Originally Posted by
westlondoncarparts
The President of the Council works for the Council at the direction of the Prime Ministers and other Ministers (as appropriate) of the member states and does not decide policy and does not pass laws. As I said before, the role is largely an administrative and managerial role.
It is completely incorrect to refer to the Council as totalitarian.
If there is any democratic deficit, it is with the Prime Ministers and Ministers of the various member nations not engaging with their electorates over what they are doing in Brussels and not carrying out the wishes of their electorate in Brussels. The British representatives at Brussels are accountable to the British public for what they do. It is incorrect to say that they are not accountable.
If the British people think there there is a problem with who the British Prime Minister sends to the Council to represent the UK, then they need to exercise their democratic rights in the UK and tell the Prime Minister what they want in Brussels. I doubt that many British people would have a problem with a British Minister being sent to the Council as representative for the same portfolio area that the Minister covers in the UK - like George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, works with other European Finance Ministers in the Council; like Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary, works with other European Foreign Affairs Ministers in the Council.
The problem with this Referendum debate is that there are serious matters that we should be discussing about Europe and the UK but are not. The way that UKIP have got the EU into the mainstream debate on a very narrow range of issues and the fact that the referendum was David Cameron's way of reacting to UKIP and his own Eurosceptics is denying the British electorate the proper debate over a number of issues that is needed. Politicians in both camps are really letting the country down and whatever the result, this Referendum is not going to be accepted by a large chuck of the electorate as having much real meaning at all.