Any day now...

An Article from Agence Europe attempts to imagine a way forward for Ireland regarding Lisbon. Everyone knows that the European Council (meeting of Prime-ministers of EU and Presidents of the EU Institutions) in October is the time at which a "method" for doing this must be proposed by the Irish government. 

Mr. Sarkozy, the current President of the European Council is frantic to have this problem solved by the end of his 6-month Presidency in December. Mr. Sarkozy is coming to Dublin on 21 July, to "sketch out solutions" (though he is not bringing Carla, a French Diplomat said that if we vote No, we get Sarkozy, if we vote Yes – we get Carla!)

For sound timing reasons, the solution of having another Referendum is not being put forward by the Irish Government yet. Seeming to be in haste to overturn the will of the people is not seen well by the Irish electorate. However, there is little doubt that this will be the solution. Stephen Collins, the Political Editor of the Irish Times predicted on 6th July that the Irish Government would hold and win another Referendum on Lisbon. This confidence could have something to do with the more economically uncertain times Ireland has entered over the past month, with The Irish Economic Social and Research Unit predicting that the Irish economy will be in recession by year's end.

The Road to a solution would appear somewhat like this, prior to any vote the European Council will adopt a Decision which will try to allay some of the Irish public's fears on taxation, neutrality and abortion and maybe give an opt-out on some Criminal law co-operation. The only real "amendment" of the Lisbon Treaty could be that our partners could vote unanimously under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty to keep the size of the Commission at 27, though this not at all certain to happen and is in fact probably highly unlikely.  

Another vote on the Lisbon Treaty will then occur in Spring 2009 with exactly the same legal text. How this will fare is uncertain, the nearest we have to an indication is this News website poll taken about 2 weeks after the Referendum…8% of respondents regretted voting No and 5% regretted voting Yes. Of course this is not at all scientific, but already it suggests that there people are thinking in terms of voting again. Also, the reputation of one of the leaders of the No campaign, Declan Ganley continues to bleed by a thousand cuts as suspicion grows of his business background. The latest is his links with John A Shaw, former deputy under-secretary of defence for international technology security, who allegedly "steered Iraq contracts to friends and business associates". Ganley continues to refuse to comment. 

Ireland voted no to Lisbon on 12th June. However, all is not lost. Below are 5 reasons why the Referendum failed and why it might succeed in a future vote.

 Why Lisbon failed:

1. Declining trust to politicians, Irish people have lost a huge amount of respect for politicians since revelations of corruption and won't believe them or be lead by them when asked to trust them.

2. Negative tone of debate/campaign - even when Irish people listened to the debate it was usually a No myth (based on some random Article from the Treaty) being debunked, which left people confused and gave the No side more credulity. The Yes campaign also did not have enough knowledge in debates to demolish the No myths (the admission that the Taoiseach & the Irish Commissioner had not read the Treaty did not help with this perception).

3. The "Blame Brussels" excuse that national politicians use, leaving Irish people with the impression that something, over which they felt they had no control, was deciding vital issues regarding how they lived their lives (the fishermen dispute brought this into clear view). This gave rise to fears that Brussels was going to act on abortion, Gay marriage (if only!) and other moral or social issues. 

4. The No campaign was bigger than ever, there was posters and leaflet drops in my small village for the No side, this has never happened before. Why they were so motivated is probably because of the disengagement of people to politics, people saw the No campaign as the nearest thing we have to a kind of populist people's movement (the No campaign is our Obama!)

5. The deliberate "You must read the Treaty" line propagated by the No campaign (knowing it was unreadable without serious academic study) followed by "Vote no if you don't know" coming up to voting day.

 

Why there's hope:

1. The newly empowered but ideologically divided No campaign is probably going to collapse into internal squabbling. Sinn Féin are getting a lot of the coverage even though their campaign was patch at best and this is bound to annoy Libertas and Cóir who (I feel) won this campaign with visually arresting campaign literature.

2. The vast majority of Irish people dislike Sinn Féin and most especially Gerry Adams who knows little about the Republic's politics. Their current talk about charting a course for Ireland's future in Europe will inevitably bring back memories of how they retarded Ireland's future for so long in their campaign of violence.

3. Libertas is likely to set itself up as a political party (charting a course set out by its founder – Declan Ganley 5 years ago in the United States), nearly new political parties in Ireland fail.

3. If Irish people see their interests being materially damaged by a No vote, they would reconsider. The No was a soft one, people were not ideologically bound to their decision, and if they felt it was a choice between Lisbon or active involvement in the EU they would choose to vote again.

4. The main Media outlets are very much behind another vote and will probably smooth the way to another Referendum. If there is scope for one, there will probably be an Opinion Poll soon showing a majority wanting a re-run of the Treaty Referendum.

5. A civil society campaign (which led to the Nice Treaty being passed the second time), lead by groups outside politics would be much more effective than the failed politician lead campaign.

Buh-bye...

On 10th June, Congressman Dennis Kucinich took 3 hours to read 35 articles of Impeachment against President George Bush into the House Record. That's probably as far as they will go, however they do read as a comprehensive list of the failures and mistakes of the Bush administration. These include misspending, incompetence, misrepresentation, delberate misleading, invasion of a sovereign country, illegal detention, torture, imprisonment, violating laws/constitution, obstruction - the list goes on.    

Despite all this, I really find it hard to condemn George Bush. I have also been elected to an office (mine was piddlingly small in comparison – Deputy President of University of Limerick Students' Union but nonetheless important to the people who depended on me) I somehow understand how one can a) become a victim of circumstances that you don't control and b) find yourself advocating a position you don't believe because you followed a path that seemed like a good at the time) suddenly realise that, even though society tells us we can do anything, you maybe just do not have the skills for a certain part of your task.  

He has admitted that his use of phrases such as "bring them on" and "dead or alive" had "indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace". However, bringing in a certain type of person into his Administration/circle of dependants, he probably allowed himself to be manipulated into these statements and the actions that went with them. He goes on to defend the Iraqi war, however saying "No I don't regret it all. But I could have used better rhetoric," Bush said. "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision."  

A certain amount of what Bush has done has been progressive, increased funding of AIDS research in Africa, and his (late) support of efforts to bring Israeli-Palestinian peace. However, saying that he wanted to "leave behind a series of structures that makes it easier for the next president" to tackle issues such as Iran's nuclear programme and establishing a Palestinian state, is naïve wishful thinking. He is being politely listened to, but generally ignored. He is hoping to save the reputation of this disastrous Presidency through international diplomacy, but this cannot be done while he clings to Iraqi-type interventionist policies and refuses to acknowledge faults. It is for this reason that he will fail, not because he has 6 months in office. 

Bush is not a stupid man, he has gone through his life surrounding himself with excellent people and managing them efficiently. However what he probably cannot see is that he has been and is being managed by those around him. He could probably still contribute in his last 6 months to America and the world, but first he must seek forgiveness from a damaged people and a damaged world and truly build the international structure necessary to face global challenges. 

 
(Edited through addition of first paragraph on 17/06/08).

Last Wednesday I attended a screening of "Citizen Havel" (Obcan Havel), a kind of pen-picture of the 8 year latter Presidency of Václav Havel. The access granted to the film crew was amazing, and the backroom dealing and power relationships that were shown, didn't need translation as they were clear in body movements alone!

Playwrite & politician - Václav Havel

However, the humanity of Václav Havel was the element that made this film great. Private moments of doubt and delight were scattered through the film; poignant moments were shared, such as his arranging the flowers over the coffin of his first wife, his being remarried and his agonised decision about whether to run again for office. 

It was in the context of this decision that he quoted one of his own plays; "those who truly value democracy cannot understand it, leaving it to those who do not value democracy to define it" (quote may not be exact - from memory). Perhaps that's why politics has been so unresponsive to people's real earnest needs. Can we really say that we get a chance to elect people who truly value democracy and the will of the people rather than secretly resenting it? Where are the people that truly value democracy and why is our system driving them away?