Wexford says Yes to Europe

It won’t be long now until we know the exact result of the second Lisbon Referendum. Voting has been patchy throughout the country and throughout Wexford town. My own ballot box was at about 20% by lunchtime yesterday. I’ve noticed a trend in voters turning out earlier in the day at the 2009 local elections. This is more a lifestyle change as opposed to the rush to vote after tea.
Middle class areas seem to have voted heavier than working class areas within Wexford and this may have been a trend elsewhere. For supporters of the treaty it is vital that Wexford is won. Wexford is a bell weather constituency in Ireland, as Wexford goes so usually does the country. The only exception was Wexford marginally opposed Divorce in 1995. Last time the treaty was lost in Wexford by about 9%. If Lisbon is to be won nationally there is no better place to look for the indication than Wexford.
At the last referendum a high No vote was recorded in Kilmore Quay as fishermen voted No in protest to EU policing of the industry. Elsewhere a late call by the farmers organisation saw the support among farmers for Lisbon well below the usual support for the EU. In Enniscorthy a high No vote was believed to have the local response to the sacking by Brian Cowen of local Minister John Browne. Some people voted no last time in Wexford because the Department of Environment introduced a SPA on Wexford Harbour. The trends toady are less clear other than rural and middle class ares are more supportive than working class areas. We must ask why?

I’ve heard no mention of these issues during this campaign. Having seen the votes being counted today I believe that Wexford will vote Yes this time by a significant majority. The Yes vote will be in excess of 63% and could be as high as 67%. It’s also clear the treaty will be carried nationally. The pictures are of the scene this morning at the Wexford count in Clonard Community Centre in Wexford Town.

So why has Ireland gone Yes? I believe myself the emergence of non-party groups like Generation Yes or Ireland For Europe allowed the argument for Lisbon to be put in a non- party political way. Moreover the emergence of UKIP and return of Libertas injected the negative notion of outside interference to the electorate in a way that Sinn Fein or Coir could not have damaged the No campaign. Having said that the posters by Sinn Fein and Coir suggesting that incomes would drop because of Lisbon were known by the electorate to be wide of the mark and failed to attract support. No lost it rather than Yes winning it.
One final reflection, the debate of the last month was not precisely what was in the treaty but what people thought the effect of the treaty would be. There’s an important difference. Perhaps as the country moves on it’s something we shouldn’t forget

Lisbon Too

About 2 week ago I blogged that I thought Lisbon was slipping away and that defeat was likely and that a general election would follow as indeed would a leadership contest in Fianna Fail. Given the recovery in public support for the Treaty that scenario now looks less likely although the Yes camp aren’t out of the woods yet. So where has it all changed? Well a number of things have happened. Firstly the left opposition to the treaty have once again been outflanked by the far right. Coir’s attention grabbing posters claiming that the minimum wage will drop to €1.84, along with the arrival in Ireland of the libertarian UKIP has gone down like a lead balloon. The constantly grating clever dick accent of Nigel Farage has not connected with, to quote Joe Higgins, “the ordinary working class man and woman”. The reality is that Farage cares very little about Ireland and what it does rather he’s more interested in raising his profile in Britain as he’s coincidently announced he’s to break the traditional moratorium on challenging the House of Common’s speaker because he, Bercow, is on the left of the Tory Party.

Now another home counties accent has re-joined the fray, the sinister Cockney tribesman Declan Ganley. Ganley is a man with his past in a closet. Famously he retired from politics after being heavily defeated in the European elections. Ganley queried the count and when he was granted a re-count after he claimed a wheelie bin full of his votes disappeared, the result saw his actual vote drop as Labour votes were found in his pile. Ganley claims to have been an adviser to a Baltic state where Ministers subsequently claimed they’d never heard of him! His company Rivada boasts on its board retired US generals. Rivada has extensive contracts with the US Military for communications systems. His party Libertas is a private company. In the European Elections he won just 1 of the 100 seats they’d targeted. He’s not the only US military contractor to oppose Lisbon, but he’s the most vocal. Youtube footage shows him hiding a US flag before an interview with a German channel. I suppose it’s a case of an old Tory hiding Old Glory!

Labour MEP Nessa Childers was canvassing with us since I last blogged on the issue. The response to the canvas is very positive in Wexford. Wexford voted no in June 2008 by a margin of about 7%. If the canvas is suggesting now more voters in a constituency like Wexford and if this swing is being reflected nationally then I believe that the treaty can now pass. Wexford is a typical bell weather constituency in this referendum. If there is a swing to Yes in Wexford and it is replicated all over the country then I believe that Lisbon will pass. However if Marx could declare that it was too early to pronounce on the French Revolution 70 years after the event, then I’m more than entitled to warn against what could happen between now and polling day.
Coir hijacked the internationalist James Connolly to suggest he'd have backed their narrow reactionary campaign. Coir are anti-woman and it shows an ignorance of history to suggest that Connolly was such.
The Yes campaign has sharpened its focus, the red herrings on QMV, self amending treaty, neutrality, abortion, conscription, workers rights etc that surfaced the last time have been nailed. The real fear is that public opposition to the government’s NAMA proposal will galvanise some voters to vote against their better interests as they’ve had enough of the shambles. That’s understandable but voters had that chance last June. There are some things more important than Cowen and Co and this one of them!

UKIP’s dirty work in Ireland pulling the Legge.

Soon you can look forward to getting a letter from something called UKIP asking you to vote No to Lisbon. Someone who wants you to vote No is one of their MEP’s William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, MEP.
William wants to restrict the right of EU citizens to go and work in Britain. Since independence over 1 million Irish have found a better life in the UK than this republic could offer. Willie doesn’t have to worry about moving abroad to eke out a living as he’s the 10th person to hold the title and he owns a pile somewhere in Yorkshire and even if that goes belly up he’s connected to Barbara Cartland and the Late Princess Diana so there’s a few bob there to tide himself over the downturn just as there was for his 9 predecessors to the title since 1710.
Necessity is the mother of invention and who’d have imagined that a relative of the Princess Diana who had more blue blood than her ex husband, would now be standing shoulder to shoulder with Sinn Fein in opposing the Lisbon Treaty? What would Lord Mountbatten or the Republican icon Bobby Sands make of that? More to the point what would Sinn Fein voters make of it too? As far as I can make out SF still opposes the introduction of the Euro and prefers the pound sterling despite the sneering at the protestant community in the north that they were more loyal to the half crown than the crown? How far can you wrap yourself up in nonsense and who in the end, do you please? If Europe’s Far Right Lite see Lisbon off talking blarney with an English brogue where does that leave Sinn Fein or the Socialist Party?

2 contrasting policies in 2 different jurisdictions see SF arguing for an All-Ireland economy yet opposing moves to a single currency. What perplexes me is why will the Republican Movement stand shoulder to shoulder beside some of the most unsavoury element of European politics just to oppose continental bureaucrats? The logic of the community is that Britain should join the Euro and be at the centre.
Nigel Farage isn’t the person to lead them there. Former public schoolboy Nigel was a money man, not of course that we need another money man to tell us how our economy should be run. Nigel is a keen supporter of the Better Of Out (BOO) campaign an anti EU grouping of British MP’s that includes Lord Tebbit, Ian Paisley, Author and former Wicklow resident Frederick Forsyth and a number of right wing Northern Unionist and Tory MP’s. Some of these people like Christopher Chope oppose the minimum wage while claiming expenses from the British taxpayers to cover furniture vital to the UK economy like their sofa, or Bob Spink UKIP and former Tory MP who wrote in 2001; “What bit of sending them back do you not understand, Mr Blair?” or Ann Winterton MP who lost her front bench post for cracking racist jokes! These are the intellectual powerhouses lining up on the No side, our problem in this country is that they’ve gained a credence they don’t deserve because those leading the Yes campaign are so discredited.

Later this week Nigel will be in Dublin to debate Lisbon with David Begg. He’ll sit alongside Mary Lou McDonald. Nigel boasts he’s not anti-Irish but pro-British. What interests me about the UKIP intervention is who is paying for the mailshot? Have they registered with SIPO and who’s paying for their campaign? We’ve had Coir YD getting dollars in the past, Libertas with their own funny money and now the party that thinks all Ireland is part of the UK according to their Banner is spending more than a few half crowns getting its snout in. Shades of Yeats’ greasy till about this lot. Failte go h-Eireann agus Slán abhaile.

Lisbon 2 slipping away as the government sleep walks again

It’s a little over a month to the re-run of Lisbon but you wouldn’t believe there’s a campaign on. The government is asleep at the wheel. The Taoiseach who promised to lead the campaign has been invisible for the last month. Fianna Fail’s organisation which is in no order to fight a campaign after the kicking it got in the locals, is moribund. The Greens are agonising over NAMA and will be re-negotiating the programme for government.
On top of all of this is a government that is complacent because of the polls and while they secured clarification of matters arising from the issues identified by the Oireachtas sub-committee set up in the wake for the Lisbon 1 defeat, there’s a presumption that the people will turn out and will beg forgiveness from FF & The Greens on October 2 and nod it through.
As someone who lays a huge significance in particular on the Charter of Fundamental Rights as an advance for the citizen and I instanced at the last referendum how it could advance rights in education, an area that the EU has been happy to leave to subsidiarity , I’m pleased that our education system may have to justify itself to international norms under Lisbon. In the past I’ve voted for Lisbon and Amsterdam but against SEA, Maastricht & Nice. I’ve always believed that because treaties are so complex that you’ve got to decide on balance either yes or no. There’s always something that’s beneficial and something that’s detrimental to each nation in EU negotiation, you won’t get everything and what’s agreed is a compromise of all nations negotiating, So what’s important to me is not what’s agreed but who’s there negotiating and what they stand for. A Europe governed mostly by right wing parties gave us Nice and the SEA. 20 years ago the balance tipped in favour of corporations and market interests while the citizen was seen merely as a consumer in Maastricht & Nice.
Ultimately it’s a matter of trust. Labour was lucky in having Prionsias De Rossa as part of the team at the early stage of the treaty discussions. Do I think he’d sell out the interest of ordinary people in this country to people like Berlusconi? Do I think that grandstanding on issues like abortion and neutrality that have been dealt with in previous treaties is the way forward? Talking about trust, Would I lose sleep at night if Charlie McCreevy or any other right wing Irish politician wasn’t in the commission? You should know the answer on all of these.
Talking about abortion, it’s not the way I’d be happiest with but then I’m a democrat and I believe that if a society puts in place a right that you can’t take it away unlike the People’s Movement who want referenda every week on the same issue)

But what mostly worries me is that many other people would share my views and yet they now distrust the political class because of the government’s incompetence. I think that if nothing changes in the next month that it is likely that the people will once more reject Lisbon and then we as a nation will be in a very serious position. The problem for the government is that it may be rejected for different reasons now, NAMA, the banks, unemployment, cuts etc.
One FF TD quoted this week says he detects a death wish among the people. I don’t get that at all, the Irish people still want what’s best. The problem for FF & The Greens is that they see this government delivering the worst, the people have given up on them and can’t wait to see the back of them.
Cowen to go after Lisbon 2 is beaten, a general election of national renewal to follow will see Labour in power driving the agenda of government. That's the best Europe can hope for and that Ireland can offer.

Time to Libert-ask the key questions

A year ago Libertas was the creation of a recluse Galway neo con businessman who founded a company that claimed to be a think tank. Only Ireland could produce Declan Ganley. A Galway man with a home counties accent, whose mysterious money created an aura of acceptance. The Irish psyche always has a soft spot for the quare fella with the foreign accent to give him authenticity; Eamon De Valera, Sean McBride or Sean Thornton each dissidents in their day. Declan Ganley became the Mister Pussy of Irish politics, on the surface you see something quiet different to what goes on beneath.
It’s a symptom of how far politics in Ireland has been discredited that someone like Declan Ganley can get so far in a year. His company Libertas employs as members, employees of one of his other interest Rivada. Rivada was awarded substantial contracts in telecommunications in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Rivada also has been given US defence contracts in communications and boasts ex US military personnel on its board. Ganley who, it seems, uses his dual nationality when it suits him has an equally ambivalent attitude to being Irish, his company Libertas opposes “our political elite” but if he can get a dig out from another nation’s political elite sure what the hell? But Ganley will combine with those who oppose the US military stopover at Shannon and begorrah he’ll forget about his business interests because he knows that when it comes to having a cut at a discredited government, his ultimate interest is in creating in Ireland the circumstances where Ireland exists economically as Europe but citizens are riding second class behind his “elite”. It’s his intention to create an Ireland riding side rear guard on a neo con driven US agenda, at lest it was until Obama got into power. Ganley will transfer Ireland’s European reliance to one on the US. He’ll replace a social model of society with an economic one.

As someone who sees the benefit in the Lisbon Treaty from the point of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and in particular education and how this could benefit pupils in Ireland, I smile when I see this Hertfordshire man’s butler raise the Irish flag over his home from his flagpole overlooking the N17, the road that leads to Shannon Airport. What does the man with the Alaskan board actually understand about the lives of ordinary people?

Let me put my hand up. I’ve voted against Maastricht but for Amsterdam, against Nice but for Lisbon. I’ve always felt that when you look on an EU Treaty you vote because of one key issue. I could not have got through college but for getting a job in Germany during the 80’s. I never got a J1 I always went to Germany because it was new culture. My recollection of the 80’s was that in Europe the left and right had an understanding that mutually assured their dominance. This was why the European Christian Democrats so successfully marginalised Margaret Thatcher in EU negotiations. Her response was to cosy up to Ronald Reagan. The EU worked because of the balances that politically existed. Now with the upsurge in regional parties with an obstructionist agenda such as UKIP the neo cons see their opportunity and strike to bring European progress to a halt.
But my concerns about EU as a military power disappeared when the Berlin wall collapsed. I still have concerns about the EU and it’s because of the democratic deficit that is inherent in the structures. Lisbon was a way to bring in more democracy and accountability into decision making.
And this is where I wonder about Declan Ganley, why is it that he’s big not accountability in Eurioe but won’t disclose to SIPO details of Libertas’ funding, 6 months after he gave the commitment on TV that he would. I wonder about his connections with an Albanian solicitor who was subsequently murdered amidst allegations of financial connections with businessmen. I wonder about how Declan Ganley claimed he was a key government advisor in the 1990’s in a Baltic state. I also wonder how if CJ Haughey & Co hadn’t discredited politics in this country how far Declan Ganley could have ever got if questions when asked were answered? Once on a local radio discussion on CJ Haughey I offered the opinion that the problem with this country is that it takes 15 years to find out what’s going on today. This maxim doesn’t only apply to the affairs of the late Taoiseach but also our dissident Solzhenitsyn from the salt mines in Glenamaddy.