Founded 1998. Working together on campaigns to defend & improve democracy. #Elections | #Parliament | #Democracy Tweets: @StuartCoster
United Kingdom
Joined July 2012
- Tweets11K
- Following2.2K
- Followers1.6K
- Likes3.6K
Pinned Tweet
Brexit restored one of the biggest freedoms of all; the freedom to hold our lawmakers to account. The power of our votes. The ability, peacefully through the ballot box, to remove those who make our laws and induce change. In essence, democracy.
#Brexit #democracy
The EU Commission is unelected but has the sole power to propose EU laws; its Council of Ministers can over-rule member govts now in almost all policy areas; its parliament isn't underpinned by a demos (half the actual word "democracy"); yet, together, these institutions hold legal supremacy over elected govts. The EU is dangerously undemocratic & the inevitable political effects are worsening.
#EuropeanUnion #democracy
Reality on UK exports to the EU, after @AngelaRayner's inaccurate claims to @bbclaurak yesterday. It would certainly help an informed debate if journalists are prepared to challenge dodgy stats. Hopefully Angela Rayner herself will be having words with whoever supplied her with these misleading figures.
FYI, talking about Brexit yesterday, Angela Rayner claimed that...
“The evidence is really clear in terms of 20% down in exports to the EU, 16,000 businesses no longer exporting to the EU, it has been the red tape on the EU deal we got, has been damaging to the economy”.
But if this is indeed the evidence, it really is not clear!
Let's unpick it... 🧵
The Democracy Movement retweeted
2024 voters backed Labour on the basis of staying out of the EU, incl red wall voters returning. Hoping to win in 2029 by entirely reversing that policy, rather than on competence & domestic delivery, would be an extraordinary gamble. Esp as poll support for rejoin is so shallow.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
…
And remember remainers told us that UK financial services would be decimated by Brexit.
In fact, financial services exports to the EU have increased significantly, most likely helped by regulatory divergence possible only because of …
... Brexit!
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Andy Burnham has told the Sunday Times that he is open to readopting free movement as part of a closer relationship with the EU. This would be an utter affront to all those - including the millions of working-class voters in Labour's traditional heartlands - who voted for Brexit. At a time when our immigration system remains completely broken, it would also be a calamitous own goal. Under no circumstances should the Labour party go along with it.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
The Prime Minister speaks of an honest conversation, and yet the arguments to reverse brexit all sound like we'd be returning to the Europe of 2016. That just isn't true. The Europe we'd rejoin today wouldn't be one where centrists like Angela Merkel were in positions of leadership. Today, the AfD is surging and could take control in Germany, Marine Le Pen in France, Italy is governed by the populist right, hard-right parties are in power or gaining ground across much of Europe. This is a profoundly different political landscape to the one we left, and it is the heights of dishonesty not to hold this fact at the forefront of any conversation we have now.
We're seeing this conversation presented around returning to our young people all that brexit robbed them of. Again, we're having this conversation as though we're still looking upon the Europe of 2016. The Europe of 2026 is aflame, the young people are revolting against perceived economic injustices. An honest conversation would acknowledge this fact.
At a time when British politics is the most fractured it's ever been, reopening this debate, especially in the selective, rose-tinted manner in which it is being discussed, risks driving even deeper divisions through our society.
Is this really the government's priority?
Our young people need growth, opportunity, and a future they can believe in. They need a government focused on delivering these things, not one hellbent on reigniting one of the most divisive debates in modern British politics.
I am by no means opposed to closer ties with Europe, nor the economic benefits they might bring. But an honest conversation about Europe must begin with the Europe that exists today, the Europe we see on our screens, being set ablaze by its youth, not the one we remember from 2016.
How the EU robs its member states and their citizens of democracy. 👇
#Brexit #democracy
An unelected executive is inherently a democratic problem. One with exclusive right to propose all laws especially so. That the EU Commission has these features is simply a fact; not sure anyone objective and rational would disagree.
This is likely why, as here, debate always quickly turns to other institutions, who can only approve laws first handed down by the unelected Commission. But they are also flawed.
In the Council, ministers unelected in most member countries can over-rule the elected one in another. Democracy? MEPs are elected on national platforms, yet make EU-wide decisions together. They are arguably not representing a demos, half the actual word democracy. Which leaves their election a veneer.
The Commission president is only approved by MEPs. Only one name on the ballot is not an 'election'. She is not elected by anyone.
Glossing over these key points of detail is just dangerous for Europe. Democracy actually matters, for stability and much else. It should not be undermined lightly to service utopian concepts. It's arguably no coincidence that radical political forces are rising, when enough upset voters realise they have no control.
Leave voters certainly had this control and democracy in mind, with much justification. Makes no sense to ignore that, other than to intentionally swerve the EU's major democratic flaws.
"'We have 1million people not in employment, education or training. The government says it is serious about getting them back into work. To suddenly say you are prepared to negotiate allowing people from all over Europe to come and take those jobs would be a hammer blow"
#Brexit
Sir Jeremy Hunt - a former Tory chancellor who campaigned for Remain - says returning to free movement would be a 'hammer-blow' to trying to get people off welfare and into work
He says that there is a risk that it paralyses the government because the issue is so divisive, and that there is an unwritten rule that major constitutional issues should only be returned to once a generation
He tells @bbclaurak: 'We have 1million people not in employment, education or training. The government says it is serious about getting them back into work. To suddenly say you are prepared to negotiate allowing people from all over Europe to come and take those jobs would be a hammer blow to those plans to get people off welfare and into work.
'Whatever your views are on the European issue - and I voted Remain - going back to that old model where employers were giving jobs to people from all over Europe and we were parking people on welfare here must be a step back.
'When you have to have these big, constitutional debates you have to have an unwritten agreement that you are only going to come back to them once in a generation. Otherwise it is so divisive.
'I was at the top of a government that was paralysed for several years while we were trying to wrestle with the implications of that vote. I think that having made a decision we should stick with it.'
The Democracy Movement retweeted
The Europoors are at it again.
I can't believe that this government looks at the slowest growing continent on planet earth and thinks 'yes, let's be more like them'.
Europe is a chronic disaster zone and we should largely be doing precisely the opposite of what it decrees - especially on energy and tech policy.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Organisations that have come out against the expected terms of the UK-EU Reset, in just the last few days:
National Farming Union (NFU)
National Sheep Association (NSA)
Food Produce Consortium (FPC)
Very interesting CFO survey results. Not only does "Trade relationship with Europe" rank relatively lowly as a factor, but "Domestic economic and political uncertainty" - such as caused by re-opening questions of our entire relationship with the EU - ranks right at the top.
ICYMI, two interesting charts from the latest Deloitte CFO survey...
1⃣ 'trade relationship with Europe' ranks relatively lowly as a constraint on UK competitiveness; of course it might also impact others, but attempts to realign with the EU are more likely to increase 'uncertainty' and add to 'regulation'...
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Labour MPs are rebelling over the Prime Ministers attempts to take us back into the European Union.
Re-opening the Brexit debate will harm growth as the uncertainty will deter businesses investment.
We need the government to focus on growth.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/202…
Another Labour MP opposes a repeat EU referendum in the party's next election manifesto: "those now calling for another referendum were likely the same people who wanted a second vote following the original result." Exactly the same people.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmp8… #Brexit
The Democracy Movement retweeted
One of the biggest reasons I’m against the EU is that it’s a super well paid retirement plan for ex MPs across Europe who no one voting for. Maybe ask why they want to rejoin or maintain it so much rather than a coalition of European states with sovereign responsibility remaining with voted for governments.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Very good piece by @BrendanChilton on what the UK would lose by rejoining the EU, single market, or customs union.
‘Reopening the Brexit debate would be a mistake’ – via @LabourList labourlist.org/2026/10/reope… – at Oslo, Norway
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Stephen Kinnock’s claim that there were no boat people because we were in the European Union is a straightforward lie. Illegal immigrants flooded in by lorry, train and cars. They disappeared into towns/cities and couldn’t be properly counted. When advances in technology made these methods of transport much harder to use the illegal migrants took to boats, courtesy of the people smugglers. Since the boats are usually interdicted on arrival the counting is easier. Nothing to do with being in or out of the EU.
Talking up rejoining the EU is not just laughably offensive to democracy after just six years outside, but it's also going nowhere - because polls show consistently that a big majority opposes the likely terms of joining.
So is it too much to ask, pretty please, for the government to focus on actually governing, instead of how yet again to give its powers away?
#democracy #Brexit
@andyburnham @afneil @kafkaswife @JuliaHB1 @NickFerrariLBC @AnnabelDenham1 @ShippersUnbound @Steven_Swinford @JackElsom @sophyridgesky
Should we expect EU carbon pricing to put up costs of driving and home heating, when Andy Burnham tries to link the UK emissions trading scheme to the EU's ETS next month? So much for focusing on the cost of living.
@andyburnham @JohnHealey_MP @jreynoldsMP @HFalconerMP @afneil
It was meant to be a debate on how to curb Europe’s soaring energy prices.
But the first session of talks at an EU leaders' summit today quickly descended into a fight over whether the EU should put a carbon price on driving cars and heating buildings. vist.ly/5njbu
The Democracy Movement retweeted
There its is: "In return, EU negotiators have insisted that Britain signs up to European Court of Justice oversight of the system and pays an annual fee".
Every move in the PM's so-called reset involves surrendering more power to the EU and paying more money into its coffers.
Andy Burnham wants to seal a pact with Brussels to restore access to the bloc’s databases of asylum seekers and criminals
In return, EU negotiators have insisted that Britain signs up to European Court of Justice oversight of the system and pays an annual fee, sources told The Telegraph ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/politics/202…
The Democracy Movement retweeted
UK AI Minister @KanishkaNarayan tells us the the UK has attracted 50% of European venture capital in the last 12-months, a 16 year high for the nation:
"Why is it that in the last 12 months Britain has cleaned up 50% or so of European venture capital? A 16-year high...we're doing really well in terms of startups".
"At the same time, the UK has the best AI security institute, the ability to be able to test models, understand risks, and mitigate them from a cyber point".
"We've got some great guys from companies coming and working with us, and we've got some great people from government going and working with those companies."
"It needs expertise that the state has not needed before."
AI Minister Kanishka Narayan says the government will prepare Britain to respond to incidents involving the technology as it becomes more capable.
trib.al/BEJPJTx
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233