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jacquesm

What about them?

Do they see the federal government of the United States also as an anti-democratic bureaucracy?

Do they see their own government as anti-democratic?

And if not why do they see the existing EU as different?

Do they understand how EU representatives are chosen?

Do they follow EU parliamentary proceedings and do they understand how EU law interacts with local law?

All of those are important questions and usually the more people answer 'yes' to the above the bigger the chance that they see the EU as a net positive.

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> Do they follow EU parliamentary proceedings and do they understand how EU law interacts with local law?

Although I didn't vote for Brexit myself, I've spoken to a number of Brexit supporters.

While they might not know the precise details, they know that a "Constitution for Europe" was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, it was changed into a "Reform Treaty" in 2007 which meant most countries' voters didn't get a vote on it, and after Irish voters rejected that, they had to have a second referendum on the same treaty the year after.

They feel they have seen how EU law interacts with local law, and they don't like it.

> While they might not know the precise details, they know that a "Constitution for Europe" was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, it was changed into a "Reform Treaty" in 2007 which meant most countries' voters didn't get a vote on it, and after Irish voters rejected that, they had to have a second referendum on the same treaty the year after.

But that's fine isn't it? After all, if we didn't get a 'Constitution for Europe' (which I'm ambivalent about) the treaty got us most of the benefits and as far as I can see today none of the drawbacks. Those drawbacks that were mentioned did not materialize, which seems to be the case with most EU law: there is an enormous amount of racket about how it will cause problems down the line but that almost never happens.

> They feel they have seen how EU law interacts with local law, and they don't like it.

Given how EU law has kept dutch politicians in line during the last decade or two I'm pretty happy with it. Without EU law NL would arguably in much worse shape re. international trade, privacy, anti-trust, agriculture, climate commitments and a whole bunch of other subjects.

Of course if you're a climate denier or you want to return back to the guilder none of those arguments matter but in general I see far more positives then negatives. Those local politicians that are clamoring the hardest for splitting from the EU bear the most scrutiny: likely their agenda requires a lack of oversight to succeed.

> But that's fine isn't it?

To a Brexit supporter, the French, Dutch and Irish people were all opposed to the constitution/treaty, and other countries would have rejected it as well if their referendums hadn't been cancelled, and yet it was forced through anyway by a body that considers voters an inconvenience to be worked around.

When Brexit supporters call the EU 'undemocratic' this is what they are referring to.

Of course, that's not the only reason for Brexit. British politicians deserve a reasonable portion of the blame; for several decades prior to the vote they could straddle the fence on issues like immigration, by telling people "we can't do anything, it's the EU"

Well, if that's what they believe they are comically misinformed. As it was the main reason that constitution would have been a good thing is that it would - hopefully - create a more level playing field. But the UK already had an exceptional position within the EU, and now it has none, with all of the downsides of being outside of their nearest neighbors and largest trade bloc.

It's going to be a long road back to inclusivity and if and when that happens you can bet that it won't be the nice exceptional situation that was there before.

> Well, if that's what they believe they are comically misinformed.

Ah yes, you've just reminded me of one of the other issues: Some Remain campaigners had difficulty engaging with people who were on the fence about the EU without calling them ignorant yokels.

> It's going to be a long road back to inclusivity and if and when that happens you can bet that it won't be the nice exceptional situation that was there before.

Absolutely agree with you here - Brexit was such a bloodbath politically a UK re-entry won't be on the cards for a generation IMHO.

> Ah yes, you've just reminded me of one of the other issues: Some Remain campaigners had difficulty engaging with people who were on the fence about the EU without calling them ignorant yokels.

In other words: The truth hurt. And out of spite they cut off their own nose. Well, whatever works for them.

> In other words: The truth hurt.

There it is again.

Let's not engage with the person in an economically deprived area who suspects that increasing the supply of workers might lower wages, or the person who's struggling to afford a house who suspects that increased demand for housing might raise prices.

Unfortunately the remain campaign seemed to have very few people who could engage with the substance of such arguments, in the language of the people who hold them - like pointing out a lot of immigrants are working in the construction industry, building more houses.

For every one campaigner who could engage in such discussion convincingly, remain seemed to have ten ready to sneer at such voters' comical ignorance and mutter that they were a closet racist. You can see how that went.

Obviously the villains are the bad faith actors who tried to sell leave no matter what. How do you deal with those?

But people who voted enacted their agency so they don't get a free pass. They let themselves fooled and pulled the trigger. Is it their fault? Who knows. But the ones pulling the trigger don't get a free pass.

What does the US government have to do with anything :/

I am a pro EU person but I feel you are being quite dismissive of an important issue. Namely that understanding the EU governing structure is very impenetrable to a great number of people, much more so than their national government. The foundation of democracy is that citizens distribute power. How does democracy work if citizens have very little idea about how that works in the EU?

Then you also have people from smaller coubtries who are quite concerned about centralization tendencies in the EU.

> How does democracy work if citizens have very little idea about how that works in the EU?

Democracy doesn't work if the citizens do not care about the very entities that administer their lives on their behalf. The EU isn't impenetrable, or at least no more impenetrable than the national and local governments, but most people just do not care enough to learn how it works.

Admittedly, that apathy has been reinforced by many national politicians who wanted the EU to remain abstract and obscure in order to better use it as scapegoat for their own failures.

> Namely that understanding the EU governing structure is very impenetrable to a great number of people, much more so than their national government.

You can say a lot about the EU that needs fixing but their documentation is excellent. What it needs is for the national governments to get better at communicating how and when they interact with the EU and what the practical effects are. The bigger problem is that anti-EU forces within the EU (usually: populists) do their level best to take every problem in their own societies and spin it in such a way that the EU looks like the culprit. Which makes people believe that if the EU were to go away that everything will be unicorns and rainbows.

> Then you also have people from smaller coubtried who are quite concerned about centralization tendencies in the EU.

Yes, that's one of those peculiar cases: they somehow believe that as smaller countries in a much larger world that they would be able to do better than as a bloc. This makes no sense at all and despite many examples to the contrary quite a few people believe this. But common sense unfortunately isn't all that common and as Brexit proves beyond a doubt going it alone isn't better, it is far worse.

To the tune of a trillion per decade for the UK, money that they badly needed. That there is no serious investigation of how the UK public was swindled surprises me, but then again, it probably shouldn't, after all, those that would be in charge of such an investigation all ended up making out like bandits and they certainly aren't going to risk killing their golden goose even if it dumps the rest of the population of the UK into poverty.

> they somehow believe that as smaller countries in a much larger world that they would be able to do better than as a bloc

Yeah colonies too would have been economically much better off today had they not experimented with national liberation, but thats not how people think. They dont want to be paying taxes to a place they see as foreign. Nor do they want foreigners telling them how to do things. You are aware we are talking about old Europe here, and not Canada, Australia, or the US? The one that fought two world wars with itself in just over a 100 years. Not to even mention the other 2000 years of its long and very bloody history. I am very happy that the EU exists, but for Europe slow and steady wins the race. Centralization is not the answer because then countries with smaller populations get dominated by bigger countries.

I'd rather be dominated in a political arena than in a military one, which is pretty much the alternative. At least as it is the small countries can throw their weight behind the larger one that has their interests most at heart.

As far as colonies are concerned, that's a very thorny issue and also even further off-topic, and for NL (where I'm from) it is a very much embarrassing issue.

I wonder if it is embarassing enough to return all the benefits of imperialist plunder to their original owners. Or pay restitution to all places where NL was involved in slave trading.

Anyway, as far as EU is concerned it is not off topic. Many of the smaller countries (even some big ones) within the EU were once seen as rightful spheres of influence/dominance by the old European imperial powers. You dont have to go outside the continent to talk about national liberation. Do you remember how WWI started?

Centralization is not without its dangers. Take for example Yugoslavia. This was a very decentralized federal republic in which constituent republics, nationalities, and autonomous regions, had a pretty big political autonomy. During late 80s Serbian politician Slobodan Milosevic led a movement that tried to centralize the government. He argued that it would make the country more efficient and better capable to address economic problems. Serbs were the numerically dominant nationality of Yugoslavia. Serbians supported centralization, non Serbs didnt. A very bloody war ensued and the country fell appart.

“I'd rather be dominated in a political arena than in a military one”

Is that really the only choice nations face? Just a binary eu or no eu, domination either by treaty or by military force? What about diplomacy?

Ask Canada how that's working out for them.

Diplomacy is great, but trade wars are real and between nation states trade wars are extremely nasty if one party has an economy 10 times that of the other.

So yes, there is a third option, but it isn't all that pretty either. Within the EU there are no trade wars.

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