Is this the New Winston Churchill?

[Kupsised]

Originally Posted by arthursmedley

Daniel Hannan is the elected member for the European parliamentary constituency of South-East England. He represents about 850,000 people! He is a member of the British Conservative party and stood for election under the Conservative party banner. His job to to represent them and speak for them in the EU parliament. Just as if he were an elected member of the British House of Commons the functions are the same. He was not elected to represnt the "EU" he is there to represent his constituents. Within the EU parliament he can say whatever he likes, that IS his job.

Plenty of people across Europe but perhaps not within the UK understand the function of the EU parliament. That is why Congo-Otto called it a "blatherer shop" earlier in this thread. The EU parliament is still a rather toothless Tiger. Although it has been gaining more powers recently it has no powers to introduce legislation on it's own. These powers are still reserved for the EU Commission and the Council of Ministers where the real power still lies.

Daniel Hannan cannot speak in the council of ministers as he is not a member. The council of ministers, when it meets, is made up from one representative from the cabinet of the government of the individual member states. Since 2009 you cannot be a member of the EU parliament and a member of a national parliament simultaneously. Therefore he cannot speak in the Council.
Nor can he speak in the Commission either as the Commissioners are appointed by the Council of Ministers although the EU parliament does have a veto over the appointment of the Commissioners these days.

I'm not sure what you mean by him "representing people in Fance, Greece, Romania or whatever". Are you confusing the function of the "blocks" within the EU parliament? Under the leadership of David Cameron our Conservative Party left the European Peoples Party - the main centre right block and joined the "GranPa was a war criminal" party of the rather further right movement. Daniel Hannan was instrumental in this rather bizarre move.

He isn't an elected member of the Conservative party in the EP though. The fact that he stood for election under the Conservative party banner is effectively a misrepresentation of the truth, as it's not the Conservative Party he is representing in the EP. He may be a member of the Conservative party in the UK, but as soon as he enters the European Parliament he is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists political group. The UK Conservative party is not represented in the EP, only political groups (or 'blocks' as you said) are represented, since the blocks act like parties would in Westminster for example.

Secondly, the EP is based on proportional representation, which is a different system to what we have in the UK. Under the European Parliament system, members don't represent people based on location, but based on ideology. Therefore, Hannan does not represent everyone in the constituency of the South-East of England, but rather represents anyone in the whole of the European Union who's ideology falls within the same ideology as the ECR political group. That's what I mean by he could represent any of the EU citizens regardless of their location, because the representation is not based on location, but ideology. Again, I'll repeat, he does not represent the UK, or the South-East of England. It is a very complicated system of PR, but that's how it is, but if effectively means that any of the MEP's can be 'your' MEP, it doesn't have to be the one from your constituency as the constituencies are regional divisions for electoral purposes only.

With regards to him not being a member of the Council, of course he isn't. That was my point, which I realise now was badly written in that edit but was clearly expressed in the non-edit part of the post. If he was a member, the comments he was making would make sense, but since he isn't, he is simply wasting time and annoying everyone else.

The Parliament also isn't as weak as it used to be. Things changed quite drastically under Lisbon due to the increase of the Co-Decision procedure (now Ordinary Legislative Procedure). The Parliament is now almost as powerful as the Council, except on matters such as Common Foreign and Security Policy which haven't been fully conferred to the Union. On almost all issues though the Parliament and the Council share equal influence on whether legislation is passed or not, so on a day to day basis they are fairly level as far as power is concerned.

I suppose that with the point he's trying to make, he would likely do better as an MP in Westminster where the decisions on treaties etc. can actually be influenced, not in the EP where his opnions on the treaties and the Union as a whole don't matter, his job is simply to pass legislation, not to have opinions on the treaties, although like I said he's perfectly welcome to have them, but it is not his job.