Some legislation clearly wasn't thought through thoroughly enough before becoming law. Two such cases are: 1) seed regulations which have resulted in the extinction of at least 2,000 species, 2) medicine regulations which, for example, may cause the death of the electronic cigarette industry because the suppliers cannot afford the costs involved in proving something is safe under those regulations.
While we continue to remain in the EU, our MEPs should carefully scrutinise all proposals and should also involve experts and ministers from the Member States. If proposed legislation defines a clear purpose it would avoid such problems as mentioned above.
My take on the medicines directives are that they are there to ensure the safety of medicine to the public. We are faced with the problem where something that isn't sold as a medicine is proposed to be classed as a medicine (effectively banning it) because it "might undermine the smoking cessation policies and often fall[s] in the borderline between tobacco and other legislation, such as legislation on medicinal products, medical devices, food and product safety."
If someone chooses to smoke (something that has a 50% chance of contributing to their death) why can't an alternative be excluded from a precautionary approach and require proof that it is actually harmful instead of needing to prove it is safe? There are quite a few cases where excessive precaution has ignored common sense because banning something or over-regulating it appears to be the preference these days. Should we make jaywalking illegal because people can't be trusted to cross a road safely? Any such proposal in the UK, however, would likely be seen as a way of taxing motorists that can no longer afford to drive rather than imposing a fine for taking a risk.
English isn't normally the first answer out of my mouth when asked what is my nationality. I consider myself British first, but I do believe the people of England should be able to choose whether we have a separate parliament, how much power that parliament should have, and also whether we should leave the EU (and what, if any, trade/movement/legal agreements we should have instead). Polls are generally unscientific and based on too small a sample-size. The only real way to gauge the majority opinion on a given subject is to supply all available information to the public and then let them choose which of the options they believe is best.
When a proposed change is controversial, it should be possible for the public to call for a referendum. Fox hunting, smoking bans, joining the Euro, leaving the EU, a devolved England, the Lisbon Treaty, et cetera are some of the things where a referendum would make sense. If a referendum is well thought-out, planned properly, and the general population are given full disclosure of what effects the proposal would have and easy access to relevant information, it would give a definitive public decision.
To me, a political party is a group of people with shared views on certain subjects. A country is a large group of residents living within its (sometimes arbitrary) borders with a shared way of life, separated into local areas where the views and opinions of residents are more similar, separated into households where groups of individuals are most likely to have very similar views. All individuals in a single household are unlikely to agree on a controversial topic if they draw their own independent conclusions, so I personally can't see how one person can represent the views of everyone in their constituency.
If I believe in something, only compelling reasoning will get my to evaluate my opinion on a subject. On this site I aim to detail where I stand on issues and hopefully help you decide whether my morals, values, beliefs, integrity, and honesty, are both compatible with your own and sufficient to be awarded your trust. If I haven't given an issue much thought or it doesn't interest me, I'll take your opinion on board. If you disagree with my stance on something, show me an angle I haven't looked at it from and I'll re-evaluate my views. If you agree with my stance on something, also feel free to highlight an angle I might have missed on the issue.
For me to believe in banning or outlawing something, I would need to be presented with some very excellent reasoning with no conceivable reason why anyone with common sense would be against it. Present me with flawed statistics or junk science, however, and I'll merely look to see if there is enough evidence for me to be swayed based on my critical thinking and thorough analysis.
Ask me a question that should have a yes/no answer, such as "is the sky blue?" and I'm sorry to say it won't happen (it's not blue when it's raining). Ask me if I agree in principle with something and you'll get my opinion on the subject if I have one, a yes/no/maybe, or I'll say if I need more information to form an opinion.
I write and speak how I think, the only difference is I end up writing more than I'd say - when reading text back part of my thought process is there in front of me. If you didn't want to know that, you probably glanced to the end of the sentence or paragraph. Unless you're using a screen reader that doesn't have the option to skip ahead, my extra verbosity shouldn't be much of a problem if you're here to read my thoughts.