proposed by the executive. If they vote for it to become law then it moves on to the unelected House Of Lords (the Lords are a collection of hereditary peers, politicians chosen by their party colleagues and Bishops – none directly chosen by the electorate). Both houses can choose to amend the legislation, although amendments can be rejected at subsequent stages.
Once both houses have ‘read’ the proposed bill three times it passes to the Queen for Royal Assent and then the government chooses when to enact it.
As can be seen very little of this legislative process is ‘democratic’ by any definition, and every single step has an analogous step in the EU legislative process. Comparison shows that the EU legislative process and its actors are, at every stage, at least as democrative and frequently more democratic than the UK process.
Ergo, by voting in European elections, you have more say in the legislation that comes from the EU than you do over that made only in the UK (if you choose to participate in democracy within the UK).
I still don’t like democracy by the way, but let’s at least make sure we’re accurate about the reasons we slate an institution.
The New Liberty 