20% swing in Lisbon vote

So now we have a figure on what proportion of the Irish electorate are easily scaremongered. I suppose the 17 million euro we spent on Lisbon II was worth it to at least find that out.

I hope everyone who made the mistake of voting 'yes to jobs' and 'yes to recovery' noted that not one of the grinning politicians mentioned jobs or recovery in their self-aggrandising speeches today.

That's because Lisbon won't be leading to any jobs or recovery, obviously. The Irish Times business section (about the only bit of the paper worth reading) published a very astute article recently detailing seven reasons why we'll still be bolloxed when the rest of the world is booming again.

The really scarey bit? They didn't even refer to the NAMA black hole that Fianna Fail are cooking up for you and your children to pay for.

Declan Ganley promised to return to the RDS next October with some 'Yes for Jobs' posters and see if the jobs had materialised. He may or may not turn up next October, but you can be sure the jobs definitely won't have.

Another potential plus of this referendum is the Donegal vote. That surely has to undermine Sweary Mary Coughlan. Biffo's government is already on life support, and will face a torrid two days explaining itself over Rody Molloy's golden handshake in the Dail next week.

And then on Saturday, the hobbits will gather to decide what magic beans they'd like to get from Fianna Fail in order to stay in government. And the NAMA banker bailout is yet to come.

So there are a number of potential banana skins there for Biffo. The last thing he needs right now is someone lobbing more of them onto the path in front of him.

He should heed the words of the 'most cunning, most devious of them all', Bertie Ahern, who pinpointed Sweary Mary as a wrong un in his autobiography. He made a mistake in appointing her as Tanaiste, but clearly couldn't resist the culchie coup.

Well, here's his chance to ditch some of the dead weight. Even the meeja think it's time she went. She failed to carry her own county in the referendum. That's a reason the grass roots gombeens will accept for dumping her. It diverts attention from the mistake he made in appointing her in the first place.

On a personal note, I'm inclined to agree with Pearse Doherty (probably a first) in paying tribute to the people of Donegal who were not bullied into doing what the Euro elite wanted.

The rest of the country may have voted to be serfs, but they did not. Fair play, Donegal. Stand tall tonight.

The most dishonest political campaign ever

That's what Lisbon II has been.

It's as if every single campaigner on both sides of the debate have been possessed by demons making them lie. In the case of the professional politicians, that's business as usual. In the case of Mick 'low fares plus huge charges' O'Leary, it's to be expected.

But when Intel and fundamentalist Christians start in on the spoofing act, one really does begin to despair.

The blatant attempts by the supposedly impartial EU to buy the election have been as despicable as the attempts by foreign Eurosceptics like Bonde or the UKIP to swing the decision to what suits them.

No one comes out of this with any credit. Not the liars who have attempted to link a yes vote with economic recovery. Not the liars who said a yes vote would lead to a shredding of the minimum wage.

The bottom line remains: you're voting on the treaty itself and nothing else. Not on the 'guarantees' which don't actually exist. Not on the minimum wage, or abortion, or a federal Europe, or economic recovery, or the current government, or NAMA, or anything else. Just the treaty.

My advice? Read the treaty. Not the summaries offered by vested interests, but the treaty itself.

I did. It's almost impenetrable. It took me about four days to finish it. At the end I was extremely concerned at how much of the treaty eroded our say over our own country and how many things were open to wide interpretation.

They say that if you don't understand a contract, you shouldn't sign it. Equally, if you don't know what to make of an issue, you should probably vote against it.

For those reasons, and not for any of the dishonest, disingenuous reasons offered by both the Yes and the No campaigns, I will be voting No on Friday.

I suggest that unless you've read, understood and approve of the treaty, you should do likewise.

You Can't Trust Them

Coir are an annoying shower of kerazzee godbotherers.

But they're right about the Lisbon Treaty being a shoddy deal for us and for the peoples of Europe.

But the best reason for voting against Lisbon again (apart from the fact that they arrogantly dismissed the sovereign voice of the Irish people last time) has got to be this: you can't trust the people who want you to sign up to it.

JC Skinner's letter on Lisbon

Dear Irish Turkeys,

Please do not vote in favour of Christmas.

The assurances of a happy festive season for all coming from our human partners in Europe have no binding legal basis.

This is the exact same Turkey-murdering Christmas that we rejected previously. No aspect of the celebration has been altered. It is also 95% identical to previous Christmases rejected by Turkeys in Holland and France.

Vote Yes or get stuffed is the message from Brussels. However the reality, my dear turkeys, is that if you vote Yes you WILL be stuffed, for good.

All the best,
JC

Lisbon voted down

Splendid. Truly splendid.

Let the political classes take note that the Irish people will not be bullied.

Let the other peoples of the EU, who were so egregiously denied democracy, take note and thank us.

And let us, as a people, be proud.

We have, for now, prevented what effectively would have amounted to a coup d'etats. But when that sleveen creature Barroso murmurs ominously that other countries should continue ratifying what, under the EU's own rules, is now a dead treaty, then there is reason to remain vigilant and concerned.

Why in the hell would any other country waste their time ratifying this trash now, when it has been rejected? If not, that is, for the reason that Barroso hopes to ignore our democratic voice at some stage in the future?

The EU parliament has already appallingly voted to ignore the Irish vote whichever way it went, and refuse to debate it.

Now we're seeing the petulant EU executive's response, which is no different, but significantly more concerning.

If anything ought to convince the waverers that we've done the right thing, then this response is it. These people do not have the interests of Europeans at heart. They have no inclination to respect the voice of democracy. They only want centralised power and will stop at nothing until they get it.

And because of that lust, I am forced to make a sad prediction here and now. This isn't over. They will be back with this treaty a third time to try to force us where they want us to go again.

But for now, we have given them the slap down they badly deserve in their hubris and arrogance.

Well done, Ireland. I'm feckin proud of yiz.

Losing interest in Lisbon

I'm losing interest in Lisbon.

The right answer is so obviously 'no', that at this stage my only real interest in the result is analysing the 'yes' vote as a headcount of how many blindly-led party apparatchiks and buffoons who do what politicians tell them to exist in the country.

Anyone who spent anytime actually reading the Lisbon Treaty (no easy task, let me warn you), or the referendum wording, knows that it's got to be turned down. It's dangerous, impenetrable gibberish we're being ordered to sign or else.

There may well be enough simple followers and easily-bullied people in the country to carry a referendum though, which is a depressing thought.

So I've decided I'm not voting. I'm fecking off to Australia until this craic is over. But if Ireland votes in favour of Lisbon, I might just stay there. (That's not a threat intended to sway your vote in either direction, incidentally.)

Remember, whichever way you vote, make sure to make your voice heard. As we say in the Skinner household: Vote early, Vote often!

Right, anyone seen my hat with the dangly corks?

So what's this Lisbon Treaty thing about?

This just in from the Department of the Bleeding Obvious: Most Irish people haven't a clue what this Lisbon treaty malarkey is about.

Why is that, do you think? Might it have something to do with the fact that the document is so difficult and complex to summarise that everyone just gave up trying to explain it?

That seemed to be EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso's position this week when he visited Cork and deigned to take a few questions from a hand-picked selection of langers.

But it's not that complex: here's a nice, simple (pro-EU) summary of what the treaty will do, from Auntie Beeb.

Then again, it might be because the Lisbon Treaty is just the failed EU Constitution rehashed. That constitution failed because the good people of France and Holland rejected it in referenda.

So this time around, the EU mandarins have made two clever changes: firstly, they're not calling it a constitution, and secondly they're not allowing any referenda.

So basically, whatever the people of Europe might think or want, their governments are not permitting them to decide for themselves. Unfortunately for the EU mandarins, that doesn't fly in Ireland. Our national constitution DEMANDS that a referendum has to be held.

So what will Lisbon bring if we vote for it? Well, some of the scary NO people would have you think it will bring in abortion on demand, bio-chips in your babies, an EU army with a draft during wartimes, and all sorts of other nasties.

That's not strictly true. But what IS in the treaty is scary enough without people having to make shit up.

• There'll be an EU parliament that can overrule the Dail.
• There'll be an EU army, albeit without a compulsory draft (for now.)
• There'll be an EU government in the shape of a beefed-up EU Commission.
• There'll be an EU Foreign Minister implementing foreign policy on a Europe-wide basis, overruling national foreign policies.
• There'll be a Europe-wide justice system, in the shape of a beefed-up European Courts of Justice.

In short, if Lisbon succeeds, you will cease to be a citizen of Ireland in any meaningful legal sense, compared to how you will be a citizen of Europe.

Lisbon is a charter for a federal Europe. But to admit that would be to see it defeated, so the mandarins have been terrifically careful to avoid the F-word.

Of course Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour all like Lisbon. It's a charter that creates new levels of politics and power and bureaucracy.

But it's not something that's good for the people of Ireland or the people of Europe.

Why else do you think that diplomats and civil servants were seeking to delay bad news from Europe until after the referendum?

Why do they believe you will vote whatever way Irish politicians tell you to, and why do they think the treaty is 'largely incomprehensible' to the lay person?

The answer lies here, in the embarrassing email the British Embassy in Dublin sent to London after a secret meeting with Irish civil servants about the Lisbon Treaty.

Basically, it's a con that they're inflicting on us, because they think we're stupid and easily led and because they think we won't read the damn thing. I hope we prove them wrong on all of their arrogant counts.

Unfortunately, it's up to us and us alone to pull the EU back from the brink of a Federal Europe and all that entails.

So vote sensibly. Vote against the Lisbon Treaty if you believe in national sovereignty, if you believe in democracy in Europe and if you believe in Ireland.

Vote NO to Lisbon.