The decision to be taken in Brussels by the leaders of the Parliaments that are members of the EU is anti democratic, according to the democratically elected David Cameron. The irony is that a decision which is usually arrived at through a process of consensus will this time be dealt with as a matter of majority voting, on the insistence of Prime Minister Cameron. Although the Lisbon treaty which has been adopted by all of these democratically elected Governments is being faithfully followed in terms of process, Mr Cameron is not happy. This could be because it was Tony Blair who negotiated the Lisbon Treaty on behalf of the UK, and not a Conservative Prime Minister. Just like Mr Cameron, Mr Blair was our democratically elected leader of the UK, but of course he was a Labour MP and so perhaps Mr Cameron believes that the only truly democratic decisions are those that put people like him in a position to make all of the rules. That might explain why the group in the European Parliament to which Conservative MEPs belong chose not to nominate a candidate for the role that Mr Juncker is destined to inhabit. Perhaps these democratically elected MEPs were so convinced that David Cameron would overturn the democratic processes established by the Lisbon treaty that they didn’t need to follow the process of nominating a candidate.

Sadly many of our Politicians have form when it comes to participating in processes which they choose to rubbish as being anti-democratic. My memory of sitting on the South East England Regional Assembly was fascinating as much because of the behaviour of democratically elected Council Leaders as anything else. The Assembly in the South East was dominated by the Conservative Party, yet all of the three major parties never stopped whinging that people like me who were there at the behest of a democratically elected national Parliament, were entitled to speak and be heard by them. We could not possibly win any of the votes, but we could challenge some of their worst excesses and thankfully shamed them into avoiding making some decisions that would have been bad for the region whether in terms of business or the environment or the social needs of society.

We need MPs and MEPs as well as Prime Ministers who do not use the term anti-democratic to complain about decisions that they dislike. We need Politicians who will promote the benefits of democracy and inspire people who vote for them and give them their mandate. I have often voted in a democratic contest in which the winner was not the person who I voted for, but that is the nature of democracy. What seems anti-democratic to me are the actions of people like Patrick Mercer and Neil Hamilton, yet far too often the likes of David Cameron protect, rather than expose this sort of anti-democracy!