The problem with the European Parliament is that nobody

in the UK thought it had any relevance or teeth. hence you have tended to end up with a load of crackpots, protest candidates or second rate politicians who could not get elected domestically being voted into it. I've never even voted or considered voting in a European Parliament election and I am sure many others are the same because we all believed that it was nothing more than a token institution.

Suddenly you then have something like the Brexit debate happen, people scrutinize things more carefully and the realization dawns that the likes of Junker and the European Parliament who we have all regarded as a joke and toothless actually are calling far more shots than anyone realized.

It absolutely makes my blood boil seeing Junker and Shultz touring around Europe meeting leaders and signing trade deals etc on behalf of the EU or the likes of Merkel having a "power struggle" with the European Commission because they were supposed to be civil servants putting into practice the wishes of the Council members and not driving their own federalist agenda.

I have no expectation that EU leaders will relent and negotiate with us before serving Article 50 because unfortunately I feel now that the tail is wagging the dog. We should be absolutely refusing to have any negotiations with anyone other than the Council members themselves.

Posted By: Jim, Nov 3, 14:30:12