Lisbon 2: Referendum in Ireland on the 2nd of October

[Cerr]

That's pretty tight.

I voted a couple of hours ago anyway.

Counting begins tomorrow at 9. They should know the outcome by 11 or so if it's not close, if it is close then probably sometime in the afternoon.

[Neil]

Doesn't matter.  Either way, the vote will be contested with violence.

The Irish are animals.

[MadImmortalMan]

Tony will be President of Europe.   

[Cerr]

Yes side win by a large margin.

[Martinus]

Yes side win by a large margin.

A great victory for democracy!

[The Brain]

The Irish are animals.

No they most certainly are not!

[Neil]

The Irish are animals.

No they most certainly are not!

Multicellular, eukaryotic motile heterotrophs?  It seems to me that they meet all the requirements.

[The Brain]

The Irish are animals.

No they most certainly are not!

Multicellular, eukaryotic motile heterotrophs?  It seems to me that they meet all the requirements.

You don't understand animals and you never will.

[Neil]

The Irish are animals.

No they most certainly are not!

Multicellular, eukaryotic motile heterotrophs?  It seems to me that they meet all the requirements.

You don't understand animals and you never will.

Of course I do.  I understand everything.  That's my nature.

[The Brain]

The Irish are animals.

No they most certainly are not!

Multicellular, eukaryotic motile heterotrophs?  It seems to me that they meet all the requirements.

You don't understand animals and you never will.

Of course I do.  I understand everything.  That's my nature.

You know what my nature is? Calling.

[Alatriste]

Tony will be President of Europe.   

Jesus, no, Britain's relations with the Union are already bad enough as things stand now, the last thing we need is Gordo crying havoc and letting slip the dogs of war!!!

[AnchorClanker]

The Independent on Sunday page 3 has a great (awful) picture of Blair with the header "STOP HIM



Blair, President of Europe is a vile thought. 

[Agelastus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6259211/The-result-in-Ireland-shows-that-Europes-usurpers-have-succeeded.html

The result in Ireland shows that Europe's usurpers have succeeded

The deed is done. Ireland has been coerced at a moment of acute distress into accepting an EU treaty that emasculates the Irish Supreme Court and that voters have already rejected once.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 6:02PM BST 04 Oct 2009

Eurosceptics always feared that the mechanisms of monetary union would force recalcitrant states to knuckle down in the end. This has occurred exactly as they predicted. Only a fool can believe that the Irish people have genuinely embraced the European Constitution (now Lisbon) as a "positive good". They acquiesced with their backs against the wall.

The Irish economy contracted by 11.6pc in the 12 months to June. Nominal GDP shrank by nearer 13pc, which is what matters for debt dynamics. It is not for outsiders to judge those such as radio star Eamon Dunphy for switching sides to save "jobs and livelihoods". The country is in deep depression.

The reason why this crisis is so grave is intimately tied to euro membership, even if this is not obvious to Irish voters. They appear to have believed the great lie – repeated by Ryanair's Michael O'Leary – that Europe saved their country from Iceland's fate. It did no such such thing.

Iceland's economy contracted by 6.5pc to June (less than Germany) and is already turning the corner. Exports are surging. Unemployment fell in August to 7.7pc. Such is the magic of a floating currency. The plunging krone acted as a shock absorber. Icelandic society remains in tact.

The euro did indeed shield Ireland from the storm, but it is not the storm that does the damage – any more than 1929 crash caused the Depression. The country no longer has the means in EMU to counter debt deflation, as will become painfully clear over the next two years. It has become a laboratory for the roll-back of the modern welfare state.

There is something demented about this Lisbon drive. The EU has already pushed the integration of Europe's states beyond viable limits. It obsesses over institutional machinery even as it ignores the social crisis of youth unemployment at 39pc in Spain, 31pc in Lithuania, 28pc in Latvia, 26pc in Ireland and Slovakia, 25pc in Italy and Hungary, 24pc in France.

It cannot run Europe's fisheries, farms, aid projects, and budget with a minimum of competence. Yet it presses for more and is willing to sell its political soul to get its way. "The EU seems blind to a central insight of liberal democratic thought – that the means of reaching public decisions are just as important as the ends," says Oxford professor Larry Siedentop.

The means were to ignore the verdict of the French and Dutch people when they voted no to the original text in 2005, with half Europe waiting do exactly the same had Brussels not called off the kill for the sake of decency.

Common sense called for a halt then. But no, they tried to slip it through by parliamentary majorities in the House of Commons, Holland's Tweede Kamer, Denmark's Folketing, and France's Chambre, with the specific and sole of purpose of denying citizens the chance to express their will, confirming what we long suspected – that the EU's authoritarian habits are spreading to our national legislatures. Dublin alone was left grapple with its voters, obliged to do so by its Supreme Court. And when they too said no last year, the political classes refused to accept the verdict yet again.

It is worth remembering how this Lisbon monster came to life. It was supposed to be the answer to the Danish and Swedish no votes to EMU, the Irish no to Nice, and anti-EU riots that set Gothenburg in flames.

Henceforth, there would be no more stitch-ups. The Laeken Declaration in 2001 acknowledged that the EU was seen by the peoples as "a threat to their identity", that "deals are all too often cut out of their sight", that there was no appetite for "a European superstate or European institutions inveigling their way into every nook and cranny of life." It spoke of returning powers to the member states. A convention – modelled on Philadelphia – would draw up an EU constitution to restore "democratic legitimacy".

What then happened? The EU insiders hijacked the process. Dissident utterings were silenced in the working groups. A praesidium under super-elitist Valéry Giscard d'Estaing employed Commission lawyers to draft the wording. The final text called for an EU president, foreign minister, justice department, a supreme court with jurisdiction over all areas of EU policy for the first time, and fresh powers to enter yet more nooks and crannies – in other words, the apparatus of an aspirant state. And this how it remains in Lisbon disguise.

"The convention failed: it was a self-selected group of the European political elite," said Gisela Stuart, Britain's member on the praesidium. The experience was enough to turn her into fervent opponent of Lisbon.

The methods being used to force this treaty through after electorates have already spoken cross a line that may not be crossed. The European Project has become the enemy.

This is the treaty that Gordon Brown was too ashamed to sign in public with fellow EU leaders in Lisbon. Yet sign he did.

The question for David Cameron is whether he will continue this practice, or take a stand before any more pages are ripped out of our own Magna Carta. Go on, David, sock the usurpers between the eyes.

I don't really need to tell you whether or not I agree with this or not, do I?

Gisela Stuart, incidentally, was born in Bavaria as Gisela Gschaider. She was elected to parliament in the Labour 1997 landslide. In other words, she is not the "typical British Eurosceptic". 

[Alatriste]

Agelastus, let's start by remembering that when the decision to hold a second referendum - _after_ the treaty was amended in several points concerning Ireland, by the way -  Irish economy was still the 'Celtic Tiger', and actually none of the recent economic unpleasantness had happened. "Coerced in a moment of acute distress" my ass...

Second, let's we remember too that French and Dutch voter voting 'No' weren't all them against the Treay. Many, specially in France, actually wanted a far more unitary treaty...

Bah, I'm sick (influenza, probably) and too tired to write the scanting answer the article deserves. I will just mention two points:

- for people like her 'The European Project' has always been the enemy, that she's Labour makes no difference whatsoever. Tony Blair has never been an Euroenthusiast, and Gordon Brown even less.

- People maintaining that you just have to ask the voters twice to get your way should really be choosing a salute and a color for their shirts (I heard Hugo Boss is great for these things, incidentally...), polishing their jackboots and singing 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me', because they consider the citizens a bunch of brainless cows with no ideas and no reasoning capacity at all. Defenders of Democracy? Hah!

[Agelastus]

Agelastus, let's start by remembering that when the decision to hold a second referendum - _after_ the treaty was amended in several points concerning Ireland, by the way -  Irish economy was still the 'Celtic Tiger', and actually none of the recent economic unpleasantness had happened. "Coerced in a moment of acute distress" my ass...

If you seriously believe that Ireland would stand up to Europe and NOT hold a second referendum regardless of the economic situation, you might have a point.

The economic argument of the article is the weakest part of it, of course. The man has an oversimplistic faith in floating currencies as the solution to all ills.

Second, let's we remember too that French and Dutch voter voting 'No' weren't all them against the Treay. Many, specially in France, actually wanted a far more unitary treaty...

And yet, even after the alleged "further integrationists" who voted against the Constitution had had their fright and would presumably be relied on to support Lisbon as the lesser of two evils, the French government still did not care to risk a referendum on Lisbon.

Bah, I'm sick (influenza, probably) and too tired to write the scanting answer the article deserves. I will just mention two points:

I think you mean "scathing". Incidentally, I hope you recover soon, and that it is not Swine Flu.

- for people like her 'The European Project' has always been the enemy, that she's Labour makes no difference whatsoever. Tony Blair has never been an Euroenthusiast, and Gordon Brown even less.

Not being a euroenthusiast is a lot different from being a eurosceptic in UK politics. After all, Gordon Brown conveniently decided not to hold a referendum in the UK on Lisbon (despite the similarity of the critical articles to the Constitution, on which a referendum had been promised for years) in order to ensure its ratification to please his European partners. Somehow, I don't see her being selected for this "praesidium" if she had been a confirmed anti-European then. You are clutching at straws trying to discredit her there.

Heck, I don't even know if she is a Euro-sceptic now. I suspect not given her background. But she's against Lisbon, which puts her at least temporarily in the same camp as me.

- People maintaining that you just have to ask the voters twice to get your way should really be choosing a salute and a color for their shirts (I heard Hugo Boss is great for these things, incidentally...), polishing their jackboots and singing 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me', because they consider the citizens a bunch of brainless cows with no ideas and no reasoning capacity at all. Defenders of Democracy? Hah!

You do realise you have just described the majority of those in love with the European Project, don't you? They're the ones who insist an electorate has to be asked twice within a year or two on essentially the same treaty! I'm the one who says the result of a referendum should be respected for a reasonable period of time (say 10 years.)