"Vote Yes and you'll never have to vote again"

With just 24hrs to go before the Irish people go once again (obediently) to the polls, Head Down Eyes Opener Joe Lowry enters the fray and argues why we should Vote No to Lisbon (but Watch this space for the Yes argument to be put forward later in the day).

I’m pro-Europe and proud of it. And I call for a No vote. We voted No to Nice and to Lisbon, how often do we have to say no? I was and am all for an expanded Europe, and am delighted to see countries like Poland finally getting a fair deal rather than stomped on, as has been its fate for hundreds of years.

I’m glad that intelligent, poetic slavs (and Maltese and Romanians and Balts) are part of our visa-free Europe, enriching our land. I’d like to see a wider embrace (my current job forbids me being explicit) but I think the European Union is a good thing, nay a great thing. It’s kept the traditional warmongers in Europe (the British, the French, the Spanish, the Germans) in line and made the sort of carnage we saw twice in the last century all but impossible.

It’s given us equality of the sexes, greater human rights, richer farmers, good roads, safer workplaces and so much more. It’s even given us a sense of an identity as Europeans, proud of our cultures, values, cuisine, art and non-aggression.

But I am against this treaty for several reasons. One, let’s stick with what we chose. The yes lobby are scaremongering, telling us Europe will somehow go away if we vote no. There’s damn lies being told… investors don’t come here because we are European, they come (came) because we are (were) cheap, stable, educated, white and English speaking. And because the tax laws made it possible.

God, I remember so well multinationals raping the ten year tax-free status and upping sticks on the 364th day of the final year, leaving communities shattered. If they move away now it’ll be because Cowen and his predecessor, the untouchable Bertie, and their cronies banjoed and bled the economy. And now they want us to make them look good to the boyos that pay for the nice hotels and troughs in Brussels and Strasbourg.

You’d think Cowen would be secretly praying for a No vote. It won’t save his bacon, but it’ll give him an excuse to blame the voters.

What sickens me most is the I’m-all-right-jackery of voting against greater powers for Europe when times are good, but come a recession we go all mé féin and think our kids will somehow end up in the poorhouse
suppin’ thin gruel if we don’t do Barrosso’s bidding. Barrosso? That teen Marxist?

What sways me (in fact it knocks me off my feet) is the common European defence policy. We’re neutral dammit, and although we are not as proud of it as we should be (Shannon used for refuelling planes on
the way to bomb Iraq and kill kids we had no quarrel with), we either are, or we are not. You can’t be a little bit neutral, or neutral when it’s expedient.

But I draw the line at a common defence policy. Should Irish taxes fund a European army? Armies need arming. Who's going to pay for that?

Article 25b(d)(3) (TEU) “The Council shall adopt a decision establishing the specific procedures for guaranteeing rapid access to appropriations in the Union budget for urgent financing of initiatives in the framework of the common foreign and security policy.”

No, sorry, but no.

And here’s a few more random reasons. That dickhead O’Leary, the man who thinks it's funny to promise “blowjobs in business class” (and then harrasses the female translator for not translating it for the German media) is advocating a yes vote. That union buster, monopolist and ultimate mé féiner.

Charlie McCreevy, our dear commissioner, admits it’s a crock of chaic. In an address to the institute of Chartered Accountants in a Dublin hotel in June, he said (presumably through a mouthful of fois gras): "I think all of the politicians of Europe would have known quite well that if a similar question had been put to their electorate in a referendum the answer in 95 per cent of countries would have been 'No' as well."

The Lisbon Treaty, in its earlier form of the EU Constitution, was already rejected in the summer of 2005 by the people of France and the Netherlands. However, the European Council and Commission ignored this
democratic rejection. In response they fashioned the Lisbon Treaty, which is essentially the same document.

As Bertie Ahern said, "Thankfully, they have not changed the substance… 90 per cent is still there." And we ought to remember "he's the most skillful, the most devious, the most cunning of them all," as said a famous leader of the Republican party. (The Irish one).

We have a vote, but a vote Yes will take away the democratic powers that we’ve built up (through war and struggle) and hand them over to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

I’m reminded of the election slogan for the Ukrainian Fascist Party in the 90s: “Vote for us and you’ll never have to vote again”. Hello-o-o Lisbon!

/JL