A lot of Ukip people say that the EU is a dictatorship. They are wrong – not only because this is unfair to the motives of its leaders, but because it misses the fundamental point. The EU is not a dictatorship: if it were, its actions would be (for the worse) far more decisive. It is an oligarchy. The word means the rule of the few. The few may often be well-meaning, thoughtful and moderate people, but the principle of their rule is that they know better than the many. They don’t: that is why Britain established a parliamentary democracy to rein them in and, where necessary, kick them out. The EU has a sort of parliament but, from its foundation and quite deliberately, it has not had parliamentary democracy.