Over the past few weeks, I have focused much of my attention on this blog on the threat I believe is posed to democracy and sovereignty by the Lisbon Treaty. I do not regret a word of what I have said, because I know how much was sacrificed by the men and women of 1916, the War of Independence, 1798 etc. and how we must not allow their collective sacrifice to have been in vain by surrendering our hardwon Irish sovereignty. I believe that it is imperative that the Irish people turn out in large numbers to say a firm "No" to this Treaty.However you intend to vote though, make sure you do vote. Our ancestors also sacrificed in some cases their lives for us to have that right and we should not dishonor their sacrifice either. But consider this - if we centralise power in the European Union from the national political sphere to that of far away Brussels and its unelected bureaucrats, then the whole point of having elections is called into question. I do not want Dail Eireann and the Government to become a glorified county council and a glorifed Lord Mayor. European political integration has gone far enough. The elites must listen to us jsut as they failed to listen to the peoples of France and Holland, who said no to the EU Constitution - the evil twin of the Lisbon Treaty - in their referenda in 2005. Thankfully unlike these 2 countries, our Constitution cannot be changed without a referendum, and as such it will not be so easy to get around our "No" vote. This places Ireland in a privileged position and is a trump card to be used wisely, to extract the best possible deal for Ireland. Lisbon is not that deal. It removes our automatic right to a Commissioner and EU referenda, halving our vote on the Council of Ministers and changing the voting system to favour the Big States, ends our neutrality by Article 28a's mutual-defence pact, while making it easier for Brussels bureaucrats to interfere with our taxsystem in Article 113.
Noone can truthfully (unless misinformed) tell me then that Lisbon is the best deal Ireland had available to it. The Irish Times reported at the time of the negotiations that the Government had considered obtaining an opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights with its legally-binding status that will allow the ECJ to strike down Irish law in a vast array of human-rights areas including asylum and industrial relations. That they did not take out the opt-out is painted as being due to pressure from SIPTU - yet even SIPTU is staying on the fence this time - perhaps owing in part to the chastening experience since their backing of Nice of rulings by the ECJ like Laval, which confirmed the right of businesses to exploit Eastern European labour by paying below agreed rates of pay.
The "Yes" side like to write off the no campaign as the some old 'headbangers/loolahs' who opposed previous EU treaties. Yet this is disproven by the involvement of Libertas and its Chairman Declan Ganley who supported Nice I and II, as well as the involvement of some of the unions such as the TEEU. I for one am very pro-European and find myself being forced to say no on this occasion. Because while I am passionately pro-European, I put democracy first. The peoples of France and Holland said no in 2005, and if the elites succeed in riding roughshod over their wishes, then the Brussels elite will feel emboldened to become even more indifferent to public opinion across Europe. That is why real pro-Europeans will vote no today.
1 comments:
Lisbon letter to every paper in the country
Now is the time, for all good men and women, to come to the aid of their Country!
Within the next few weeks, we have coming, the most important vote of our lives.
I will outline my main concerns in relation to this 2nd referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Guarantees:
Not worth the paper they're written on. Denmark's stronger protocol promises after their Maastrict
no vote have since been over ruled and nullified by the European Court of Justice!
Article 48: The self amending clause or escalator clause. Allows the EU to escalate it's power into
new areas WITHOUT coming back to the people for a vote on any changes. So what we have in fact is a treaty that
is not set in stone like our own constitution. It is a flexible treaty free to be amended by the EU elite as they wish.
This leaves our country and the other individual member states extremely vulnerable! Would you sign a contract on a deal
with someone who could legally adjust that contract to favour themselves AFTER you'd signed it ?
Article 2 ECFR: Under Lisbon, The European Charter of Fundamental Rights AND the European Charter of Human Rights
become legally binding. Both of those charters are intertwined and will merge.
Article 2 ECFR "Nobody shall be condemned to death, everybody has a right to life" Article 2 protocol 6 of the ECHR
which will merge with the ECFR, "A state may make provision for the death penalty in times of war or imminent threat
of war". There you have a 'backdoor' whereby the main article can be diluted or negated entirely and this is typical
of the deception we will find upon study of the treaty and it's additional charters. Who's to say we are under threat
of war, could we trust Tony B'liar who led his nation into war under false pretences and who is in the running to be
SELECTED, not elected, as the president of the EU ?
As was stated by our own Charlie McCreevy: 95% of Europeans would vote no to this treaty if given the chance.
We the people of this country are their voice, and we owe it to them to make the right decision on Oct. 2nd.
Hasn't the EU been good for Ireland ? We gave the EU 200 Billion worth of our fishing stock. The fishing industry
has been decimated as a result. Now our farming industry is under attack, where our farmers are being forced because
of EU law to sell milk cheaper than cost, while at the same time becoming ever increasingly crippled under EU bureaucracy.
With this pattern in mind would you trust the EU with the Irish economy and our Government ?
I'm all for co-operation with our European neighbours, I just don't want them telling us what to do. I am for co-operation,
not domination!
Creeping EU Tip-Toe Totalitarianism: Have you noticed how with each successive EU treaty it has gradually moved from
economic integration into political integration ? Watch how civil liberties globally are being incrementally eroded
due to this fraudulent 'War of Terror" and now via Phoney Environmentalism. Visit my web-site for more on this. Is it
democracy to keep coming back to the people with the same treaty that we've already voted on ? Is it democracy not to
allow the individual member states a referendum on something so crucially important to their futures and the futures of
their children's children ? Was it democracy for most individual member states to ratify the treaty against the wishes
of the vast majority of their own people even though it was ILLEGAL for them to do so due to We the People of Ireland
having already voted this treaty down ?
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