No means no

Democracy is a hard act to follow

De Facto
Liamy MacNally

Many people voted No to the Lisbon Treaty because they did not want to hand over the last vestiges of Irish sovereignty to the politically elite. The Lisbon Treaty is about creating a new super European Union, along a somewhat federalist line. It would bestow Europe with a legal entity. Many Irish people do not want this. The EU would then enjoy supremacy over national states. It is not about democracy, but dictatorship. This is obvious from the reaction to the Irish No vote by senior politicians in several European countries. Already the No vote is being disregarded with talk of a Lisbon 2. If the Yes side won by one vote there would not be any talk of a Lisbon 2. Such a refusal to accept the greatest act (only act) of democracy associated with this treaty is tantamount to treason.
The Irish were the only people in the 27 countries to give their political leader a mandate on Lisbon. We said No and it was Brian Cowen’s duty to carry that message back to his EU counterparts. For so long we were told that all 27 countries must ratify the Treaty for it to become law; all of a sudden there are legal loopholes that can be invoked. How shameful is that? How can the will of the people in a democracy be ignored? Who gives foreign politicians a right to castigate Irish people for exercising their democratic right? If these politicians are such believers in democracy then let them ask their own electorates to vote on the Lisbon Treaty. They are afraid. It is as simple as that. If they believe in Europe so much then let them go to the people they purport to represent. They will not do that because their basic interest is themselves and their corporate backers.
VULTURES OF DICTATORSHIP
Already the vultures of this new proposed Europe super state are circling around the Irish. These European dictators must be told to go back to their own people. The Irish No vote has not created a crisis but rather an opportunity. It is enabling leaders in European countries to consult their people but they will not. They know that they are so far removed from the reality of the lives of regular people that their dastardly plan will be rejected again and again. Have they forgotten the rejection of the EuroCon by the French and the Dutch? Why were these expressions of the democratic will of the people ignored when the EuroCon was dressed up in Lisbon’s finest whitewash? Is it now the turn of the Irish people’s democratic expression to be ignored? And these European leaders would have us believe that they are acting in our best interests.
The cry of despair from European leaders after our vote was led by the big countries. Angela Merkel cannot hold a referendum in her country because it is not permitted by law. That law was introduced after the German debacle of World War II. Mr Sarkozy is coming to visit us next month on a charm offensive with his wife. Other countries are in a position to vote but the idea of democracy shrivels more and more with each passing day in the hallowed halls of the Europhiles. It is easier to dictate rather than to listen. 
The nonsense talk that we have heard over the past week that Europe will grind to a halt because of the ineffectiveness of Nice shows the depth of incompetence at the heart of Europe. Nice was supposed to be the oil that would keep the wheels of Europe turning. Now they tell us it cannot and so then they tried for the big one. They wanted to make Europe into a legal entity and make it a sovereign super state.
‘No, no, no’ needs to be shouted from the rooftops of every capital city across the 27 member states. Go back to the drawing board and create the economic market that it was set up for or else preside over its demise. Perhaps Europe has run its course, clogged up by bureaucratic ineptitude and spun out by the obvious selfishness of so many at its heart. We handed over our fishing rights, valued by some people at €200 billion, yet the Europhiles constantly accuse us of taking from Europe. The loud voices of the big countries over the past two weeks ring hollow. We, as an independent nation, have stopped the latest war without firing a bullet. We just used the pen. Europe was heading towards a war of dictatorship with an unelected leader. That is not the idea of sovereignty that our forefathers signed up to, many of whose signatures were in blood. That is not the kind of sovereignty many Irish people subscribe to today. Being a nation state is totally different to being a state in a ‘union’. The Lisbon Treaty would subsume our nationality. We would be Europeans.  
THE NEW UPPER-CLASS
It does not matter that the main Irish political leaders wanted a Yes vote. It just shows how removed they are from reality. We are still awaiting a clear signal from Fine Gael on their intentions. Does the party accept that the people have spoken and the Lisbon Treaty is dead? It has been noted how Michael Ring was side-stepped during the recent Dáil debate in the aftermath of the Lisbon vote, yet they could not silence him. He quipped that Brain Cowen and Charlie McCreevy should not be captains of the rudderless campaign ship as it would flounder on the rocks because the two boys would not read the maps!          
The heaped insults on the No voters since Friday, June 13, say so much. Attempts to label people as right-wing Catholics, left-wing loonies and other forms of extremists say more about the speakers than anyone else. It all comes down to the basic question – what part of ‘no’ do you not understand?
Too many politicians are becoming part of an elitist club. Such politicians and their EU counterparts are the new
upperclass in society. Their main goal is to ensure that the wheels of big business are kept turning by the ‘little people’ whose rights will be diminished in this new super state and whose responsibilities will grow. It took the European political leaders less than a week to show their true colours. Those who live comfortably as part of the Euro cabal are now saying that a No vote in the Lisbon Treaty is unacceptable. If it is why did we bother to vote? Either democracy is what it is or we live in a dictatorship. The reaction of these European politicians betrays their own notions of democracy. Many of them come from countries where democracy is a new-found phenomenon. Should Lisbon 2 rear its ugly head it will be linked with a ‘take it or leave it’ threat. Should we say no again then we will be ousted from the EU. Imagine being expelled for being democratic! That’s a new one for the books!
Democracy is a hard act to follow. Irish and European political leaders should try it.