Comment by qcnguy
2 days ago
Both Eurosceptics and pro-federalists routinely claim that 80% of all European law originates at the EU Commission - the exact number surely depends on the precise definition of law, but if both sides of this argument agree on a number as high as 80% then summarizing it as "most" is the right wording.
And if 80% of your law is coming from the EU Commission, then it's correct to say most power was given up to a foreign government. Because the EU is a government, according to its own fiercest proponents.
>> That's why reform and Nigel farage have been pushing for many years on leaving the European institutions.
> Which one? And with whom?
All of them. You may have noticed he won the referendum to leave the EU and now his party is the most popular party in Britain according to the polls, largely due to his policy of leaving the ECHR too.
The European institutions are captured by an ideology that there can be no compromises on mass migration ever. This position is insane so they can't win votes on this platform, and therefore their strategy is to abuse various supra-national institutions that were sold to the public as doing other things and then written into the constitution so their decisions can't be overruled.
>>And if 80% of your law is coming from the EU Commission, then it's correct to say most power was given up to a foreign government. Because the EU is a government, according to its own fiercest proponents.
The crucial part you are missing here is that EU Commission doesn't set laws in any EU member country. They set directives, which if approved by the elected EU Parliment every member country should implement as they see fit - or not implement at all, the penalty for not doing so is so laughable even smaller newer EU members routinely ignore it. UK has always had that power - if it chose to implement EU laws within its own legislative framework then it was by choice and it wasn't forced upon it. So no, no power was given away to any foreign government here, just like British parliment isn't giving away any power to anyone when it uses one of its own many comissions to draft legislation. This is the lie that people like Farage kept peddling here - that anything has been forced on the UK in this relationship, when it couldn't be further from the truth.
>> largely due to his policy of leaving the ECHR too.
Citation needed, seriously. To me it seems it's largely due to Tory party self imploding(finally) and Labour being completely incompetent and walking back on most of their own promises which angered a lot of people. I bet most Reform supporters wouldn't even know what ECHR is, nor do I see why it should matter to them - in all of 2024 ECHR has issued exactly one rulling against the UK, and it was about Daily Mail winning a case against the UK government. If anything they should love it, but of course there's still some idiotic propaganda about ECHR blocking deportations and such when in reality the UK government is just simply incompetent on that front and cannot agree a simplest deal with France on that topic.
>>The European institutions are captured by an ideology that there can be no compromises on mass migration ever.
Which is why this is such a debated topic within the EU all the time and countries are implementing their own laws around it, right? You say it like there's some dogma that has to be obeyed - which anyone can see is not true, with major fractures along this exact point within the EU itself.
>>and then written into the constitution
Which consitution? EU doesn't have one, and I don't recall anything being added to the consitution of my native country for a very long time now - where exactly are these things you speak of written into?
>>so their decisions can't be overruled.
EU doesn't have any insitution that "cannot be overruled". Every member state retained full legislative and judiciary independence from every EU institution. ECHR is a sole exception to this, but it's not an EU insitution, and again, there are no real penalties for ignoring it nor does it have any impact on a country like the UK.