08 September 2011

EU Referendum

If you conducted a poll amongst the population of Ukraine and asked them if they wanted to join the European Union - YES or NO. I'm sure the vast majority would be saying YES as they would consider membership of the EU to be beneficial to the country and hopefully bring much needed social, economic and political changes to Ukraine.

However, another country in the west of Europe which claims to be a 'true democracy' could perhaps be the first country to decide to leave the EU. Step forward the United Kingdom.

Many British people are seriously starting to think it would be a good idea to clear the air within UK politics and have a referendum on it's continued membership of the EU. Those regular readers of the Daily Mail will know all to well the mood expressed by its readership. However, I'm sure it goes further than Daily Mail readers.

The UK government came up with the bright idea of 'e-petitions'. This is where people can create/suggest an issue that needs to be debated and voted on within the UK House of Commons, provided a minimum of 100,000 of the electorate sign up. Paper based systems are equally considered. So this is exactly what has happened.

Now we hear rumours that maybe the House of Commons does not have enough time to discuss these issues!!! Well, that's certainly one way to upset the great British public.

The issue will now start to develop more steam since a delegation of MP's and MEP's are due to deliver sack fulls of signature to the British Prime Minister - David Cameron.
See: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23984793-cameron-urged-to-call-eu-referendum.do

A large number of the British public are already very negative towards the EU and see it as an organisation that is out of touch with British customs and culture. The British have never liked the European methods of measurement etc. Moreover, they see EU laws being introduced that sometimes conflict with British laws. Within the European Parliament, a British political party, UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) openly campaigns for the UK to withdraw its membership of the EU.

Maybe the British government are afraid to offer the British people a referendum on the EU?
But what is democracy all about? The British people should be allowed to decide.

No comments: