I guess it is reasonable to cite one example of poor decision making by the EU as a reason to be satisfied that the UK is not in the EU. It sort of reflects "see, told you they were bad".There are two problems with this thinking. First, that mindset is not applied consistently to mistakes made by the UK government. And for Covid this current government has made so many, and the tories in the last 10 years have made even more that have directly impacted the ability of the UK to deal with this pandemic. Not maintaining emergency PPE stocks, ignoring NHS scenario tests, poor messaging, late lockdown decisions, poor individual and business support, terribly poor test management. It goes on and on.So what, you say, the UK government can be voted out. Except clearly the tories have not been voted out. Nor will individuals be held to account for mistakes made. Nor castigated for fatuous actions such clapping for NHS staff who they continue to not provide inflation matching pay rises. I see no accountability or threat of losing one's parliamentary seat or role in government for poor performance. Theoretically we can vote them out for their covid performance, but not in reality. So explain again how the EU is so much less democratic?Second, as with so many similar issues, individual EU countries can do their own thing. Had the UK been in the EU then it could easily have opted to sort its own vaccination plans. Being in the EU or not would not have made the UK better or worse at tackling the vaccination challenge. So it is not a Brexit issue at all. Much as some would like to use this current EU set of errors as being an endorsement of Brexit. It ain't even if it might make some people think it 'proves them right'.
Alan Clark ● 2095d