I don’t usually comment on Irish politics. It is, after all, their country, and they can do whatever they want to it. But the latest posters for the Lisbon Treaty Referendum, put up by the intensely nasty campaign group Cóir should ensure that this referendum should be as nasty as they are.
Let me be clear. I don’t like the Lisbon Treaty, feeling that it comes too close to the establishment of a constitution for Europe, it is an agreement to take more power away from people and in the hands of bureaucrats never elected by the people.
In principle, I think the UK government and the governments of the countries should control issues within the UK. What other countries do, frankly, I don’t much care. But Ireland voting no is the single best possibility for the UK and David Cameron to avoid the unpleasnatness of withdrawal from treaty terms
But just because I don’t like the Lisbon Treaty doesn’t mean that I approve of the concerned citizens in Cóir. Their line on abortion is viciously unpleasant, their posters are mostly filled with lies or half truths of the sort ‘€1.83 Minimum Wage after Lisbon?’ in which the question mark is the only accurate thing in the poster. They remind me of the BNP, in the sense that they represent the politics that practically everything is better than.
But at least they have forced there to be a second referendum. If this was a referendum on truth in campaigning, Cóir would be buggered and Lisbon would come in, forcing Cameron to diplomatically cut the bread with the fish knife and pass the port to the right.
