‘We are used to dealing with countries that don’t live up to acceptable democratic standards because they are too slow in giving all their citizens the right to either stand for election to make all the laws to which they are subject, or to vote for a fellow citizen to represent them for this purpose.
Where the provision of this right to all citizens is withheld, in whole or in part, this is wrong and completely unacceptable.
The offence of the EU in this regard, however, is of a wholly different and much more alarming order.
They have taken a jurisdiction, the UK, where all adults had the right to stand for election to make all the laws to which they were subject, or to elect a fellow citizen to represent them for this purpose, for the best part of a hundred years, and they have taken this from some of its citizens so that now they only have the right to stand for election to make some of the laws to which they are subject or elect a fellow citizen for this purpose.
While this is, of course, a particular trauma for those living in the part of the UK effected, there is a sense in in which it stands as an insult to the entire country as it would if such an ignominy was imposed on any part of any developed self-respecting country.
In this context it is quite extraordinary that the EU should gone out of its way to mark International Democracy Day by issuing the statement:
‘Built on voting, speaking up, and staying informed. We’re not just celebrating it. Together, we’re nurturing it every day.’
Far from nurturing democracy every day the EU is doing something that no other developed country is doing.
It is instead defying democracy every day by making legislation that it applies to us through a legislature in which we are not represented, denying democracy in relation to legislation where it previously held sway.
Moreover, far from being a problem that is going away, this is a problem that is getting worse and worse, as the number of pieces of imposed legislation just goes up and up over time.
While this is a very bad for the UK, the truth is that it is also very bad for the EU which is damaging its reputation by imposing these arrangements.’
- Jim Allister KC MP