BREXIT: EU is basically undemocratic

On June 23, 2016, the electorate delivered one of the clearest mandates in electoral history by voting to leave the EU with a majority of 1,200,000 on a turnout of 72 per cent.

Current polls indicate that this opinion has not changed.

I am not sure why diehard ‘remainers’ think that this clearly expressed democratic decision of the British people, which the Government is merely attempting to implement, can or should be ignored.

Geoff Hoskins asserts that ‘the UK never lost control’, (Northumberland Gazette, February 15). In reality member states have ceded substantial law making powers to the EU. In the UK some 14 per cent of primary legislation, and up to 80 per cent of secondary legislation and regulation, originates from the EU.

Yet the EU is a fundamentally undemocratic organisation. The Commission, consisting of 28 appointed members, initiates all EU legislation. That’s Jean Claude Junker and his merry band of men. The European electorate has no say on the composition of the Commission. Personally, if I had a vote the last person I would vote for is Jean Claude Junker.

There is, of course, an elected European Parliament. The UK elects some 75 MEPs out of 750 to the European Parliament. However, the Parliament can only amend, approve or reject proposals submitted by the Commission. That’s a bit like the House of Commons and House of Lords in reverse.

Even this limited democratic forum is unable to act in the national interest of individual member states. For example, if a proposal before the Parliament was contrary to the interests of the UK, our 75 MEPs alone would be unable to block the legislation.

An example of this lack of control is the inability of the UK to apply any immigration controls on the 500million citizens of the EU, whereas we have onerous controls on the citizens of the rest of the world. When David Cameron asked the EU Commission to allow the UK to apply a ‘temporary brake’ on EU migration, it refused – a significant factor in the referendum result, I would suggest.

The governments and people of the EU have indeed lost control, and if we are to believe the recent federalist pronouncements of Messrs Macron, Junker, Schultz and Verhofstadt, this tide is unlikely to turn any time soon.

Richard Spotwood,

Hillside East,

Rothbury