They wanted independence from Westminster, not from the EU.
As for the countries appointing a Commissioner, it doesn't matter as Commissioners have a clear mandate to avoid taking instructions from their own government. In other words, they don't represent the people that appoint them either. If you don't believe me, watch this video from the European Commission's own YouTube channel, see if you can spot the bit about not taking instructions from their own countries...
The upcoming Conservative leader elections will elect the new prime minister, and will not be a direct democratic election of the British populace, so that would seem to support the upthread claim that the PM is not directly, democratically elected.
In principal, as people are voting for the best combination of MP candidate and party that suits them, there's no need for a new election to decide the new prime minister as the Conservatives still hold the parliamentary majority. In practice, as most people know very little about their MPs and are voting based on the personality and perceived competency of the party leader (and/or identification with the principals of the party), there will be people calling for a new general election.
I didn't vote for the Conservatives, and I'd like to see Labour take their place, but now is not the right time to do so. Not only have we got the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, there's also a civil war going on in the Labour party, which is likely to get worse when the report from the Chilcot Inquiry on the Iraq war is released next week. We need stability right now, new UK elections can wait until 2020.
Also, the leader of each party is voted for by the members of that party, and anyone can become a member of a party by paying a small membership fee. If you care about who is the leader of a particular party, you do have the choice to have a say in it.
That's unfortunately placed. The European Commission does not set the agenda for the EU either (that's done by the European Council, which is directly elected).
But democracy is about more than just voting. It really comes down to "how much say does the average person have in the rules that govern their lives?". Will the Scottish vote count for as much being a part of the E.U. (where they are only 1% of the population) as it will staying a part of the U.K. (where they are 8% of the population)? Will the Scottish parliament retain as much independence from the E.U. parliament as they do from the U.K. parliament? Will the Scottish government be in a position to protect the interests of its people against political machinations, or will they be too often asked to sacrifice on behalf of "the greater good"?
I don't presume to have answers to those questions, so Scotland joining the E.U. may be the smart move. It just doesn't seem obviously so to me.
[0] http://theconversation.com/how-democratic-is-the-european-un...
They may be 8% of the population, but they have 0.15% of the government's power. Scottish law is written mainly in Westminster, in which the conservatives have an absolute majority. 56 of the 59 Scottish seats went to the SNP, only one to the conservatives.
Population of Scotland as a percentage of total UK population: 5.3 million people / 64.1 million people = 8.3%.
Seems like the Scottish have about the same level of say as the rest of the UK population when it comes to the House of Commons. Plus, they have their own parliament in Holyrood.
Also, if Scotland was in the EU government the number of seats would be set roughly proportional to the size of the population vs. the population of all EU countries (though it apparently doesn't follow a set formula, so all the numbers that follow are just to help with guesswork).
Population of the EU, minus UK but adding in Scotland... 447 million people (approx.)
5.3 million people / 447 million people = 1.2% (approx.)
As far as I can see from Wikipedia, Slovakia has roughly the same size of population as Scotland, and if I've read the table correctly it has 13 MEPs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_Europea...
13 / 750 MEP seats (would be 751 with the President of the European Parliament) = 1.7%, not too far off 1.2%.
So would you expect Scotland to have much of a say in the EU if it had so few seats?
I don't see how the interest of the EU would not be the interest of the member countries.
> "I don't see how the interest of the EU would not be the interest of the member countries."
Perhaps it's worth considering other groups they can be serving, namely themselves and big business. In terms of serving themselves, changes that expand the influence of the EU over member states can be of interest to the Commission even if they didn't serve the individual member states, as the goal could be to create a European super state (there are signs that this is what's planned for the EU, especially the Eurozone countries). As for serving big business, there are over 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, that number wouldn't be so high if they weren't having some success. I could point out examples of the European Commission pushing forward proposals from big business if you're interested?
Independent of how much "democratic say" Scotland has in the EU vs the UK (which I'm not even sure how you would quantify and compare), the EU is a more limited government than the UK, and requires unanimity for certain important actions. Even with the devolved Scottish government, Westminster has more extensive power to set law in Scotland against the will of the people of Scotland than the EU would if Scotland were a member.
That's how things stand now, but they won't for long. If an independent Scotland chose to join the EU they'd have to make some tough decisions about how much of their power to give away. For example, will they join the Eurozone? Even if they choose not to now, increasing consolidation of the Eurozone may make it pretty much inevitable in the near future, especially after 2025 when the EU Treasury is due to be set up, as the EU Treasury will almost certainly focus on the economic development of Eurozone countries.