Lisbon Treaty

The Lisbon Treaty – all to play for with a week to go to polling day

De Facto
Liamy MacNally

There is just over a week to go before the final curtain. Those in the echelons of power will state that the people have spoken – if what the people say suits their cause. They will pluck down the dust-covered term ‘democracy’ and use it like a bar of soap in a bath. If the answer does not suit, then, in a recurring abuse of democracy, the people will be sent to stand out in line until they learn to do what the masters of commodities want. Those in power know that the ‘use’ of democracy can be twisted and shaped. Some day they will find out that they are wrong.
THE COFFIN OF DEMOCRACY
The posters used by the two main parties for the Lisbon EuroCon Treaty are misleading. Fine Gael urges that we should be at the heart of Europe. Adopting this treaty will not bring us any closer to Europe. In reality it will show us up to be a nation of yes men and women. It is only the Constitution of this country that separates the arrogance of Europhiles in all of the 27 European Union states from hammering the final nail in the coffin of democracy. 
We have all heard and know that men died for this country. They did not die so that we can become a province of a centralised Europe, aided and abetted by political leaders in this country who have lost all sense of sovereignty. Who needs colonialism when the minds of our leaders are swimming in the sea of European subservience?
There is no point in Ireland becoming a ‘part’ of Europe unless that part is respected in its entirety. A European ‘stew’ is not the answer. The only way forward is unity in diversity. Unfortunately the diversity is being painted over. We are left with a blur of grey nothingness masquerading as colour. The more we sign up to Europe the less we become a nation. With a nod to Bob, a nation not busy being born is busy dying. Ireland is being suffocated slowly.
That noose of death is not held by Europe but is controlled by those in power in our own country. 

THE IRISH CONSTITUTION
Nothing in Europe can happen without the support, at some level, of the Government in power. With the further diminution of voting strength, if Lisbon is passed, then we will become less and less of a nation and more of a far-flung province in the nether regions of Europe. Attempts by those in power to say that we will impede European progress if we vote against Lisbon are misleading. The reality is that we are only voting because of the primacy of our Constitution. Future European amendments to Lisbon can take place without reference to our Constitution if we pass Lisbon. How can people honestly claim that the Irish can stop progress when the right to vote on the future of Europe, a la the Lisbon Treaty, has been denied to every other citizen of every other member state? This is preposterous nonsense. In this country we have the greatest legacy of a democracy in any state – a written constitution. We are now being asked to give it up by people with European rather than Irish state interests. Brian Cowen has the arrogance to not even bother reading the Treaty and yet expect people to vote for it. How dare he! Does he really think this is showing leadership or has he even realised that he is now in such a position? One daren’t even use the word ‘statesman’ in his presence. His distance from its understanding is so evident after his few weeks in high office. If arrogance was money he would be a multi-millionaire. 

THE GRAVY TRAIN
The Fianna Fáil posters state that the Treaty is good for Ireland and good for Europe. The Treaty will only be good for those riding first-class on the European gravy train. Ministers were flaunting a letter from EU official David O’Sullivan last week about Ireland’s continued power of veto. The original veto request asked for the actual clause in the Treaty that would maintain the agricultural veto. So far, it has not appeared.  
IBEC claims the Treaty will be good for business. IBEC would serve the country better if it went back to its members who import from Britain and yet overcharge Irish customers. Not for these corporates the bother of respecting exchange rates when they can rip off poor old Paddy! Worse still, it is all done in the name of the new corporate god.
Labour has played a ‘strange’ game in this treaty. Keith Martin’s angelic face is spreading further than the Westport Town Council boundary. He is smiling down on us from lamp posts throughout the region. Is this a sign of future ambitions? Fair play to the Labour party! They are being environmentally sound in this campaign. Their respective candidates can easily reuse their posters in any forthcoming election. All one has to do is stick a VOTE NO 1 over the VOTE YES section. The talk is that candidates who participated in the treaty campaign received posters ‘at a good price’ from headquarters.

NEW COAT TREATY
The reality with the Lisbon Treaty is that it is about 95 per cent of what the European Constitution was. The Dutch and the French rejected that EuroCon. Their respective governments did not re-present the EuroCon like Ireland did with Nice 1 and Nice 2. Instead, in response to the Dutch and French, a few words, sentences and paragraphs were altered and the same document was given a new coat and called the Lisbon Treaty. Politics is the art of the possible! One wonders what feelings are like among the Dutch and French today. Do they realise that what they rejected has come back with a vanilla flavour and is being consumed by all and sundry? They are being conned. Where are the democrats and republicans of those countries? There is no shame in saying no to the Treaty. That does not make anyone less of a European or less supportive of structures within the Union that work and they support. Saying no is not a reason to be put on the guilt trip that is so beloved of some politicians. Lisbon Plan B must be somewhere!
DEMOCRACY RIP
In years to come when we ‘are old and grey and nodding by the fire’ we will smile at it all! Democracy was the goal of generations of Irish people who suffered under the demon of colonisation. It was secured after it was bathed in the blood of Irish men and women. It is now being allowed to drip away through the floorboards of corporate Ireland. Its lifeblood is being sucked from its body by the politics of greed. The nation we once knew is curling up in the corner of death, awaiting its final breath. The first item on the agenda of any Irish meeting is the split, declared Brendan Behan. It is also the last item on the agenda of a nation state before it disappears from view behind the curtain of history. Ireland RIP.