The EU has got by for years because although it was an elite driven project from the start, there was a sort of passive-permissive consensus. But that’s run out. The EU’s democratic deficit is now spiralling even faster than its fiscal deficit.
According to the EU’s own tracker poll, in 1991 a chunky 57 percent of people in Britain said membership was a good thing, and only 13 percent a bad thing. 47 percent said the UK had benefitted from membership, and only 34 percent thought we had not benefitted. But in the most recent poll to run these questions, published this spring, just 28 percent said EU membership was a good thing, and more – 32 percent- a bad thing. In the same poll 34% said the UK had benefitted from membership but 50% thought we had not benefitted. An independent poll out last week showed most people now want to leave the EU. Given the dishonest way our political leaders have behaved over the years, that’s hardly surprising.
Europe’s leaders are like a gambler who responds to every loss by doubling his stake, hoping that somehow it will all come good in the end. For them, the answer to Europe’s failures is always more integration. And so far, it’s not come crashing down. But one of the pitfalls of integration by stealth seems to be ever diminishing public support. We can’t go on like this, and I suspect we won’t.
I suspect he's right. It won't go on like this. But is it really safe to assume that the EU bureaucrats will inadvertently destroy the EU political project with their insistence on lack of transparency and just ramming through what they want?
When public opinion goes up against bureaucrats who don't give a damn about public opinion, don't assume that public opinion prevails in the nominal democracy of the European Union proto-state. The empire has resisted efforts to kill it. And don't think that freedom and democracy has anything to do with this project. The democratic deficit of the EU is a feature and not a bug. Once you've gotten over that particular way of thinking that hobbles what is acceptable to do to your people, the sky is the limit for how you react to pesky peasants intent on revolt.
At what point does Greece fail to stem mounting protests and riots over austerity measures? And at what point do we see EU riot police drawn from other countries flown in to Athens to put down unrest that Greek police are unwilling to quell?
