We wrote recently about the craven and deeply stupid performance by the Irish electorate when they voted to bend down and take the Lisbon Treaty right where it'll hurt the most.
Christopher Crossman has his own take on the débacle, and sent us this letter to explain it ...
As an Englishman living in Ireland, I have to tell you that the Irish were kidded, conned and coerced over Lisbon 2 - all over the country, except here in Donegal where, alone, we voted "No".
In all the weeks of active campaigning by the "Yes" side of the Lisbon 2 debate, in all the megabytes of emails and multiple Government-sponsored pro-Lisbon websites, throughout all the positive TV coverage and mostly uncritical print media reporting, amid all the blitzing of letterboxes with pamphlets and town centres with posters, there was not one single good reason articulated for the Irish people to vote in favour of another bid to enhance the power of Brussels.
But still they fell for it.
Because the Irish government ran such a massive propaganda campaign to deliberately mislead and misdirect the public's attention, by persistently implying the Lisbon 2 referendum was really about continued membership of the EU, and by explicitly stating that a "Yes" vote would have a positive, early effect on employment, wages and on the Irish economy. I myself saw hundreds of party-sponsored posters along roads and in towns here that said simply "Yes to Europe, Yes to jobs" - as if one statement was the natural consequence of the other.
The irony is that Lisbon 2 was an even murkier deal than the previously-rejected Lisbon constitution, and provided no certainty even of an Irish EU commissioner in the future - only the chance to suggest one. And the supposedly independent Referendum Commission made no attempt to cover both viewpoints, but blatantly set out its own, wholly sympathetic, version of the "Yes" case. All these statements, slogans and claims were untruths bordering on falsehoods, but if you could winkle out any proper argument at all, from all misinformation and downright deceptions, it seemed to come down to: Ireland did quite well from the EU in the past, so vote "Yes" now - and if you don't vote "Yes" now they will punish us.
And it worked.
They got away with it because compliant media editors and hundreds of ministers, would-be ministers, bureaucrats, quango bosses, union-leaders-on-a-promise and other assorted gravy-train riders, were all involved in a massive, conscious or unconscious, conspiracy of suppression and complicity. Knowing that the truth was that a "Yes" vote would mean less money for Ireland from Europe and more money paid in. Knowing it meant less influence for Ireland over its own border affairs and internal policies and more power to Brussels. Knowing it would mean less control over Ireland's economy, industries, businesses and its people's lives, and much more meddling, interfering and imposing of one-size-fits-all policies over all member states, especially pesky, insignificant little Ireland.
But they lent their support, voices and authority to the big lie nevertheless - out of self-interest, for money or favours to come, and because nobody had a vision for any alternative outcome.
The irony is that all the Irish people, and in their hearts and minds everybody with any insight or power, knew all this - but such was the lure of position, patronage and pork-barrel politics, and the inflated salaries, status and gold-plated pensions of those already on the gravy train and the others waiting to get on, that the Irish people had to be conned and coerced into a "Yes" vote at all costs. Besides, the killer consideration was, if the people voted "No" what would happen to the gravy-train riders?
The Irish people had a chance to loosen the ever-tightening grip of the EU, to literally stop the monster in its tracks, and sad to say they blew it. They had a chance to say "no more ratification", "... rationalisation" and "... harmonisation", to send a message that what people want is a lot less top-down decision-making, a lot less waste and an end to corruption, cronyism and feather-bedding. Most of all to get a lot of the authority to govern their own affairs returned to the member states.
But we blew it and the same chance will never come again, that much is certain.
But here in Donegal, we tried. We stood out against the pressure, we were not to be bullied. So think kindly of us here, feel sorry for us when we are left out of future funding and regeneration schemes, and maybe come see for yourselves why Donegal is different.
Yours,
Christopher Crossman
The GOS says: Right on. Still, fair's fair. On this side of the Irish Sea we didn't even have the gumption to make enough fuss to force the government to keep its promise of a referendum.
And if they had, it's by no certain that we'd have had any more sense than the Irish. I mean, look at our police, look at our legal system, look at our immigration policy (not), look at our schools. Look what we already put up with. Let's face it, Brains R'n't Us.
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