Bratislava, Slovakia.
16 May. Oops! I am in the doghouse
again. I have just been told off by EU uber-elitiste and Senator-for-Life Mario
Monti here at GLOBSEC for raising an ever-so-tedious question about democracy, legitimacy
and accountability in the EU. How very
uneducated of me. GLOBSEC is truly one
of the great conferences but the last panel on the “EU After the 2014 Vote” demonstrated
not only all that is wrong with the EU elite, but also the danger to democracy
posed by the elite-assumed over-concentration of power in the hands of an
unelected few.
In response to my
impertinent question (how dare citizens question the powerful) Mr Monti
(Senator-for-Life) told me that whilst democracy and accountability were
important they were not the only way to get things done. At one point he embarked on a wholesale
attack on the very principle of referenda by using a historical case to
demonstrate why the people are invariably wrong and that elites should be left to
run matters. The last decade of
elite-created disaster suggest otherwise.
The language of the
session was typical of the cosy elitist love-in Brussels insiders enjoy at such
events. Euro-realists (such as I) and
Euro-sceptics are suspect for fear we might offend elitist sensibilities. All and any opposition to the ‘European
Project’ is dismissed as ‘populism’. All
and any of us expressing concerns about the growing distance between power and
the people are condemned as populists.
To protect them from
any ‘unpleasantness’ the elite invariably surround themselves with their
intellectual flunkies and other fellow travellers drawn from the Brussels
think-tanks. And, as ever, my country
Britain is routinely insulted as the ‘devil island’ because we British even dare
to raise fundamental questions of political principle. “Shut up and pay us your money” seems to be
the essential message from Mr Monti (Senator-for-Life).
Best (or worst) of all
Mr Monti (Senator-for-Life) questioned whether national democracy was any more
legitimate than EU ‘democracy’. After
all, he said there were British ministers in the House of Lords. He forgot to mention that there is one big
difference between British democracy and EU ‘democracy’. In Britain I know who my MP is and if I have
an issue I can go and see my representative.
On one such occasion the MP in question happened to be a minister and helped
to resolve quickly an obvious injustice.
Sadly, for too many in the EU elite ‘the people’ exist only in the
abstract and ‘democracy’ only matters when the people agree with them. If indeed further integration is to take
place and more power is handed to Brussels such concerns cannot simply be
brushed aside by the kind of elite dissembling as I witnessed today.
The next European
Parliament could have a lot of people elite who do not buy into Project Europe.
Some of whom will be nasty extremists
but by no means all. Nor will they be as
one of Mr Monti’s colleagues on the panel called them a ‘distraction’. Indeed, such arrogant nonsense just
demonstrates how detached the EU elite have become from real democracy. Rather, they will be what we in Britain call the
loyal opposition and their ‘dissent’ will make the EU more not less democratic
because they have been elected by the people.
Annoying that, eh?
Perhaps the strangest
aspect of this emperor-has-no-clothes debate was the discussion over the
so-called spitzencanditaten. These
are three EU uber-elitists, uber-insiders Junker, Schulz and Verhofstadt one of
whom the European Parliament will likely put forward as the next President of
the European Commission. Now, I know we
British are meant to shut up and just pay but for what it is worth not one of
these three will have any legitimacy or credibility whatsoever with the people
of Sheffield. They will be seen for what
they are; foreign politicians with too much power over their lives and so far
distant from them that a Brexit will become almost inevitable.
The bottom-line is
this; as power moves ever further from the people if the issues of democracy,
legitimacy and accountability are not addressed properly by the elite the EU
will fail.
So, as the EU elite
move to deepen political integration (as they will) legitimate criticism must
not be dismissed as Mr Monti dismissed me. My concerns are neither populism nor
some British disease. Instead the elite
must accept the judgement of the people and for once climb down from Mount EUlympus
and engage with real issues that concern real people about real democracy.
For the record my aim
is not to scrap the EU but to create a Union that I can genuinely feel is representative
of and sensitive to my concerns and those of fellow EU citizens. Today’s EU aint! Sorry, Mr Monti you are wrong and dangerously
so.
Julian Lindley-French
