Deliverance! Ireland votes No on Lisbon treaty
(Note: Be sure to see the comment by Evariste on the astonishing poll numbers in Britain against the Treaty.)
It’s in the Daily Mail. Ireland’s Justice Minister said, “It looks like this will be a ‘no’ vote.” Meaning that the attempt to ram through a European superstate is finished, since the treaty required the unanimous approval of all member states.
The story goes on to say that the British parliament are still going to go ahead and pass the treaty, even though Ireland’s rejection of it has killed it. In other words, though the attempt to kill Britain is dead, the British parliament, like the Undead, are still trying to kill Britain. It’s good to know where their loyalties really lie.
What will the evil Eurocrats do now? I predict they will try to pass a law saying that EU treaties cannot be subjected to popular referenda.
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Steve D. writes:
What the Eurocrats will do is what they did earlier on the Nice referendum in 2002: put pressure on Ireland to hold another vote. Last time it worked—they got the result they wanted on the second try.
This isn’t over yet; but congratulations to the Irish on saving Europe for the time being.
James P. writes:
“What will the evil Eurocrats do now? I predict they will try to pass a law saying that EU treaties cannot be subjected to popular referenda.”
No, they will do what they have done with other treaties that were rejected—they will tweak the terms of the treaty so that it can pass a referendum in the country that rejected it, and they will hold another referendum. “No” is never accepted as a final answer to EU treaties!
Kevin V.,
late of LGF, writes:
I share your happiness about this great, great news!
RTE Reports:
Irish voters have rejected the Lisbon Treaty.
AdvertisementWith results in from all 43 constituencies, the Lisbon Treaty has been defeated by a margin of 53.4% to 46.6%.
A total of 752,451 people voted in favour of the treaty and 862,415 voted against.
Just 10 constituencies—Clare, Dublin South, Dublin South East, Dublin North, Dublin North Central, Dún Laoghaire, Kildare North, Laois Offaly, Carlow Kilkenny and Meath East—voted in favour of the Treaty.
Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern all failed to carry the vote in their own constituencies.
As the first results came in, it became apparent that opponents of the Treaty had in many places improved on the share of the vote they won in the first Nice referendum.
And unlike that vote, the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty cannot be blamed on apathy, with a high turnout recorded for a referendum
This is a remarkable victory for those of us in the West who believe that our nations need to retain their national sovereignty in order to preserve their historic cultures, institutions, values and laws.
It is all the more remarkable when one considers that all major political parties in Ireland (FF, FG, Labour, DP) and their leaders, including the new and quite popular Taoiseach, campaigned hard for the “Yes” vote.
Hats off to the Irish and a big salute to the legal establishment in Ireland who successfully insisted on, and got, an independent government body whose mandate was to make sure the State did not improperly expend resources on a “yes” vote and remain officially impartial.
Evariste writes:
According to the article, fully eighty two percent of the British oppose the treaty, but their Parliament is set to push it through anyway. How can this be? That’s as close to unanimous as it’s possible to get. That’s a larger percentage than opposed McCain-Kennedy, but there is no similar voter uprising (that I can discern) to that staged by Americans against that unpopular elitist imposition. If the British can remain docile and supine in the face of this monstrous usurpation, then they are indistinguishable from corpses. It is regrettable, and we are all much the poorer for it. What happened to them? The painful sense of loss one feels as an observer of once-Great Britain’s deterioration must be a similar subjective experience to that which relatives of Alzheimer’s victims endure.
Peter B. writes (June 14):
Evariste’s comments about Britain are reasonable, if a little harsh, but they miss a key point; every major party and most of the minor ones are in favour of greater unification with Europe.
Who are the British going to threaten to vote for to oust the EUphile politicians? The Conservatives have mastered the art of acting just Eurosceptic enough to appease their core voters but never threaten to halt the onward march of integration and thus anger the infuriatingly influential BBC. The Liberal-Democrats and Labour are staunch transnationalists for whom the rate of change is not fast enough. Where Labour have hesitated to press forward in the past, most notably over the single European currency, this was to do with electoral advantage but it’s no longer completely clear that the Conservatives could gain much from this issue as they are seen—rightly so—as weak and confused on Europe. UKIP (the UK Independence Party) are divided and ignored by the press.
Another key issue which you really have to be immersed in the British mainstream media to understand (which I haven’t been for about a year) is how invisible the EU can be. The EU tends to work through local parliaments and councils so the public as a whole never sees the hand of the Brussels bureaucrats behind a whole raft of issues where they have absolute control. Indeed it is not uncommon for such legislation to be introduced in the Commons by the government, opposed by the opposition, be reported on in the press and have no-one mention that the legislation is the implementation of an EU directive and parliament cannot change as much as one word of it. For people who take the time to look at the issues and search online for information the EU is an obvious cancer, but to most people the “British government” is to blame for their problems and; Maybe the EU can help?
I am told this is now beginning to change and people are starting to take notice of the elephant in the room. Peter Lilly, a conservative MP, has proposed a bill to cut MPs salaries in line with their reduced responsibilities and influence. This is generating some publicity and is an encouraging sign.
The excellent EUReferendum web-site includes many examples and much interesting commentary on these issues.
My take on what the EU will do about the Irish referendum is that integration will continue without pause. Ireland will be told they are “outside the mainstream” in Europe but many of the terms of the Lisbon treaty will be applied to them as if they had voted yes. When enough stories have appeared in the media indicating that Ireland is “falling behind in Europe” and “isolated” they will either try for another referendum or the individual terms of the treaty will be passed into Irish law piece by piece as a remedy.
Thank you for an excellent site which is one of my daily reads. It is one of the sources of information that has led me to understand and reject liberalism in the past couple of years.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 13, 2008 08:34 AM | Send