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Simon Wren-Lewis

A constant refrain from politicians and others is that we have to leave the EU because we have to respect democracy, where by democracy they mean that 52% voted to do so. Arguments that the vote was based on lies by the Leave side are met with dismissive remarks like both sides were the same, or what do you expect from politicians and so forth. The important thing, we are told, is to respect democracy.

In Poland the government recently passed a law which will dismiss all existing judges and allow the state to directly appoint their successors. This government was democratically elected, and the plan was in their manifesto. So why did the Polish President veto the plan, and why was the EU deeply concerned about it? Surely there was a clear mandate for this policy? Shouldnt the President and the EU respect democracy?

The reason why the President and the EU were right is that democracy is much more than having elections or referendums every so often. Checks and balances, and the rule of law, are crucial ingredients of a well functioning democracy. But having an independent judiciary is not the only essential characteristic of democracy besides voting.

I personally think an important part of democracy is that politicians do not base campaigns on complete lies, and that knowledge, evidence, facts and expertise are respected and are easily accessible to all voters. Otherwise elections can be won by those who tell the biggest lies. If this happens and is not remedied democracy is a sham. As I noted here, lies were central to the Leave campaign (more money for the NHS, Turkey about to join the EU) and have already been shown to be untrue, while the central plank of the Remain campaign (dubbed Project Fear by Leave) has already come to pass. Polls suggest the Leave lies gained them votes. Only one side in the campaign spent a large amount of time dismissing or denigrating academic expertise (be it economists or lawyers).

In the US the Republicans control Congress and the White House, all won by democratic elections, where a key part of the Republican platform was repealing Obamacare. The Republicans therefore appear to have an overwhelming democratic mandate for this repeal. So why are so many people protesting against this repeal? Isnt it important for democracy that repeal goes ahead?

You may say that the Republicans did not say how they would repeal Obamacare, but neither did the Leave campaign say how they were going to leave the EU (or rather they said whatever people wanted to hear). You may say that Leave voters will lose their faith in the democratic system if Brexit doesnt happen, but the same is surely true for Republican voters if Obamacare is not repealed. That is hardly a reason to do it.

But referendums are not like elections, we are told. Mandates from elections can be challenged but referendum results must be respected. But where is it written that referendum results (particularly those that are so close) can never be challenged? Where is it written that we must be bound by the words of politicians during the referendum (we could add whether we should be bound by an electorate chosen to keep Brexiteers happy). If it turns out that the claims of one side in the referendum have been shown to be false, where is it written that the referendum result should nevertheless be cast in stone for a generation. The answer is nowhere, and for the good reasons that David Allen Green explains. All that is written is that parliament is sovereign.

People overseas, in the EU or outside, are mystified at what the UK is currently doing. The main supporter of Brexit overseas is an authoritarian regime, which should give you a clue about what is going on. There are two overwhelming reasons for challenging the referendum result: it was arrived at after a deeply flawed campaign, and we now have information that clearly shows the extent of the Leave campaigns lies. The Leave campaign abused democracy before the vote with lies, and then abused the word subsequently to stifle any dissent. When a vote is won narrowly in an election based on lies that have now been exposed, it seems to me that a hallmark of a functioning democracy is that the original vote is challenged and voters have a chance to vote again.

First posted on Mainly Macro

Simon Wren-Lewis is Professor of Economics at Oxford University.

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Brexit And Democracy - Social Europe

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A prominent member of Hong Kong's Democratic Party said on Friday he was beaten and "stapled" by mainland agents in the Chinese-controlled city before being dumped on a beach in what activists said was the latest warning to the democracy movement.

Howard Lam, a key pro-democracy activist in the former British colony, said he was even told in a telephone call not to give a photo signed by Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi to the widow of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

Lam was confronted by men speaking Mandarin, spoken in Beijing but not widely in Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong, outside a sports store, he told reporters.

He said the men took him away, interrogating him and stapling his skin 21 times for being "unpatriotic" in a nine-hour ordeal. He was knocked out and eventually found himself dumped on a beach in Hong Kong's remote Sai Kung district.

"This is either to warn off the people of Hong Kong or create problems between Xi and Hong Kong," said democracy activist Lee Cheuk-yan, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping. "We do not know the whole objective of the beating up. Both may be the case."

Hong Kong became a "special administrative region" of China in 1997, since when it has been governed under a "one country, two systems" formula that guarantees a range of freedoms not enjoyed in China, including a direct vote for half of the 70-seat legislative assembly.

But activists say those freedoms have come under threat with perceived meddling by Communist Party rulers in Beijing.

Hong Kong's police commissioner, Lau Wai-chung, told media he was taking Lam's accusations seriously and they were attaching great importance to investigating the case.

The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of China's State Council was not immediately available for comment.

Chinese authorities have repeatedly said they would never do anything illegal and that Hong Kong's autonomy was fully respected.

Mainland officers cannot enforce Chinese law in Hong Kong. If Chinese agents were found to be involved, the case is expected to send ripples through the local and diplomatic community about the Chinese state's willingness to flout both its own and international laws.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters less than two weeks after she was sworn in as Hong Kong leader on July 1, Carrie Lam said it was her obligation to stand up for the city's core values if she thought they were being undermined.

Lam has pledged to unify Hong Kong at a time when public resentment swells over Beijing's perceived growing interference in its affairs.

In July, Hong Kong's high court expelled four pro-independence lawmakers from the city's legislature after invalidating their oaths of office, in what was seen as the clearest indication of direct intervention by Beijing.

The 2015 abduction of several Hong Kong booksellers, who sold publications critical of China's leaders, by mainland agents also shook confidence in Beijing's promise of non-interference, activists say.

Howard Lam said he had received a call from a Chinese person claiming to be part of the mainland intelligence service. He said he was warned not to give the Messi photo to the widow of Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese Nobel laureate who died from cancer last month.

It was not immediately clear how they knew of his plans to do so.

Pro-democracy lawmakers, academics and political activists worry that Hong Kong is becoming more like mainland Chinese cities, where the internal security services join forces with police to crush dissent.

Xi swore in Hong Kong's new leader last month with a stark warning that Beijing won't tolerate any challenge to its authority in the city as it marked the 20th anniversary of its return from Britain to China.

Reporting by Farah Master and Stefanie McIntyre in Hong Kong, additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Editing by Anne Marie Roantree; and Nick Macfie

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Hong Kong democracy activist says he was 'stapled' by Chinese agents - Reuters

When Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission met Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban in Riga in May 2015, he greeted him by saying hello dictator.

Junckers words were perhaps an ironic response to Orbans earlier statement that he wants to build an illiberal state based on national foundations, citing Russia and China as examples. He might also have been referring to the way Orban has been gradually amending Hungarys constitution to give his government more power. His efforts to date have left his Fideszparty with significant control over the judiciary, media and banks.

Whatever Junckers motivation back at that meeting in 2015, the scathing greeting now doesnt look all that misplaced. (A year earlier US senatorJohn McCain had labelledOrban a neo-fascist dictator.)

Orban has long been a nationalist but his rhetoric of late has whipped up xenophobia. His government has cracked down on the media and non-governmental organisations that are considered disloyal to the nation. All this seems to be part of a general shift away from Hungary as a liberal democracy.

Orban is a staunch critic of Western European multiculturalism and immigration. When the migration crisis hit in 2015, his country quickly became notorious for the brutal way it was treating the refugees arriving at its borders. Orban himself referred to the refugees as poison and erected razor-wire fences on Hungarys southern borders to keep them out.

State acquisitions

Orban presents himself as the defender of the Hungarian nation. His nationalist rhetoric is laced with references to the the Treaty of Trianon, signed by the allies and Hungary tomark theend of World War I. The treaty deprived Hungary of two-thirds of its territory and Orban takes every opportunity to remind people of that.

The strategy seems to be to redress what Orban sees as a historical injustice by stoking ethnic nationalism. He regularly clashes with the EU over anything that could be construed as an attack on the identity and integrity of the nation state. The EUs efforts to deal with the migration crisis through a quota system were a particular point of contention. He even took the matter to the European Court of Justice, so opposed had he become to Brussels asking him to take in a certain number of refugees.

Dont let Soros have the last laugh: aposter targeting the US-based billionaire

Orbans government has been acquiring various print, broadcast and online media outlets. According to the latest report by USthink tankFreedom House, Hungaryhas the lowest democratic scorein the Central European region: 3.54 out of 7. The report raises concerns about corruption networks and the use of public power and resources to reward friendly oligarchs.

Slovakia-based NGOGlobsec also recently warned that the Hungarian government has a firmly pro-Russian view and that its national media is weakened by a vast concentration of ownership by pro-government oligarchs who are completely biased on issues of the EU, Nato and Russia.

This pro-Kremlin stance was particularly interesting to witness while Hungary benefited from a 10bn loan from Russia for the development of its nuclear power.

The EU looks on

Yetthe EU only began to officially debate Hungarys drift to illiberal democracy in April. Thats when the Hungarian parliament adopted a higher education law that threatens the survival of the prestigious Central European University (CEU) in Budapest.

The university was founded by the Jewish Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros to promote liberal democracy and open society in post-communist Eastern Europe. The law places restrictions on the CEU that many argue will make it impossible for it to operate freely, if at all.

Orban and his government did not stop at the legislationbut continued with a sustained attack on Soros in a thinly disguised anti-Semitic campaign, casting him as manipulative and powerful. Posters have appeared showing a grinning Soros above a caption reading,Dont let Soros have the last laugh!.

Speaking to students in July, Orban claimed that a Soros plan was under way, aiming to bring hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Muslim world into the territory of the EU. This agenda, he argued, lies behind Brussels continuous withdrawal of powers from the nation states.

Similar attacks onliberal values can be heard from populist politicians the world over andOrbans is a particularlyworrying case. His intensifying rhetoric and growing indifference to democracy, combined with his governments slow but systematic dismantling of democratic institutions are evidence that he is making steady progress towards establishing the illiberal state he so openly envisages.

This is not to say that Hungary will leave the EU, but Orban is playing a dangerous game. He is exploiting nationalism at home and attacking the EU, all the while taking its cash for short-term political gain.

Erika Harris is a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool. This article was originally published on The Conversation (www.theconversation.com)

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Democracy is on the brink in Hungary, so why is no one talking about it? - The Independent

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel invoked the injustices of communist East Germany on Friday to defend freedom and democracy during a visit to a notorious prison of the former Stasi secret police in Berlin.

Merkel, the daughter of a Protestant pastor who grew up in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), visited the ex-prison of Hohenschoenhausen a day before she launches her campaign for a fourth term as chancellor in a national election on Sept. 24.

Thousands of political prisoners were incarcerated in the jail, which after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the 1990 reunification of Germany became a museum and memorial.

"The injustice that occurred in the GDR, that many people had to experience in an awful way, must not be forgotten," said Merkel, who has just returned to work after a three-week summer holiday.

She said the visit to the former Stasi prison, two days before the anniversary of the start of construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, was "of particular significance for me".

"It seems a long time ago, but it warns us to work hard for freedom and democracy," she said.

During her visit, Merkel met a former inmate, Arno Drefke, who often guides visitors through the spacious former prison, which is now preparing for a two-year renovation that will add new exhibition areas and seminar rooms.

Merkel and her conservatives, in power since 2005, are expected to win another term, although an opinion poll by Infratest dimap published late on Thursday suggested her popularity had dropped 10 percentage points to 59 percent.

However, Merkel appears to have little to fear as her main rival, the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate Martin Schulz, saw his popularity hit a new low of 33 percent, down four points from last month.

Writing by Paul Carrel and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Gareth Jones

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Merkel, visiting ex-Stasi jail, defends freedom and democracy - Reuters

Hong Kong police were expanding their search on Saturday for a van and taxi driver linked to a claim by a local democracy activist that mainland Chinese agents kidnapped, drugged and tortured him before dumping him on a beach.

Democratic Party member Howard Lam Tsz-kin underwent surgery on Friday night to remove 21 staples from his legs he says were punched into him by his abductors. He was discharged from Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam shortly before noon on Saturday, and declined an offer of police protection.

I do not have much hope in the police as they are just the state apparatus. How much can they do on a political issue? Lam said at the hospital.

I am exhausted. I just want the matter to end soon.

A police source close to the investigation into the case said officers would look at more closed-circuit television footage from Yau Ma Tei, the busy downtown district from where Lam says he was abducted after buying a soccer jersey. An initial sweep of footage on Friday did not show anything suspicious or capture where Lam went after he left the sports shop.

Lam claimed that two Putonghua-speaking men pushed him into a light goods vehicle. We are trying to get more footage from shops in the district to find if any suspicious vans were parked in the area, the source said. We will run an examination for toxins on Lam as there could be chemicals left in his blood if he was drugged.

At a press conference on Friday, Lam claimed was pushed into a van, tortured and later dumped on a beach in Sai Kung in eastern Hong Kong by mainland Chinese agents. He then took a taxi home early on Friday morning without reporting the case to police or going to hospital for treatment.

Later on Friday morning he showed the media about 20 staples still in his legs, before going to Queen Mary Hospital.

Lam said he believed the reason for the kidnapping was that he had received a signed postcard from Barcelona football star Lionel Messi last month addressed to late Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, and he intended to pass it on to Liu Xia, his widow.

A police force insider said officers had been looking for the taxi driver who drove Lam home on Friday morning.

The driver could confirm if Lam took the ride, where the driver picked him up, and what Lam did and said in the cab during the ride, the source said.

Officers had made trips to beaches in Sai Kung to look for evidence but nothing related had been found. We will also collect CCTV footage from the hotel nearby, the source added.

Speaking to the media at the hospital on Saturday, Lam said the surgery, which lasted half an hour, was done with no anaesthetic. He said he was tired and in pain, but would continue with plans to study in the United States later this month.

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Hong Kong police hunt for taxi driver who drove home democracy activist after alleged kidnapping by China agents - South China Morning Post