Fond O' Lying?

Ursula von der Leyen has, as expected, been shooed into the position of EU Commission President by the faux democratic process of voting, from a shortlist of candidates including herself and… er, herself. The result has been loudly touted as 52% to 48%, mirroring the Brexit referendum and therefore as equally valid. After all, sayeth the righteous remoaners, if 52% is an ‘overwhelming majority’ (something leavers have never actually claimed) why all the belly-aching?

Why? Well it’s as if Keith Vaz were to chair the committee for standards in public life for some time after the cocaine-fuelled rent-boy episode. Or as if renowned anti-white racist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown were to appear on our televisions almost every day to berate us for our skin colour. Or – and you’ll have to admit this is something of a stretch – as if unelected advisors were given titles so that they could take seats in the House of Lords and thereby bypass the election procedure and end up being cabinet members.

It’s all a question of legitimacy and the Brexit Party, among others, are in the EU Parliament precisely to try and open your eyes to what is really happening. To suggest that a disgraced German politician – under investigation for insider dealings in defence contracting – and utterly unknown outside her home country is a fit person to lead the commission is risible at best, sinister if you tend towards darker imaginings.

“But she was voted for!” They cry. Narrowly, yes. But no alternative was given. This wasn’t a contest, it was a rubber-stamping exercise, exactly as Nigel Farage has been saying for years. The majority of MEPs in the chamber are paid up EU devotees and yet they only just managed to get sufficient ‘yeas’ to pass the appointment. But where were they in the selection process? Where were the Euro-hustings allowing the ruled to see who would rule over them? Where were the preliminary voting rounds?

“How did Farage get to be leader of the Brexit Party, then?” they demand, “That’s exactly the same thing!” Is it? Did the BP suddenly take over the country? Is Farage the Prime Minister, or is he, in fact, simply the very popular leader of a party he founded? It is normal, indeed it is healthy, to question nepotism, secret committee selections, graft, corruption and abnormal voting outcomes. It is right to question polls limited to specific cohorts. And it is also right to question the current Tory Party system, but at least its members have had a say and all the selections have been highly public; embarrassingly so.

But the closed-door shenanigans of the EU’s ruling elite are not properly held to account. They aren’t even properly held to the light.  This is the entire point of Brexit. We have enough trouble being informed of the intentions, the motives, the reliability of our own, usually directly elected ‘representatives’. But how can we be represented by people we have never heard of, who often come with political or even criminal baggage and over whom we have no power to deselect?

Me? My, what a surpise!

At a time when more transparency is being demanded here at home; when higher standards are being demanded of our governors; when people are demanding a greater say in how our country is run; it is ludicrous for those who shout “Who funds you?” at Nigel Farage to be cheering on the farce of this ‘election’. There have always been crooks and low-lifes in positions of power, but why should we stand for a system in which this is not a regrettable exception, but an entry requirement?