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.