European Union

Every day Brexiters tell us Remainers that we are undermining democracy by campaigning to reverse Brexit.

‘Are you going to campaign until you get the result you want?’ they ask us, with disdain.

‘Yes,’ is our answer. ‘That’s how democracy works.’

Our aim is not to undermine democracy, but to use the democratic process to achieve the change we seek, which is a reversal of Brexit.

What many don’t seem to understand is that any vote in a democracy can be undone by a new vote.

That’s always how our democracy has worked.

In a democracy, no result is permanently binding, as any democratic decision can be undone by a new democratic decision. If that were not the case, it would not be a democracy.

In a democracy, we can campaign for whatever we believe in, even after losing a vote.

That’s always how our democracy has worked.

But we can only ever win if the majority agrees with us at the next democratic opportunity to cast a vote.

That’s always how our democracy has worked.

So, we are campaigning for a new and legitimate democratic opportunity to reconsider our membership of the European Union.

After all, that’s exactly what ardent Eurosceptics campaigned for immediately after the first referendum in 1975, which voted for Britain to remain a member of the European Community.

Eurosceptics didn’t like that result, and wanted to reverse it in a new referendum.

If they could campaign for a new referendum, why can’t we?

It took Eurosceptics 40 years to win their ‘next referendum’. So, some Brexiters say, Remainers will have to wait just as long to get our ‘next referendum’. But that’s not comparing like with like.

The 1975 referendum resulted in an enormous margin of 34.5% for remaining a member of the European Community – a truly decisive result. There was no mass campaign or mainstream call for another referendum for most of the next 40 years of our membership that followed.

But that hasn’t been the same for the 2016 referendum, when the margin for leaving the European Community was a meagre 3.8% – a truly divisive result.

Two years later, we still haven’t left the EU, and voters across the country increasingly believe that Brexit is a mistake. Polls show that around 2,500 Leave voters are changing their minds every day.

And unlike after the 1975 referendum, there is now a mass campaign and mainstream call for another referendum on Brexit, to take place before it actually happens.

A recent poll by Survation showed that 48 per cent of voters want a new referendum on the final Brexit deal, compared with just 25% who disagree.

The poll also indicated that over a third of Leave voters now want another referendum.

There is nothing undemocratic about having a new vote on Brexit when we know the actual details of Brexit. Another vote on Brexit means more democracy, not less.

Why are so many Brexiters apparently wary of a new vote on Brexit? For how long can they rely on a vote that took place over two years ago, and which poll after poll now indicates no longer represents today’s ‘will of the people’?

If the final details of Brexit are so good, and better than our continued membership of the EU, then Britain will surely vote for it. What have Brexiters got to worry about?

But if Brexiters have so little confidence in Brexit that they dare not let ‘the people’ have any further say about it, we should all be suspicious.

Then, we can say, it’s not us, but them, who are undermining democracy.

Nobody knew what Brexit meant in the referendum, and we still don’t know. Not even our government can agree what Brexit means, and this week several Cabinet members resigned because they disagree with the latest proposals for Brexit.

Brexit is not yet agreed. And nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. So, nothing is agreed. Brexit is not yet a done deal.

Only those who are against democracy disagree. And only those who are against the democratic process want us to stop campaigning for what we believe in.

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• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• Follow my Stop Brexit campaign on Facebook: Reasons2Remain

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The post Brexit is reversible appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

DRAFT REPORT on the 2018 Commission Report on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ivo Vajgl

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

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Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Length of video : 126'
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Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Committee meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Jehovan todistajat
PDON
A religious community, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, is a controller, jointly with its members who engage in preaching, for the processing of personal data carried out by the latter in the context of door-to-door preaching

The EU regrets that Djibouti and Uganda did not comply with their obligations under international law and as state parties to the International Criminal Court to surrender President Al-Bashir to the Court.

President Tusk received the letter of credentials from a new ambassador to the European Union.

During the press conference following the 20th EU-Ukraine summit held in Brussels, President Tusk presented the main topics the leaders discussed during their meeting.

At the 20th summit between the European Union and Ukraine, leaders discussed next steps in the implementation of the Association Agreement and the EU's support for Ukraine's ambitious reform agenda.

Updated weekly schedule of President Donald Tusk 9-15 July 2018

Information for the media about the joint declaration on EU-NATO cooperation on 10 July 2018

On 6 July, the Council adopted a decision on the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan, in view of the EU-Japan summit on 11 July 2018.

The Council prolonged EU economic sanctions against Russia until 31 January 2019.

Information about media programme and accreditation requirements for 2nd EU-CELAC Ministerial Meeting in July

In Strasbourg, President Donald Tusk addressed the plenary session of the European Parliament on the discussions held during the European Council meetings.

Information about media programme and accreditation requirements for the EU-Japan Summit in July

Oral Question on the EU’s input to a UN Binding Instrument on TNCs and other business enterprises with transnational characteristics with respect to Human Rights
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The resignations of Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, and Brexit Secretary, David Davis, along with other government ministers, show that there is no real consensus on what Brexit means.

There is a jagged oozing fissure right through the Conservative government and party, just as there is across the country, because Brexit is as enigmatic as ever.

And if the politicians, and the country, can’t agree on what Brexit means today, then how could voters have known what it meant in the referendum of over two years ago?

So, here’s the simple truth: Nobody gave ‘informed consent’ for Brexit. They could not have done, because in the 2016 referendum, nobody was sufficiently informed about Brexit.

On the contrary, the country was entirely misinformed.

There was no blueprint, plan, proposal or manifesto for Brexit. Just a lot of fairy-tale claims and promises that have all turned out to be false.

If the details of Brexit had been agreed, we’d have voted on those details on 23 June 2016. But we didn’t have any details.

Over two years later, Theresa May can pretend there is harmony in her Cabinet on the type of Brexit Britain will get, but even as she speaks, it’s all falling apart.

How can anyone claim that the country knew what it was voting for in June 2016 when it’s taken until July 2018 for the government to work out a plan for Brexit?

And then for that plan to result in Cabinet resignations, because that’s not the Brexit they had in mind?

And then for that Brexit plan to be undeliverable – because the plan relies on the EU allowing Britain to break its own rules, which they won’t do. Why should they?

Brexit is entirely undeliverable. It was never anything more than an illusion.

It appealed to people who were fed-up with a host of issues, that had nothing to do with the EU, but it seemed that Brexit was the magic word that could fix everything.

But Brexit won’t fix anything. It will break us apart. It is already.

The government keeps going with their daft Brexit plans because they say that’s the will of the people. They think that’s what Britain wants.

But that’s an illusion too. Britain – and Britons – don’t want this. How could this mess be the will of anyone?

We are witnessing our country being dismantled, destroyed, and our international reputation disintegrated.

Nobody can want this.

Nobody would have voted for this if they had known the truth two years ago.

More and more of us can see that Brexit has no clothes. It stands naked, forlorn and shivering before us, dying and gasping for breath, with nothing to offer the nation but years and decades of misery.

If our political masters are truly interested in ‘the will of the people’ they should have no hesitation in asking us what is our will today.

They dare not because they know our answer would be: bury Brexit now.

We want our country back pre-23 June 2016. It wasn’t so bad after all.

And we want our continent back. Europe is where we belong. At the centre, in the heart of it, and not languishing on the periphery.

________________________________________________________

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• Follow my Stop Brexit campaign on Facebook: Reasons2Remain

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• Join and share the discussion about this article on Facebook:

The post It’s time to bury Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

DRAFT REPORT on The Council's annual report in accordance with Operative Provision 8 of the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Sabine Lösing

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP