Message from the South East: "No means No"

national | eu | press release

Tuesday June 17, 2008 14:49

by O. O'C. - People's Movement (South East Region)

info at selisboninfo dot org

086 3150301

If respect for the equality of all EU Member States is to mean anything more than rhetoric, then the general ratification process should have been halted immediately.

Nearly seventy seven thousand voters in the South East Counties of Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford voted No in last Thursday’s Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Just over sixty seven thousand voted Yes. Yet already a process is under way to try to overturn the democratically expressed majority will of the people of this region and of the rest of the State.

That is effectively what EU Commission President Barroso, French President Sarkozy, German Chancellor Merkel and British Prime Minister Brown mean when they say that the Lisbon Treaty ratification process must continue despite the Irish referendum vote.

If respect for the equality of all EU Member States is to mean anything more than rhetoric, then the general ratification process should have been halted immediately. For the treaty to come into force, all Member States must be in a position to ratify it according to their individual constitutional requirements and this State is not in a position to ratify the treaty in compliance with the Irish Constitution.

The Commission and the big Member States are already ganging up on Ireland over the referendum result yet a post-Lisbon EU would see those same Member States having a much greater influence in the EU law-making and decision taking processes and Ireland having much less.

The ratification process for the Lisbon Treaty was programmed to guarantee that all the Member States would ratify it. Although in essence a Constitution for a new European Union it was deliberately not called such to ensure that EU governments could slither out of holding a referendum on it for fear that voters would reject it again as they had done to its predecessor in France and Holland in 2005. Ireland has upset the programme because it is the only country where a referendum had to be held because of the 1987 Supreme Court decision in the Crotty case.

In order to lay the ground for overturning the popular will on Lisbon, the leaders of the Yes camp arrogantly set out to rubbish the integrity and intelligence of the No majority and portray it as being made up of the ill-informed, the duped and the unthinkingly discontented. Yet what did No voters reject?

By voting No, voters rejected major constitutional changes for the EU, for its Member States and for Irish citizens. These changes would have given the EU the constitutional form of a supranational European Federal State and turned Ireland and other Member States into regions or provinces of such a Federation. These changes were clear to see in the 28th Amendment to the Constitution but were either glossed over , misrepresented or downplayed by the Yes camp and even more crucially by the allegedly impartial Referendum Commission.

In spite of this, voters made a perfectly rational political decision to reject the Lisbon Treaty. Now that decision has to be respected.

The message from the South East is thus, No Means No.

FOR VERIFICATION AND COMMENT, CONTACT:

KEVIN MCCORRY

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Comments (3 of 3)

Why we rejected Lisbon

by Tim Hourigan

Wed Jun 18, 2008 13:17

After all the lies and bullying of the campaign before the vote, we
now have to endure the lies about why we voted "No".
How can Brian Cowen and his colleagues explain to Brussels why the
Irish voted No, when at no stage did they listen to us?
Will he just try to blame it all on fringe elements worried about
abortion and gay marriage? That's neither honest nor credible.
I am not Anti-European, and most of Ireland is pro-European, but we're
not foolish enough to think everything drafted in Brussels is good.
This is especially true when we see the other 496 million Europeans
denied a referendum on this issue.
We have only the late Raymond Crotty to thank for the fact that we got to vote on this.
Otherwise our government would have voted on it long ago, against our wishes.
If the EU wants to re-organise it's institutions, that seems logical.
I could see the point of having a treaty about the number of commissioners and qualified majority voting.
There was NO good reason to include in the same treaty, sneaky conditions requiring us to upgrade our military equipment, amendments about privatisation, supporting the nuclear industry, and half -baked 'sweeteners' about accountability that didn't survive a minute of scrutiny.
It was a bad deal for the ordinary citizen and tax payer , and the other EU leaders kept the decision away from the public for that reason.
So, if the media won't go go into hysteria about the democratic choices of the Irish people, let them point the finger where the blame lies.
We didn't give the wrong answer, they gave us the wrong Treaty.
And on that, the people have made their judgement.

Congratulations

by Realist

Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:18

You've instigated a two-tier Europe in which Ireland will now rest in the "go slow" lane affecting our economy and our previously close relations with the European Project. The NO camp has no direction in which to go now except more of this isolationist drivel and left-wing rhetoric.

You wanna talk about democracy? The hard left were rejected by the electorate in the General Election and now it's just used Lisbon to further it's (now undemocratic) aims.

No means No

by Annraoí Blaney - Myself

Wed Jun 18, 2008 08:42

annraoiblaney at eircom dot net

Howth

We can see the direction the yes camp and the EU are going. I believe if they try to force this treaty on us and demonise us make us out to be idiots, we should mobilise mass demonstrations in Dublin.
It is our democratic right to say NO . we the majority have said NO... Invite supporters from all over Europe to join us, those people who have been sidelined by their own goverments. I believe it what has to happen. When they see thousands of people on the streets they have to take notice... NOISY BUT PEACEFUL..... LETS DO IT

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Message from the South East: "No means No"

Comments (3 of 3)