Today’s poll results make for grim reading for supporters of the Lisbon Treaty, and for the Taoiseach. There is a definite feeling on the ground that the referendum is in mortal peril, and with only days to go, some serious questions need to be asked.
Those voting ‘No’, seem to break into two camps: those who ideologically oppose the substance of the Treaty (an assertive ‘No’ if you will); and those who feel in the dark and are confused by the proposition (a passive ‘No’).
The assertivista ideologues cover a pretty broad range: from those who believe it will bring in abortion, drugs and prostitution, while leaving out God and surrendering the legacy of Pearse and Tone; to unreconstructed socialists and free-wheeling neo-con capitalists. They can’t all be right, but they are preying on the fact that in an era when the mainstream political establishment have squandered their credibility, a large section of society will gladly accept anything that reinforces their mistrust of political institutions.
The passive ‘No’ is a more worrying long term problem. This Treaty is no more complex than any of the previous Euro-referendums, but people are now complaining that they don’t understand it and must vote ‘No’.
This fear of complexity didn’t arise in the past, because there was always some selling point for Ireland, and people focused on that rather than the fine detail.
Lisbon doesn’t have this headline selling point. It is an administrative treaty, whose main focus is on the inner workings of a body that is remote from the Irish people. Its complexity is not sinister, but we must take that on trust. In an era where our most successful party has traded on a dumbed down political discourse, such trust seems to be evaporating, and the level of passive negativity is surely a sign that the people are starting to question rather than blindly accept the party line.
Whatever result emerges after Thursday, the nature of this campaign should be a wake-up to all parties.
June 6, 2008 at 12:56 pm
[...] very interesting analysis by Tony at Achem’s Blunt One on the nature of the ‘no’ camp. In light of today’s poll, it is likely to be a [...]
June 6, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Please Irish People, in the name of Europeans peoples , vote NO !
See the comments below this french article http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/330142.FR.php
Most of the commentators wish Ireland could vote NO.
If ever it’d happened, this would be a huge slap in the face of the European Commision technocrats who are completely disconnected from reality. The current way the European Union is designed is mainly in the interest of politicians and media and definitely not in the interest of the majority of the people.
If ever Ireland voted YES, Europe would become the poodle-puppet of the USA, specially into military domains.
Please, be wise, vote NO and do not fear the pressure of the press and of politicians.
June 6, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I’m voting no because it’s too hard to actually read the treaty and it’s much easier to say that if it was introduced I’d probably have to have an abortion and so would my husband and our children would be thrown into prison we’d all be forced into a pan-European army and taxes would go up and there’d be loads of immigrants taking our jobs and it’s so much easier to repeat all this gibberish than actually getting up off my fat arse and reading the damn thing.
June 6, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Thanks Antoine, but we have plenty of crazy conspiracy theorists here in Ireland to pollute the debate without importing crazy conspiracy theorists from other Member States.
June 7, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I think the lesson (it could be one of many lessons) to be absorbed from this campaign is that we need to ensure that people are aware and on board before negotiations are concluded for future treaties instead of the jack and the beanstalk approach where the government of the day comes back from a summit with some Treaty in tow that we’re expected to simply adopt or reject. We need to be told in advance what the government is thinking of buying before they come back to us and try and sell it to us.
June 9, 2008 at 9:43 am
Hi Tony
Nice article. I am definitely voting Yes, a number of things annoy me about the No campaign and especially the governments highly incompetent Yes campaign. If you want to vote No for very clear, well though out reasons go ahead , I’m glad you thought about it and made up your mind, but if it is one of the plethora of slogans that are being bandied about then, well they are not good reasons to vote no, educate yourself don’t listen to slogans or soundbites.
People say they don’t understand it, well I would be surprised if they did, it is a legal document defining European governance and individual states, this is not just something you sit down and write in simple English over coffee , it is a complex document. I have a good idea about what it is but I’m no expert on it, but i am not afraid of it, a bit of common sense please, who understands the constitution fully? not me, i ‘d guess constitutional lawyers, so by the same logic lets vote no to the constitution. The referendum commission produced a very good and neutral publication about what your are voting for, have people read this? I think alot of people i know haven’t , i did (and read a lot of pro and con arguments) and decided that I will vote Yes. It is a clearly written, neutral, easily accessible document, READ IT!
Regarding the military aspect, i thought this was crystal clear in the fact the Ireland, like Sweden and Austria has a rule that only military activity APPROVED by THEIR Parliament is allowed. This is 100% unambiguous , it just is FACT.
A permanent commissioner for Ireland, okay lets grow up here and be adults, just because you brought the ball and weren’t made captain is no reason to run off home crying. There are 27 countries in the EU at the moment, with another handful hoping to be accepted, do we just create new commissioners each time?, they are reducing it from 27 to 18, and to be honest Commissioners don’t have as much power as you think, honest. By the way do you know how many Irish people work at very high levels in the EU, a lot more than you would think. If you think we will be negatively impacted by not having a Commissioners for one 5 year period over 15 years well then you haven’t been paying attention recently, there were none before we joined and well I think us joining that was a success. This is about a partnership, about us being European, there isn’t going to a United States of Europe, or a European army (sorry there federalists).
The EU is a great thing for Ireland, can it be improved of course it can, how by constructive dialogue and representation by all people in Europe. Is the Lisbon Treaty the start of a slide towards a greater Europe and us singing a European anthem as we go off to work each day, no lay off the George Orwell books for a bit.
Just educate yourself.
June 9, 2008 at 5:14 pm
we’d all be forced into a pan-European army
And just who do you think has 450 soldiers pissing about in Chad in a thinly-disguised piece of ’stroke’ politics by the French to prop up their pet dictator?
I hear a lot recently about Patricia McKenna having been “alarmist” in previous referenda pushing us in this direction, but she was (of course) bloody right.
June 9, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Ireland, like Sweden and Austria has a rule that only military activity APPROVED by THEIR Parliament is allowed. This is 100% unambiguous , it just is FACT.
The ‘controversy’ over the triple lock somehow handicapping us is a load of crap. Any government of this day and age will have a compliant parliamentary body of party apparatchiks ready to rubber-stamp their decision, and the real object that such folks want rid of is the UN requirement.
As such, we shouldn’t be in Chad (and I’m surprised PANA didn’t take this to court). The Chadian strongman had his strings pulled in rejecting a UN mission, and in accepting the (French-run) EUFor which we are expected to believe is unrelated to the French forces already there to fight the (Chinese/Sudanese-backed) ‘rebels’.
June 11, 2008 at 9:30 am
An interesting reflection on this over at Slugger O’Toole – http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/four-blokes-and-a-website-driving-republic-into-the-no-camp/
June 13, 2008 at 11:38 am
[...] wrote a piece a few days ago about the ‘No’ dynamic in the Lisbon campaign. If, as looks likely from the tallies, an [...]
June 14, 2008 at 10:11 pm
[...] is not a landslide, but they did it in far greater numbers than in Nice I with a lot of “soft no” votes coming down to vote and abandoning the 60% pro-EU majority that seems to be latent in [...]