The Lisbon Earthquake

Max McGuinness on mob rule.

The news, released late last night, that the "Noes" have taken the lead in the Lisbon Treaty referendum was predictable in its fatuous fatalism.

Once again, journalists and politicoes are already declaring that the party is over before it has begun on the basis of a sodding opinion poll. According to the poll, conducted by the Irish Times and one of those indecipherable abbreviations – TNS/ MRBI – 35% of you now intend to vote no, whilst 30% intend to vote yes. The "don't knows" remain tied for first place on 35%.

On this basis, today's editorial is headlined "Referendum Facing Defeat". There is no mention of the inevitable "margin of error" but this must be at least 3% such that on one reading of the poll -- 33% intend to vote yes; 32% intend to vote no; and 32% don't know, with the remaining 3% determined to stay in the pub rather than spend a few seconds fumbling with a blunt pencil in the privacy of a voting booth.

On another reading, the "Noes" have it with a whopping 38% while the "Yesses" are stuck on 27%.

So enough codswallop about "shock defeats" and "dramatic shifts in public opinion", if you please. Calling elections on the basis of opinion polls is a notoriously stupid thing to do -- which doesn't stop the same journalists doing it (and getting it wrong) again and again and again.

Only a few months ago, as I wrote here, British hacks filed copy announcing Barack Obama's victory in the New Hampshire primary when he had in fact lost to Hillary Clinton. The same journoes ended up writing online stories when the results came out which contradicted their printed copy – before this had even hit the newsstands back home.

The one thing that seems pretty clear on the basis of this poll is that we should not be having a referendum at all.

For, the biggest reason given by those polled for intending to vote no is that they do not understand what they are voting about.

Let me give you an analogy. You are diagnosed with a brain tumour, requiring a rather complicated bit of life-saving surgery. Yet even though the doc tries to explain what the procedure will entail, you are not entirely confident that you are completely au fait with how he will be slicing up your noggin.

Do you a) trust the brain surgeon's expertise in these areas and accept that he probably knows better than you, b) refuse the operation on the grounds that it's all sounds a bit too complicated?

The Lisbon Treaty is complicated for pretty obvious reasons. It is impossible to get 27 countries to agree to something without an endless series of compromises and fudges. The Brits absolutely refused to accept a unilateral right to strike so the passage dealing with labour relations contains a caveat saying its provisions will not override existing national legislation; Italian fears for national prestige were soothed by giving them an extra MEP; and the Bulgarians had their preferred Cyrillic spelling of the word "euro" adopted while the Danes secured an additional protocol stipulating that its own legislation on the acquisition of second homes will not be affected.

What this shows is that the Lisbon Treaty has already achieved an exceptionally wide level of agreement. Asking the electorate to understand and interpret such a messy set of compromises on top of compromises is a pointless, and hazardous exercise.

For there is no alternative to what has been agreed. The "No" side are certainly incapable of providing one.

Without Lisbon, the institutional machinery of the EU will be paralysed. The democratically-elected European Parliament, whose powers will be vastly increased by Lisbon, will remain in limbo. A bloated European Commission will go on wasting money on its own bureaucracy because the likes of Sinn Féin insist that all countries should have a permanent commissioner just for the hell of it. Common initiatives on foreign policy -- like trying to stop Russia cutting off gas supplies on a whimsy -- will flounder because the European diplomatic service required to implement this will not exist. Defence co-operation, which would save hundreds of billions of euro, currently being wasted on outdated equipment and duplicated resources, will remain grounded. All because some eejit in Leitrim is worried about the price of petrol!

 God forbid, of course, that Lisbon will strip away our precious "neutrality" -- whatever that means. As much as I wish this Treaty did force us to assume our responsibilities before our fellow Europeans and beleaguered peoples the world over, it won't because common defence still requires the approval of the European Council (where Biffo represents Ireland and retains a veto). The Treaty is quite explicit about this. Article 42.2 reads:

"The common security and defence policy shall include the progressive framing of a common Union defence policy. This will lead to a common defence, when the European Council, acting unanimously, so decides. It shall in that case recommend to the Member States the adoption of such a decision in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements."

To reiterate: there will be no common defence without unanimous approval from the European Council; the veto is well and truly intact.

So Why oh why does the "No" camp continue to insist that the Lisbon Treaty is all about hoodwinking us into joining an European super-army, just as they have done during every referendum since we joined the EU in the Seventies?

And why doesn't anyone in the "Yes" campaign have the guts to argue that Ireland should play a full role in European defence? For Article 42.1 explicitly commits the EU to using military force in the cause of virtue, and only with UN approval:

"The common security and defence policy shall be an integral part of the common foreign and security policy. It shall provide the Unionwith an operational capacity drawing on civilian and military assets. The Union may use them on missions outside the Union for peace-keeping, conflict prevention and strengthening international security in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter. The performance of these tasks shall be undertaken using capabilities provided by the Member States."

European armies are a shambles because of a lack of cohesion and a Cold War mentality. Only a small fraction of European manpower is capable of being deployed overseas. If Europe were ever called upon to stop another Rwanda-style genocide, or to enforce an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, we could only throw up our arms and say that we don't have the available forces.

Reform of European military is urgently needed and it can only pass through the EU. If the Irish vote down the Lisbon Treaty, the current paralysis will continue indefinitely.

A couple of million Irish voters have no right to screw up global security.

We should never have been given the opportunity to vote on the Lisbon Treaty. Sometimes the mob is just a mob – ignorant, lazy, and selfish.

Please, let's not disgrace ourselves yet again.

Comments

[Eleanor Fitzsimons]

Taylor Nelson Sofres/Market Research Bureau of Ireland - and highly respected - for what its worth. Although I do completely agree with the sentiments expressed.

Eleanor