Inconvenient answer
Living in the UK, I was often considered a freak for liking the EU. It was always a question of for or against the EU.
In Brussels nobody asks you whether or not you’re pro-EU – of course everyone is.
I started thinking about this basic assumption after a discussion I had with a friend of mine. She works at the European Parliament and so we started talking about MEPs. I remarked how I actually quite like Nigel Farage. She thought I was joking.
But I really do.
There’s no such thing as an opposition in the European Parliament because there’s also no such thing as a government. So everything tends to be consensus-based, decisions made in committee rooms without drama.
But no drama means no publicity. Without press coverage people can’t read about what’s going on in Brussels so there’s little transparency.
Nigel Farage may say things that aren’t to everyone’s liking. He does, however, make things more exciting. If there would be an opposition in the Parliament, Nigel Farage would definitely be in it.
He may not be like the typical MEP but British politics in general is different from German and French for example. And if people wanted polite, proper eurocrats in the Parliament, they would have voted for them.
Now I’m not a UKIP spokesperson, that’s Gawain’s job. I’m just saying if we’re saying the EU is democratic we should respect the election results. Not everyone likes the EU but they still have every right to be heard in the EU.
Instead of pretending to be above criticism, everyone should thank those who criticise the EU. Just imagine how boring and dangerous it would be if everyone agreed on everything all the time.
And, you know, things could be worse.
Filed under: UK & the EU | 2 Comments
Tags: democracy, EU, European Parliament, Nigel Farage, opposition, transparency
I know where you’re coming from, agree that a bit of excitement wouldn’t go amiss, and also find the deadening effect of consensus politics impossible to get enthused over. However, I’ve seen Farage close up and he’s not a positive thing.
Yes, we need a proper opposition in the Parliament – a force to do everything from questioning the EU added value of specific proposals to debating the overall direction the EU is going.
But what is needed here is Intelligent Scepticism. Instead we get a buffoon playing to a xenophobic crowd. It doesn’t help much.
But the press he gets isn’t always positive – his whole Rompuy episode was hardly covered in a positive light and I bet Rompuy hasn’t had as much coverage since he started.
Farage is a contrarian and has few viable policies to present. But when he makes the press internationally and in the UK, I’m sure there also people who will think he’s a nutter and start actually thinking about the policies. In my opinion, he’s actually doing the EU a favour.