This too is utterly absurd, and could be applied as a critique to just about any policy.

Im sure most Tories cannot remember a single person who would ever support a
policy called the Big Society on the doorstep, but thats precisely what were getting. I
know this concept might be alien to Mr Fox, but its actually about political leadership
proposing an idea and making the case for it.
MEPs should be sent to Brussels to defend their national interest but clearly Duff
thinks they should be there to defend the European interest. Maybe thats why he
wants a mechanism that would allow him to stop representing the UK and start
representing Brussels.
Once more Fox does not seem to understand how the EU works, so perhaps I might
enlighten him by referring to Article 10, para 2 of the Treaty on European Union (PDF
here):
2. Citizens are directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament.
Member States are represented in the European Council by their Heads of State or
Government and in the Council by their governments, themselves democratically
accountable either to their national Parliaments, or to their citizens.
It is not the job of a Member of the European Parliament to defend a countrys
national interest thats the job of the European Council and the Council of the
European Union. Foxs job is to represent the citizens living in his part of the UK.
As if that were not enough, a quick glance at the excellent Votewatch website shows
that Fox has a 93.69% loyalty to his transnational political group (ECR) in the
European Parliament, against 97.85% loyalty to the Tory delegation in the EP. So
Foxs own behaviour in the EP shows hes behaving in a way that runs contrary to his
own statements anyway.
So in short if theres anything absurd in the piece in the Parliament Magazine it
seems to be Ashley Foxs positions!

Ipak - postoji jedan veliki problem ovdje, da zastupnici gledaju iz koje drzave dolaze,
pa slusaju ljude u drzavi clanici. S obzirom da su i EU izbori koncipirani na pitanjima
unutardrzavnih politika, EU parlament jos nije dobio dimenziju
You and the Treaty might think that, but that is certainly not what the electors think.
They think that MEPs are in Brussels to represent them and the national interest.
Oddly enough most people seem to conflate the two things.
I amused by your votewatch stats though

uostalom:

Personally, I believe people dont think anything about what or who MEPs should
represent, if they know there is a Parliament at all.
And if they believe MEPs should represent national interest, then what is national
interest? Who defines it?
Anyways, these theoretical considerations opposing EU-focussed Euro-sceptics to
EU-focussed Europhiles are nonsense. Because all these self-proclaimed MEP, be
they Andrew Duff or Ashley Fox, represent not more than a portion of those 40% of
EU voters voting in the EP elections. So they should all stop pretending to speak for
the People.
The good question is: if we need a European Parliament, how do we elect it so that
voters feel it makes sense to cast their vote. If we dont want this Parliament to be
well-elected, then why do we keep paying more than 1Bn /year for it?

Jon, you claim that Foxs statement re doorstep opinion is absurd, but this is untrue.
The fact that Foxs party may itself have policies which fail this test is irrelevant to
whether the Duff proposal has any input legitimacy as measured by this informal
gauge.
You err more seriously by confusing is and ought in Foxs other argument, about
what MEPs should do. Fox implicitly disagrees with the treaty over the proper role
of MEPs, just as Duff disagrees re their number. Its no good quoting the treaty at
Fox; hell just say so what, allI was saying was how I wanted to change the treaty.
The treaty is counterlegitimate, at least in its operation in the UK, so youre on rather
shaky ground.