Dan Hannan: Why the EU cannot be democratic

Dan Hannan on why democracy can't work in the EU:

"Democracy isn't just a periodic right to put a cross on a bit of paper. democracy also depends on a certain relationship between government and governed.

"You have a sense of loyalty, of shared affinity in Sweden or Portugal or Britain, but nobody ever really says 'I'm a European' in a way that they might say 'I'm a Swede' or 'I'm a Portuguese'.

"So when you have European elections you don't find that they are happening in a context of a European public opinion or recognised pan-European political leaders, what you have, of course, is 28 separate national campaigns because people's primary loyalty is at national level and so there is this Potemkin quality - there's something fake about the whole idea.

"You have these political parties sitting there, you have a pretence that there was some kind of pan European democratic process, but honestly hand on heart can you imagine anybody saying, 'well you know I was gonna vote for Weber but I reckon Verhofstadt edged it in the second debate' - I mean it's just a nonsense."