Hooray for the Irish!

I'm glad to see the Irish standing up for themselves and their sovereignty. Don't know how long they'll be able to hold on, without government bulldozing over the will of the people as they've done in the other European nations...

Stop Press -- News Flash!

The Irish have convincingly voted NO to the Lisbon Treaty. Outside Dublin Castle a vast crowd is cheering. White-faced Eurocrats cannot believe what they are hearing and seeing.

The Lisbon Treaty was supposed to mark the moment when the United States of Europe irrevocably became a political and juridical entity, with the character of an empire. In earlier stages of the empire-building process, the French and the Dutch voted NO in referendums, but the European Union and national governments chose to ignore those votes, pressing ahead as though public opinion did not exist. The 27 heads of states in Europe all signed up to the treaty in draft, and all are in the process of ratifying it, simply bulldozing it through by means of presidential decree or parliamentary measures without consulting their populations. The absence of democratic consent would have been delightfully familiar to Stalin.

All except the Irish, that is. Their constitution alone specified a referendum. As usual, the elite, big business, the media, favoured a YES vote, and took it for granted. But the Irish people did not want to lose their constitution or their sovereignty. If other countries in the EU were allowed a similar vote, they too would reject the Lisbon Treaty. In a very real sense, the Irish have spoken for the majority of Europeans.

The Irish voted NO once before on an earlier treaty, and in a moment of sheer insolence were obliged to vote again to give a YES. The mournful EU President, José Manuel Barroso of Portugal, dropped a hint that some trick of the same sort will have to happen now. The EU leaders are due to meet next week in Brussels to analyse the Irish NO, and it will be richly comic to watch them squirming. A prediction: They will find in the small print some way to avoid taking NO for an answer, no matter how undemocratic they are seen to be.

And yet these are politicians who do not hesitate to deplore Mugabe for disregarding voting and re-running it to obtain pre-determined results.
From:
http://pryce-jones.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTI5OGY1Nzc1ZTdjYzZjYjlhNDdkZWE...


The Irish had to fight for centuries to win their independence, and theirs is a fierce and proud record. They have just extended that record by voting to reject the Lisbon Treaty, the instrument by which the European Union intends to achieve its final status as a sovereign entity, a new United States of Europe.

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen and his cabinet, in conjunction with the main opposition party, the Greens, the Catholic Church, the business elite, and the media commentators, were united in a hectoring chorus to persuade their compatriots to vote “Yes.” Against this establishment were a mysterious millionaire, and marginal figures, underdogs, some reprehensible like Sinn Fein, the IRA terrorists.

Multiple reasons are given for the resounding victory of the “No” vote. Ireland is about to become a financial contributor to the EU rather than a beneficiary, as it has been. One fear was that Ireland’s agriculture might suffer at the hand of Brussels, another was that it would be obliged to scrap a tax regime that brings competitive advantages.

Twenty-seven countries now make up the EU, and all have been, or are being, dragooned into accepting this treaty that will change their character and erode their national sovereignty forever. Ireland is unique in having a constitution that specifies that any change to it requires a referendum. The Irish have seen how the EU rough-rides over other countries, and they have preferred to stay true to themselves and their past.

The reaction of the EU leaders only establishes how wise the Irish are to try to preserve their independence. As the Irish vote was announced, EU President Jose Manuel Barroso gave a press conference in which he made scarcely veiled threats. Other leaders spoke openly of dodges and legal subterfuges intended either to disregard the Irish vote or to make Ireland vote again until the desired result is achieved. Instead of congratulations, the Irish are the recipients of ill will and calls for retribution.

EU leaders like to tub-thump about their democratic credentials, but they evidently see themselves building an empire that is not going to take note of matters like a democratic vote against them. The luck of the Irish is famous — and they’re going to need it.
From:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGVlMTJjZjE1YTNjYzE5ZWRiN2ExMmJiZTBjNzY4...


Daniel Hannan on the EU’s response to the Irish ‘no’ vote:

…others moaned that the little countries were getting uppity. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the Euro-Greens, snarled: "It is not truly democratic that less than a million people can decide the fate of nearly half a billion Europeans." Spot on, Danny. So how about letting the other half-billion have referendums, too? Then there were the attempts to claim that the Irish had misunderstood the question. The Vice-President of the Commission, Margot Wallström, plans to run some Eurobarometer opinion polls to find out what the Irish were really voting against. Let me help you with that one, Margot: they were voting against the Lisbon Treaty. The giveaway was the ballot paper, which asked people whether they wanted to amend the constitution so as to, you know, ratify the Lisbon Treaty. This is the same Mrs Wallström, incidentally, who, three years ago, opined at the Theresiendstadt concentration camp that "No" voters risked a second Holocaust. Well, three countries have since voted "No" and, so far, there have been no pogroms, no special trains, no invasions of one EU state by another. My favourite was the reaction by the President of the European Parliament, the amiable Hans-Gert Pöttering. "The ratification process must continue," he declared, because "the reform of the European Union is important for citizens, for democracy and for transparency." Got that? The reason the EU is tossing aside the verdict of the Irish people is for democracy.
From:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/783601/eu-leaders-will-never...