I hadn’t seen this before sending my previous - “Irish voting today” - but it is so perceptive that I feel it should trot hot on the heels of the other!
Christina
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TELEGRAPH Blog 2.10.09
Daniel Hannan
Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the EU is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.
Irish referendum: where did it all go wrong?
By Daniel Hannan
Twenty-four hours from now, Ireland’s polls will have closed; an’ forward tho’ I canna’ see, I guess an’ fear.
Sixteen months ago, I didn’t think anything would make the Irish back down.
They had expressed themselves clearly, and it was plain that the text of the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty wouldn’t be changed. Various EU leaders had made matters worse by insulting them. And any future referendum would be fought, not by a new Taoiseach in his hononeymoon period, but by a tired and unpopular one.
Well, I was right about one thing: the Taoiseach is unpopular. A poll last month had Fianna Fáil on an incredible 17 per cent of the vote – a collapse that makes Gordon Brown’s position here look enviable. Fianna Fáil has been the largest party in the Republic for eight decades. It was the fixed point in Ireland’s solar system, the star aroud which the other parties orbited. Never before had it dipped below 30 per cent.
In normal times, this would be an argument for voting “No”, since a second rejection would force the resignation of an unpopular government. But things are so bad that the debate has moved to a whole new level. Instead of voting “No” to punish Fianna Fáil, Ireland is gearing up to vote “Yes” so as to remove powers permanently from the hands of a distrusted political class. Listen to the subtext in the arguments of the Pro-Treaty Forces: “Sure the Eurocrats couldn’t do a worse job than these eejits,” they say. Ireland, in other words, is turning to deeper integration, not in hope, but in despair.
In a similar vein, the way in which business leaders are funding the pro-Lisbon campaign in the hope of favours from Brussels no longer puts people off. In more prosperous times, Irish voters would have found such behaviour distatsteful. Now, with the economy shrinking and dole queues growing, they don’t mind the gombeenism, as long as there is the slightest prospect that it might create jobs.
There are other factors too, of course: the scrapping of the rules on fair referendums, the massive financial imbalance, the EU cash illicitly funnelled into the “Yes” campaign. But none of these things would have swung it. The decisive factor seems to be a loss of national self-confidence. I hope I’m wrong. Irish people sometimes leave things until almost too late, but then display heroic resolve. Maybe they’ll do so now. With hours to go, though, things look pretty grim.
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