Sometimes I think I should offer a cash prize to the first person who can offer a single good reason for voting Yes on 2 October. Yesterday we had Fionnan Sheahan trot out the tired old mantra of our vote really being about whether or not we want to be in Europe, not about whether or not we accept a bad treaty. In today's Irish Times, IFA president Padraig Walshe gives three reasons why he is voting yes - none of which have anything to do with the Treaty at all.
"Mr Walshe said one of the reasons for voting Yes was that European membership has given Ireland access to an unrestricted market of over 500 million consumers. "As a food exporter, as a food island .... access to that market is crucial for us."
R-r-right. The common market has been in place for many years now, and how we vote on Lisbon is not going to change our access to it one way or the other. But he continues:
"Also, membership of the euro has kept interest rates low over the past few years, and it has benefited Irish agriculture."
Okaaayyy - but the referendum is not about the euro, it's about the Lisbon Treaty. When is Mr Walshe going to get around to talking about that? Well, never, apparently:
"The future of the Common Agricultural Policy is up for renegotiation in the next couple of years, and we feel it is much more important for us to be involved in the heart of those negotiations, that we can influence what is likely to happen going forward rather than being on the periphery as we might be if we were to vote No."
Nope, nothing about the content of the Treaty here either - just the usual "the other member states will give us the cold shoulder if we say no" speculation. In not one of Mr Walshe's three reasons for voting Yes is a single article or provision of the Lisbon Treaty invoked.
Incidentally, his reasoning on the last point is absolutely fallacious. Involved in the heart of CAP negotiations? What, you mean the negotiations that allow French farmers to receive 25 % of CAP funds, despite constituting less than 10% of the farmers in the EU? And that's despite the fact that France said no to the EU Constitution! Also, Mr Walshe should be aware that Lisbon will slash Ireland's voting weight on the Council of Ministers - not exactly an outcome that will allow us to "influence what is likely to happen."
So I'm still waiting for an argument from the Yes camp that does not consist of either vague speculations about the future or the nostalgic "but Europe has done so much for us!" palaver. And I suspect I'll be waiting for some time ...
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Who are the Scaremongers?
Well, exams have been sat (and, let us hope, passed) and I am now able to give more time to the campaign against the Lisbon Treaty. From now until 2 October, this blog will concern itself with that campaign and not so much with CSP issues.
And the campaign needs all the help it can get. On opening the Irish Independent this morning, I was greeted by the following platitude by Fionnan Sheahan:
"More than a vote on the Lisbon Treaty itself, it is a vote on Ireland's relationship with the Union".
This is utterly typical of the Euro-fanatics. They always go from the specific to the general in their arguments. Point out some grave flaw in an EU Treaty (like, you know, the slashing of Ireland's voting weight in the Council, the creation of a common European policy in areas like immigration and defence, the abolition of our right to appoint our own Commissioner) and they will reply with an impatient wave of the hand. "But you must look at the big picture" they insist. "This isn't about the Treaty, it's about whether or not we want to stay in Europe!"
Listen. We're IN Europe. We were evangelizing Europe some 1,400 years before the EU was ever dreamt of. But since we're talking about the EU: we're in that too. Voting No to Lisbon will not remove us from the EU. It will not remove us from the Common Market. It will not restrict our freedom of movement within the Union. End of story.
What infuriates me most about statements like Sheahan's above is that the Yes side are generally the ones who accuse the No side of "scaremongering", when the reality is the exact opposite. In fact, the Yes side's arguments consist almost entirely of scaremongering: loss of foreign investment, loss of jobs, some vague, unspecified retribution from other EU countries.
Recently a Yes-supporting colleague told me that the No side's arguments were also grounded in prophecies of doom. That may be true, but there is one major difference between us and the Yessers: We ground our arguments in the text of the Treaty, they do not. We know that Lisbon will result in less democracy, more militarisation, ECJ control over our human rights because the Treaty itself says that it will. The Yes side have no authority for their apocalyptic claims. That needs to be pointed out to people at every opportunity.
And the campaign needs all the help it can get. On opening the Irish Independent this morning, I was greeted by the following platitude by Fionnan Sheahan:
"More than a vote on the Lisbon Treaty itself, it is a vote on Ireland's relationship with the Union".
This is utterly typical of the Euro-fanatics. They always go from the specific to the general in their arguments. Point out some grave flaw in an EU Treaty (like, you know, the slashing of Ireland's voting weight in the Council, the creation of a common European policy in areas like immigration and defence, the abolition of our right to appoint our own Commissioner) and they will reply with an impatient wave of the hand. "But you must look at the big picture" they insist. "This isn't about the Treaty, it's about whether or not we want to stay in Europe!"
Listen. We're IN Europe. We were evangelizing Europe some 1,400 years before the EU was ever dreamt of. But since we're talking about the EU: we're in that too. Voting No to Lisbon will not remove us from the EU. It will not remove us from the Common Market. It will not restrict our freedom of movement within the Union. End of story.
What infuriates me most about statements like Sheahan's above is that the Yes side are generally the ones who accuse the No side of "scaremongering", when the reality is the exact opposite. In fact, the Yes side's arguments consist almost entirely of scaremongering: loss of foreign investment, loss of jobs, some vague, unspecified retribution from other EU countries.
Recently a Yes-supporting colleague told me that the No side's arguments were also grounded in prophecies of doom. That may be true, but there is one major difference between us and the Yessers: We ground our arguments in the text of the Treaty, they do not. We know that Lisbon will result in less democracy, more militarisation, ECJ control over our human rights because the Treaty itself says that it will. The Yes side have no authority for their apocalyptic claims. That needs to be pointed out to people at every opportunity.
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