Interview with Declan Ganley of Libertas

After watching Prime Minister's Questions in Parliament where the Lib/Dem leader Nick Clegg made one of the few questions with any impact, and Farage for UKIP made an ineffectual appearance on the BBC Question Time 'The Politics Show', the next big electoral test the EU Parliament elections in June look ever more likely to prove fertile ground for Libertas. Those curious about what the Libertas Party really stands for may find this interview from ESharp with its leader Declan Ganley of interest. My selected quote is here: +++

So, as I understand it, you’re in favour of the European project as long as it is more accountable. So how would you make it more accountable?

It’s called democracy, you know? And it’s a pretty simple thing. If it takes more than a minute to explain what democracy is then it’s not democracy anymore. I was very amused, I was on some blog site a few days ago and somebody, some proponent of the Lisbon Treaty, had put together a useful diagram of how democracy worked through the Lisbon Treaty and there were so many moving parts to this diagram and input points and different processing areas and everything else. This person had convinced themselves that this had something remotely to do with the democratic process – which it doesn’t.

Democracy – okay well, I can’t do this graphically but let me take this pen as an example of my power as an individual citizen. Power devolves from the citizen. This is my power as an individual. And what I do in a democratic process to my lawmakers, for example, in Ireland, is I take my power – my little piece of it, my little opinion – and I lend it at the ballot box to a lawmaker, to an elected politician. I vote for them. And I lend it to them, I don’t give it to them. I lend it to them on condition that they use it wisely. And the most important thing about democracy is that if you don’t use properly my little bit of power that I lend you, I can take it off you and I can give it to this person over here.

Now what the Lisbon Treaty has done in countries that haven’t had a referendum is taken the power of the citizen – but that citizen has lent that power to elected politicians. And those parliaments have taken that citizen’s power and sovereignty and they’ve handed it to institutions in Brussels that the citizen can never hold accountable. It wasn’t theirs to give away in the first place, that wasn’t the deal. Now people may not be aware of this, and they’re not, but hopefully by June they will be.

+++ Read it all if you have time, these are big issues not suited to glib labels!