> How, specifically, should someone do that in practice? Does someone cast an anonymous vote to indicate their preference? Will some robust system then make an objective determination of the outcome based on the popular vote? This is how the people customarily determine their representatives in a representative democracy.
Well it up to each national government to decide this process. If you're not happy with the way your national government makes this selection, then I encourage you to reach out to you national government representative and make your views heard. If it's something you really care about, then start a grassroots movement, or join a large national political party, and advance change the same way you would for any other domestic issue.
It seems like at very large, and undemocratic, over step for the EU to dictate how national governments run their affairs within the boundaries of the treats that define the EU. Something that every national government in the EU ratified. If you're not happy with how your national government ratified those treaties, then I again recommend the above, contact your local national government representative and make your views heard.
> European Commissioner is infamous for being a role you give a national politician who is still in favour with the leadership but perhaps has lost popular support.
This is hardly a surprise. The whole point of European Commissioners is it's how national governments retain their own sovereignty. Of-course they're going to give the role to people they know and trust, they want them to be aligned with their own national interests, not the broader EU interests. Once again, you don't like it, talk to your national government, this is their choice, not the EU's. Most people in the EU with a federalist world view would much rather see more direct democracy within the EU, with a reduction in power of national governments in the process.
> so again at a minimum it fails my personal accountability criterion.
You have a strange concept of what personal accountability means, why does the electorate need a direct method of removing an individual? How would that even work? Not to mention the issue that it turns the entire political system into little more than a popularity contest. People who are good national leaders are not always good campaigners, and good campaigner are not always good leaders. Boris Johnson in the UK is a classic example of the latter.
> Don't like your nation's choice for European Commissioner? No problem, just elect a different entire national government at the last election. Don't like the UK's current PM? No problem, just make sure no-one votes for any MPs in that person's party at the last election.
Well interestingly have a healthy PR system with many parties makes this very easy. When your government is made up of many parties collaborating together, it's easier for the electorate to just vote for someone else, without it causing a huge swing in government direction.
I notice that in your previous comment, you talk about how terrible FPTP is, now your saying the PR is also bad. What exactly do you want?
> And the same is true of most other elected representatives and political appointments, whether in the UK or EU. This isn't about Brexit, or about being pro- or anti-EU, if that even means anything anyway. It's a problem with systems of government operating at national and international levels where those in power are so well insulated from the voting public that they don't require a popular mandate and aren't required to be accountable to the people for whom they supposedly act. That's not democracy, at least not in any meaningful sense of the word.
I'm glad you recognise that you're demands aren't fulfilled by any current form of democracy anywhere in the world. But, you know, this whole democracy thing is still a work in progress, to quote Churchill
> No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time
I'm personally not ready to throw the towel in just yet. Sure the EU needs work, I don't disagree, but I don't think it fundamentally less democratic than any other democratic government. Humanity is still trying to figure out this whole fair and equitable division of power and resources. And rather than just rubbishing all the work so far, I much prefer to focus on area where it's really worked. Such as the 75 years uninterrupted of peace the Europe has had, thanks to the EU, to grow and prosper into a place where countries like the UK can throw a tantrum and storm off, and no one needs to worry about a war.