I am prepared to go back to the Irish people

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

I think Declan and Hardy are hitting the nail on the head here.

some on here, like our government, have spectacularly missed the point. Sinn Féin and Libertas aren'ty the reason we voted no. Abortion, neutrality or even the flippin commissioner aren't the real reason either (sure the commisioner was conceded by Nice). The real reason is that the ordinary people of Ireland know that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then most likely its a duck. This is an EU constitution that the "leaders" of Europe want to get ratified by any means possible. You can have all the declarations you like but all it takes is our government to change their minds and not exercise a veto. So power is being taken from the people. Constitutional rights to decide things for ourselves is being moved into the hands of our goverment. In light of their performance and oft displayed complete lack of understanding of what is happening I think that's not a chance many should be willing to take. The people know this and know they are being lied to. Cowen should do his "patriotic duty" and stand up for the people of this country and stop telling lies.

Not sure I really take your point on this one Seanie. So say we accept your arguement that it is a duck i.e. a constitution. Ireland never voted on the constitution and opposition to either the constitution and / or Lisbon should be based on policy matters such as commissioners, neutrality etc. You make the point power is being moved into the hands of the government - but surely that is what we elect them for?

[magpie seanie]

We'll have to agree to disagree but if you think vast swathes of the population were conned and fooled by lies from Libertas and SF then I'd say you're mistaken. Some were but I think there's a prevailing feeling out there that the European project is fine the way it is and we don't want a further move towards a United States of Europe. Very few are anti-Europe and very many appreciate the benefits we've gained and will continue to gain from membership. We just think the club is grand the way it is. I honestly think that's what a lot of people think and those people have been completely ignored with this latest mock up. Nice was beaten the first time without any Declan Ganley type boogey man. Yes - the low turnout was a factor that time but the constituency I speak of was there. It has now grown.

Lets just leave it the way it is and get on with solving the economic crises.

[magpie seanie]

I think Declan and Hardy are hitting the nail on the head here.

some on here, like our government, have spectacularly missed the point. Sinn Féin and Libertas aren'ty the reason we voted no. Abortion, neutrality or even the flippin commissioner aren't the real reason either (sure the commisioner was conceded by Nice). The real reason is that the ordinary people of Ireland know that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then most likely its a duck. This is an EU constitution that the "leaders" of Europe want to get ratified by any means possible. You can have all the declarations you like but all it takes is our government to change their minds and not exercise a veto. So power is being taken from the people. Constitutional rights to decide things for ourselves is being moved into the hands of our goverment. In light of their performance and oft displayed complete lack of understanding of what is happening I think that's not a chance many should be willing to take. The people know this and know they are being lied to. Cowen should do his "patriotic duty" and stand up for the people of this country and stop telling lies.

Not sure I really take your point on this one Seanie. So say we accept your arguement that it is a duck i.e. a constitution. Ireland never voted on the constitution and opposition to either the constitution and / or Lisbon should be based on policy matters such as commissioners, neutrality etc. You make the point power is being moved into the hands of the government - but surely that is what we elect them for?

Well possibly but lets debate it openly. What decisions should the government be able to make without reverting to the people? Should they have complete power to do what the wish? Does the fact that they are elected mean we trust them completely to do the right thing and DeValera erred grieveously designing our constitution? These are the questions the Irish people should be discussing and answering but they have not ever been addressed. Its too uncomfortable for those who have the most to gain to come out and ask us straight - do you trust us with extra powers?

[Gnevin]

What did voting no the last time archive? We where promised the sun ,moon and the stars by no campaigner and all be got was dirty looks from the rest of Europe.

Such as?

There are 26 other countries ready to move ahead on this but yes they cannot implement it it without our vote but they can form alliances etc without us. I'm sure if we had of passed this and Malta rejected it we would be looking to move ahead.

Also it is true that the No campaign lied on many many occasions which is not very democratic!

For starters it was all ready rejected three times. If Malta rejected it it would be number four.

How did they lie. Did the Yes campaign lie?

 

Such as we would go back to Europe and renegotiate the treaty .That other countries would follow Ireland's lead 

[Lone Shark]

You make the point power is being moved into the hands of the government - but surely that is what we elect them for?

In theory yes, however as we all know, things like European relations policy is not a factor when the average Irish voter goes to the polls. Some say rightly, I personally think wrongly, but the Irish voter elects public representatives in order to have a local guy there to fix potholes, get them off penalty points and make empty noise in Dáil Éireann about the local hospital. That's why we vote, so to say that we elect our public representatives in order that they might represent our views on issues such as the EU or our neutrality is absolute bogus. It should be the case, but it plainly isn't.

Incidentally, our tendency to engage in this kind of clientilist politics is part of the reason why the commissioner issue is so big here. Only in Ireland is our commissioner perceived to be a person who will "fight Ireland's corner" - other countries just see a commissioner as a person who discharges a certain brief, one whose nationality is incidental and should not affect their decision making. In a European country, Martin Cullen would be the minister for Sport and Tourism, so he would look to enhance sport and tourism in that country. In Ireland, he has that title but his real job is to be minister for Waterford, and to get a much pork from the barrel down that way as he can. However the commission doesn't work like the Irish cabinet - the Europeans will concede this issue, but it won't have any real effect - at least not in the way that the Irish people who are worried about losing the commissioner expect that it will.

(Ask yourself this - if the Shannon-Heathrow debacle happened in any other country, the transport minister would be expected to give the government's views and plan their response. In Ireland all the media outlets wanted to talk to the Minister for Defence. Lunacy.)


As to the issue at hand, I was another no voter for whom Ganley was not an influence, any more than Sinn Féin or Cóir were. My concern, as I mentioned in another thread, was that Article 48 of this treaty appears to take power away from the Irish electorate and move it to the Irish Government, restricting the need for future referenda SHOULD an issue like a common defence policy come up in the future. I've tried to get a definitive answer to this concern one way or another, but the yes campaign keeps saying how "Ireland concedes no sovereignty" but refuses to specify if any sovereignty changes hands within Ireland, while the no campaign agrees with me but can't point to a conclusive source. The yes campaign would do well to stop telling us all to do what we're told, and instead tell us why a yes vote is good for Irish citizens. Empty threats about having to behave or else we'll be punished is hardly good democracy at work.

I'd like to make one other point about the Libertas funding issue. If Libertas were funded by American Neo Con organisations who had another agenda - I'm not sure why that really matters. After all, it's not like they knocked on doors and and told people to vote no because America demands it. They may have had more funds at their disposal, but people didn't vote no because their posters were more plentiful, they voted no because their message struck a nerve - or else for some unrelated reason like I pointed out above. If there was a referendum tomorrow asking to bring the death penalty into Irish law, the no vote would win that poll by a landslide by the force of their argument, no matter how much money was spent on a yes campaign. The same principle applies here. In fact if funding is perceived to make that much of a difference to the results of a poll, then we should ensure all votes in future are only held when the same amount of money has been spent by each candidate/cause.

I've a sneaking suspicion that FF people mightn't like that plan though. God forbid they can't spend a fortune on posters and beat out the little guy that way.


On a tangent too - I think most people agree that the abortion argument is bogus, but no more bogus than a vote that had no thought put into it other than following the party line. There are countless party devotees out there who would vote for Pol Pot if he was a soldier of destiny, likewise there were thousands of votes who were cast a certain way for no reason other than Brian told them to. Is a vote based on a lie really any worse than the vote of a sheep?

None of this is meant to denigrate those who actually looked at the issue at hand and voted yes for their own reasons by the way - I accept that there were many thousands who did this too. However this idea that only the no campaign got misguided votes is bollox of the highest order.

[Tankie]

lads we may aswell just post up the old thread as it is clear we are again gonna have no real discussion again. There appears to be no debate from the No side as they cannot even admit that there were multiple lies told on the No side!!!!

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

lads we may aswell just post up the old thread as it is clear we are again gonna have no real discussion again. There appears to be no debate from the No side as they cannot even admit that there were multiple lies told on the No side!!!!

Actually I think the debate today on this thread has been structured, reasoned and interesting.

[Zapatista]

Good example of changing the story to suit the circumstances. We didnt hear any of this from the No campaign - all we heard was "Ireland is losing a commissioner - this will bring woe"

You are overstating that for effect, why the quotation marks? There is no change in the story here. The Commission is undemocratic. It is a powerfull body. It should be disbanded and an replaced by an elected body. The No campaign have said this often. However, the treaty wanted to remove a commissioner from each country for five out of every 15 years. This was the offer. It was a bad offer. While it is an undemocratic body it is important a small Nation like Ireland keeps it's commissioner while the current system is in place. The No side were attacking what was on offer in the trearty. There would be no point in the No campaign attacking something which was not on the table.

Tax is and will be an issue for the EU. It is and will be included in Lisbon as it is directly linked to the market and competition laws. We will have a Veto on it but a Veto is no good when you are afraid to say No to the EU.

To even suggest that people should vote No because at some time in the future a FF or FG led government would agree to corporation tax harmonisation is a lie. A damn lie. But not untypical of the SinnFein/Libertas campaigns.

[/quote]

How is this a lie? If the major players in the EU have an interest in equalisation in corp Tax it is not unreasonable to suggest this might happen. While FF were telling us they were respecting the vote they were telling the Germans they were trying hard to ratify the treaty. The EU is becoming increasingly Federal. We are Governed by more and more Eu laws everyday. The Lisbon treaty increases this futher with its military, nuclear, global warming, free market and centralisation ambitions. The Lisbon treaty is a constitution for an EU on its way to becoming Federal. You can rule nothing out. You cannot deny the centralisation has been and is happening. ALl these things have been warned against since the 70s and all have happened. When they were warned against, those warning were called loolaas, comunists and liars. It has been and is happening. It is happening slowly and in small pieces, it seems like nothing is changing. It hasn't been a bad thing for Ireland so far but it is clear it is intended to continue. You may be happy with the thought of a Federal EU and support the idea, it is your choice.  

[Zapatista]

Such as we would go back to Europe and renegotiate the treaty .That other countries would follow Ireland's lead 

We should renegotiate the treaty. Are you saying that nothing has changed? I don't think anything constitutional has changed but there will be declarations which were not there before. This is due to renegotiation. We lost out in the process as nothing constitutional has changed but renegotiation has happened.

Whi said other Countries would follow Irelands lead? We followed the lead of France and the Netherlands. Other countries had no choice but to stop with implementation. This has happened. The EU election next year will be done under the Nice Treaty and not the Lisbon treaty.


HHnb

Another mbri poll held recently said the Irish people wanted a change of Government. This was not enough for the Government to go back to the people with an election yet they are using the bases of a poll carried out by mbri to return with Lisbon. Does anyone know what questions were asked in the poll re the rejection of the treaty?

[Hound]

To even suggest that people should vote No because at some time in the future a FF or FG led government would agree to corporation tax harmonisation is a lie. A damn lie. But not untypical of the SinnFein/Libertas campaigns.

[/quote]

How is this a lie? If the major players in the EU have an interest in equalisation in corp Tax it is not unreasonable to suggest this might happen. While FF were telling us they were respecting the vote they were telling the Germans they were trying hard to ratify the treaty. The EU is becoming increasingly Federal. We are Governed by more and more Eu laws everyday. The Lisbon treaty increases this futher with its military, nuclear, global warming, free market and centralisation ambitions. The Lisbon treaty is a constitution for an EU on its way to becoming Federal. You can rule nothing out. You cannot deny the centralisation has been and is happening. ALl these things have been warned against since the 70s and all have happened. When they were warned against, those warning were called loolaas, comunists and liars. It has been and is happening. It is happening slowly and in small pieces, it seems like nothing is changing. It hasn't been a bad thing for Ireland so far but it is clear it is intended to continue. You may be happy with the thought of a Federal EU and support the idea, it is your choice.  
[/quote]
Yes, it is unreasonable and disingeniuos to suggest FF or FG would agree to CT harmonisation.

I do love the use of military, nuclear and global warming in your arguments.
Though very gracious to concede that the EU "hasn't been a bad thing for Ireland"!

[Hardy]

Sorry, but anyone trying to persuade me to a 'Yes' vote on the basis of trusting FF (or any other party) to do the right thing, needs to give their head a shake. It's less than six months since we told them the right thing we wanted them to do. What have they done instead? Told us we were wrong, they were right and they were pressing ahead anyway to ratify this constitution that we specifically instructed them to abandon.

So I should say "never mind - we can trust them to resist all future attempts (as there certainly will be) to move power out of the hands of the people and into those of the politicians and from local communities to unelected officials in the central government of Europe. And I'll facilitate them by voting away my right to a referendum on any such future attempts"?

Yeah, right.

[Declan]

to move power out of the hands of the people and into those of the politicians and from local communities to unelected officials in the central government of Europe

To me this is a really core issue. When we have an election campaign here each party publishes a manifesto which outlines their ideas, policies etc. We the people then vote and decide who we want to govern and legislate for the next 5 years - overly simplistic I know but that is the process. In the commission we have a swathe of unelected bureaucrats with no mandate and less accountability making decisions and legislating on behalf of all member states - to my mind this is hugely undemocratic and people have genuine concerns that the ratification of the treaty would give them further powers.

[mylestheslasher]

If the wording of the treaty is exactly the same as it was before (which i suspect it will be) then I will be voting no again. I will do so for many of the reasons above but also because I will not have the democratic decision of the people treated with such disrespect. I also believe the libertas did not have as big a bearing on the No vote as FF would have you believe. The yes side are trying  to position Libertas at the heart of the No vote so  that they can ridicule them and collpase support on the No side. A dangerous ploy if the voters see through it (which i suspect they will)

Anyway, since when did the antics of a vested interest on one side of the vote or the other mean that a vote should be re-run. We have had all sorts of gansters, thieves and liars telling us how to vote over the years - to suit their own selfish requirements. There was no 2nd election when Bertie was found out to be a liar or Flynn or Burke. Sure we'd be doing well if they even got suspended from the party.

[Zapatista]

I'd like to make one other point about the Libertas funding issue.

As I have said before there is more concern regarding FF funding than Ganley. While I would love to know where he gets his money I think FF have no right to ask. Where are they getting their money?

This will continue to happen. Character assination by the Government will be a big part of this re-run. Ganley will be once again made out to be the main player in the No campaign as he is the easiest target for this character assination. The same aplies for abortion. It is an easy one to target and it will be picked up on and repeated time and again. Ganley/money & abortion/lies will be everywhere and we will all think it is a big part of our lives. "Smoke and daggers"

I do love the use of military, nuclear and global warming in your arguments.
Though very gracious to concede that the EU "hasn't been a bad thing for Ireland"!

You can giggle all you like but you are only fooling yourself. These are real issues in the treaty. They are a huge part of any Federalist EU. Your attempts to patronise these as if they were Hollywood is flat earth thinking at best.

I concede The Eu has been good to try and take away the argument that I am anti-EU. I will repeat this often and yet I will still be called anti-EU often. The Yes campaign painted me anti-EU last year and it back fired. It will again. They said those voting No were anti-EU. After the result this meant Ireland was anti-EU. It was to late for the Government to change their mind as they told Europe that no voters were anti-Eu, Europe think we are anti-EU.

[his holiness nb]

Ganley will be once again made out to be the main player in the No campaign as he is the easiest target for this character assination.

Now now Zaptista, you know as well as I do that Ganley portrayed himself as the main player in the no campaign, he wasnt put in that position by the yes campaign.

He was the one putting himself forward for the prime time debates and interviews and so on.

None of the no campaign made any noise about him being seen as the no campaigns front man at the time of the first campaign.
Its only now that he has been exposed as being involved in some very suspect business deals that the no campaign are trying to deflect the spotlight off him.

It's amazing how many people are trying to distance Ganley from the no campaign now who were happy to let him do the talking last time around.
Ironic in a way, as he played on the lack of trust the people had in the government last time. Now he is getting a taste of his own medicine.