Darth Nostril wrote:Not a mystery reason - Junker is responsible for the tax evasion loopholes that let companies like Amazon funnel money through Luxemburg to the tax haven of the Isle of Man, avoiding paying any taxes in Britain. In spite of years of protests and lobbying he refused to bring Luxemburg in line with the rest of Europes anti-tax evasion policies.
That would be laughable reason to oppose him from the UK, seeing UK alone has more tax havens than the rest of Europe and Africa
combined. Lest time I checked, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Jersey, BOT, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and Caymans plus the rest of the lot were not in Luxembourg.
Simon_Jester wrote:Perhaps some Britons want to leave the EU altogether, but more Britons will want to leave if the EU is being governed by people they oppose and dislike. It's very rare for someone to secede from a larger government when they approve of that government and feel it's pursuing their interests.
And? It's just empty tautology. You can insert 'USA' and 'Obama' in the above sentence and it will be just as true.
Simon_Jester wrote:The answer is yes if and only if both the following statements are true:
1) Leaving the larger body is a legal thing to do, and the member territories have a right to leave whenever they want.
2) The leader of the member territory sincerely believes they are representing the wishes of the electorate that put them into office.
Can you enlighten me which definition of democracy says the minority gets to have its wishes imposed on majority 100% of the time, or it grabs its toys and leaves, and that on a whim of one man that doesn't even follow minority's wishes? I am not aware of one, but I might have missed something.
(1) is not satisfied in the case of New Jersey: secession is illegal under both the small-c and large-C constitutions of the United States. But (1) is satisfied in the case of Britain: seceding from the EU is legal).
So, if we were to make exiting EU illegal, suddenly opposing Juncker is undemocratic?
I suppose we might reasonable accuse Cameron of violating (2). We might say that he doesn't actually think most Britons would want to leave the EU if that EU were run by Juncker. In which case he is not representing his nation properly. That accusation might be true for all I know.
Cameron follows the wishes of the only electorate he ever meets, The City one. Just like the Abbot guy in thread below follows the coal lobby.
But he is still within his rights to simply say: "We would prefer that Juncker not enter office, if he does my country will probably want to leave." Because it's in his job description to represent his own country to foreigners, not to follow some idealized template of what an international body thinks should happen.
That's blackmail running completely contrary to the very idea of democracy.
Had it been worded along the line 'hey, listen, I have a proposal of different deal of seats after the votes, deal that will respect everyone's wishes and will follow the wishes of electorate and paritet of votes while keeping UK happy' people might have agreed.
But no, that idiot left the largest party in EU parliament, party that was friendly to his own and a party where he had a huge amount of influence due to size of British delegation, losing it all and choosing to remain on sidelines of EU politics.
My New Jersey example was wrong - because to make it more like EU situation, Christie and New Jersey republicans would need first to quit republican party, creating tiny, single state faction utterly devoid of any influence of top level of US politics,
then throw their tantrum. Cameron is literally the equivalent of crying child stomping its feet because mom didn't bought him candy.
