Ruthless rivals have 'Yes' team on the back foot
HERE they go again. I was sitting at the kitchen table, listening to a radio discussion of the latest FAS scandals, when a 'Vote Yes' leaflet arrived, complete with Fianna Fail logo and a picture of Brian Cowen. Given the present standing of the Government and the Fianna Fail party, how many votes would that attract? How many would it lose?
The leaflet went unread. I couldn't bear to face, once again, the same old guff about how we had obtained concessions on abortion, neutrality and taxation. Everybody knows -- though some refuse to believe -- that the Lisbon Treaty never tried to force abortion or militarism on us and never affected, even hypothetically, our rates of direct taxation.
What upsets me more about the 'Yes to Lisbon' campaign is that it started on the back foot and has stayed that way. Just as happened last year, it has underestimated its opponents' ruthlessness and mendacity. No sooner has it rebutted one grotesque proposition than another takes its place.
Last year, "detention of three-year-old children" was so ridiculous that its inventors dropped it in the course of the campaign. But this week it has raised its head again.
Patricia McKenna says there are no leaflets alleging that Lisbon means conscription into a European army. Fair enough. But how, then, did it come up on the doorsteps in Nice I and Nice II and Lisbon I and now Lisbon II? Who put the idea into people's heads?
And who is smart enough to figure out that the more time the Government and its allies have to waste on these fancies, the less time they have to make the positive case?
For there emphatically is a positive case. In fact, there are several. Unfortunately, on the surface they are unexciting. But some of them are among the most important issues in the world. And, for all the complexities of the treaty and of the current and future methods of European governance, they are essentially quite simple and easy to understand.
One was raised a few days ago by Mary Hanafin. Lisbon gives the European institutions "competences", ie powers, in numerous new areas. They include climate change, energy security and cross-border organised crime. Does anybody believe that these questions could be handled better by any national government than they can by the European Commission and Council of Ministers?
The referendum gives us a chance to wake up. It also gives us a chance to see through the absurdity of the people who view Lisbon as a conspiracy of the "elites" to do down the common people.
At the top of these elites will stand, if Lisbon passes, the 'President of the Council' and the 'High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy', each of whom will serve a term of two and a half years, renewable for one term.
At present, 27 countries take it in turn to chair the Council of Ministers for six months at a time. The prime minister of the incumbent country presides over the heads of government, and so on down.
Not just the foreign affairs department, but every ministry, is involved for probably a year in advance as well as the six months of the presidency. The strain on the government's administrative resources is enormous.
Ireland has done it brilliantly several times (though Charles J Haughey spoiled it by behaving like the Emperor of the Universe for six months). Others have flopped. Denmark was completely at sea the first time it tried. A more considerable power, Italy, fared no better when Silvio Berlusconi presided over the Council of Ministers. At the last meeting, he simply gave up hope of conducting any more business and told his colleagues: "Let's talk about football and women."
One thing you can bet on safely: If Lisbon goes through, whoever becomes President of the Council will not remotely resemble either Charles J Haughey or Silvio Berlusconi. That may not please those who like colourful characters with a whiff of cordite about them. But it will be a lot more efficient. And we will soon find out that those conspiratorial elites are nothing more than conscientious bureaucrats.
