One Crisis - Two Narratives

One of the most fascinating things about the terrible situation in Ireland nowadays is how there are very different narratives inside and outside Ireland to explain what's happened. To the largely europhobic British media, the story is simple: being in the Eurozone gave Ireland access to too much cheap credit, all offered at inappropriately low interest rates, which caused a credit bubble that has exploded. In short, it's all the fault of the Euro. Or, if you like, we told you so, and Maggie was right all along. Even the less characteristically europhobic elements of the British media seem to have bought into this story.

The Irish media, on the other hand, realises the Euro really isn't the problem, and the British crowing about it is far more reflective of Britain's issues than Ireland's. As Jason O'Mahony says in this superbly cutting post:

The Euro is not the source of our problems. Our exports continue to perform strongly. Please stop trying to project your Euro neurosis onto us. The Euro has flaws, but it is still where we need to be. We need to be competitive by cutting our costs, which we are doing, not by some Harold Wilson style three card trick.

It's true, after all, that our trade surplus is widening as our exports keep growing, and Goldman Sachs reckons that the situation is rather better than people seem to fear.

But if our estimates suggest anything, it is that the ultimate losses, and the ultimate burden on the Irish government, will be quite a bit lower than estimated by NAMA, which is likely to make money on its investments. Correspondingly, the government will significantly have over-capitalised the banks, perhaps by tens of billions of Euros.

Certainly, the situation is far more complex than us simply being trapped in the wrong currency. GS's analysis is summed up by saying that the fiscal crisis is a consequence rather than a cause of our collapse in output. This should make sense to anyone who's not been wearing ideological blinkers when watching how Ireland's economy has performed over the last twelve years or so; the fact that George Osborne was singing its praises at a time when the country was obviously an inflated bubble speaks volumes about his understanding of such matters, or at least it did four years ago; perhaps he's learned.

This isn't a matter of the wisdom that comes with hindsight; for years Garret Fitzgerald has been grumbling about how our national expenditure was too high while we simply weren't producing things and were dependent on construction to keep the wheels turning, Fintan O'Toole was pointing to the state's infatuation with a neo-liberal ideology that was pouring money into people's pockets and building nothing for when the good times ended, and David McWilliams memorably pointing out four years ago what the Ghost Estates around the country were destined to mean. I had huge arguments with friends before the 2002 and 2007 elections, with them happily voting for the status quo despite the writing being on the wall, or at least in the mainstream media, if they could be bothered to look.

Yes, it's true that easy access to cheap credit from German banks has played an enormous part in this whole farce, but this is hardly a matter of us being in the Eurozone. We have a young population that grew up with nothing and wanted to have everything; of course German banks, overloaded with pensioners' savings, wanted to lend to us. They'd lend to anyone! Look at Britain, with its national debt of more than £950 billion and its total personal debt of almost £1,500 billion! There's also the fact that not all of our debt has come from Eurozone countries -- our single largest creditor, to whom we owe a fifth of our debt, is the UK, with our third- and sixth-largest creditors being the United States and Japan. No, this problem wasn't caused by our using the same currency as our neighbours.

Inflation has been a huge problem in Ireland since the mid-1990s. I visited Berlin in 1996 and was struck by how expensive it was, and again five years later, before the physical adoption of the Euro as a real currency, and was amazed by how cheap it was. It hadn't changed; Ireland had. Inflation was rife, and property prices were rising, and rent was rising, and rather than bring in rent controls or otherwise try to cool the property market, the government instead decided to allow incomes to rise too, keeping taxes low and in 2002 raising all public servants' pay in accordance with a national benchmarking agreement.

More money was poured into the economy, driving labour costs up in the private sector and raising inflation in general, making us less competitive than we had been, all at a time when the hi-tech sector was feeling the aftershocks of the Dot.com Bubble bursting, and tourism was trying to cope with the double-whammy of the restrictions imposed by the Foot and Mouth Crisis and the of the collapse in American tourism following 9/11. Output declined, and the only thing keeping the economy going was the frenzy of construction, all funded by cheap credit, gambled on the new buildings being sold for a huge profit.

The buyers weren't there, though, as the credit began to dry up, and when the global banking system went into a tizz, the Irish banks, lightly regulated for far too long, turned out to be hugely overstretched. The government -- perhaps pressured by our partners in Britain and the Mainland who feared their own banks mightn't get their money back -- guaranteed to cover the banks, no matter what. This calmed things down, and we won plaudits internationally as teeth were gritted, belts were tightened, and costs were cut. It didn't work though, not least because it turned out that the banks had massively played down just how reckless they'd been and how overstretched they were.

This made it look increasingly likely that the bank guarantee would sink us, that it would, in hindsight, turn out to be an enormous mistake, though until a couple of months ago it was a mistake that could have been solved, in a sense, by the government changing the terms of the guarantee, pointing out that it had been misled about the scale of the banks' problems. The opportunity wasn't taken, though, and the government stuck to its guns, determined for whatever reason to keep to the letter of its word, thereby ensuring that people and institutions who had gambled with risky loans to Irish banks would get all their money back. And we all know what that's brought us to over the last fortnight.

It's difficult to tell, of course, whether the government is bluffing in saying it doesn't need a bail-out; there is a serious argument that it's more in the interests of the likes of Britain, Germany, and France than it is for us to accept their money -- and on their terms -- and that this is about preserving their banking systems and the European economic system as a whole. Of course, if that were destroyed, we'd be lost anyway...

So, are we doomed? The government and Goldman Sachs don't think so, and if it's just a matter of regaining confidence and keeping to our current austere path then we might be okay. Have we lost our sovereignty? I don't know. Did the UK lose its sovereignty when it called in the IMF back in 1976? If it did, did it get it back? Mightn't we do likewise?

Whatever way we look at it, those buffoons who babble about Ireland rejoining Sterling or even the United Kingdom, no matter how tongue-in-cheek their suggestions are, really need to calm down.

Yes Minister: A British Political Primer

These last few weeks, when I've not been staring at the keyboard until my forehead bleeds, or sitting with a perpetual frown waiting for letters that never come, or sitting listlessly with books lying forlornly open before me, I've distracted myself now and again by watching Yes Minister.

I've only ever seen the odd episode in the past, so it's a curious experience to watch it on a daily basis. It's perhaps a bit indulgent to immerse myself in so much concentrated brilliance, but, well, times aren't good.

It all seems very timely, which, given that it's a product of the early 1980s leaves me wondering whether things ever change in this country -- or any country, as I opined to a friend in Rome the other evening -- or whether this magnificent show didn't merely reflect the political reality of the early Thatcher era, but has to some degree moulded the political reality of the decades since.

The fifth episode, for instance, has a sequence which rather betrays what lies behind so much British antipathy to European integration:

'Don't the Foreign Office realise what damage this will do to the European idea?', asks Jim Hacker, the minister of the title.
'Well, I'm sure they do: that's why they support it,' replies Sir Humphrey.
'What? Surely the Foreign Office is pro-Europe, isn't it?'
'Yes and no, if you'll forgive the expression. The Foreign Office is pro-Europe because it is really anti-Europe. The Civil Service was united in its desire to make sure that the Common Market didn't work. That's why we went into it.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause, we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?'
'That's all ancient history, surely,' stumbles Jim.
'Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times.''
Surely we're all committed to the European ideal!''
Really, Minister,' chuckles Sir Humphrey.
'If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?'
'Well, for the same reason. It's just like the United Nations, in fact. The more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up. The more futile and impotent it becomes.'
'What appalling cynicism.'
'Yes. We call it diplomacy, Minister.'

The real issue has always been the fear that a major power -- whether it be Spain, France, or Germany -- should have control of the Low Countries, with the key ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam, as control of these could serious threaten British naval supremacy, such as it once was. Nowadays, of course, European union and integration have pretty much ensured that sooner or later both France and Germany will have full use of these ports, so Britain's approach has become one of 'if you can't beat them, join them, but keep jostling about.'

This rather explains the superficially paradoxical British approach to Europe nowadays. The British establishment generally favours enlargement, even championing the prospective membership of unEuropean Turkey, but is opposed to the streamlining reforms to enable an enlarged EU to work smoothly. In all this, of course, Britain all too often simply acts as a catspaw for the Americans, whose agent in Europe they have generally been since World War Two. 'Party Games,' the bridge between Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister ably sums up Britain's main role in that regard:

'And as far as world politics goes, of course, the Foreign Office is just an irrelevance. We've no real power; we're just a sort of American missile base, that's all.'

That's not to criticise the Americans, who are simply playing the game of nations, or the Germans and French, who are doing likewise and who some time ago decided that it was not really in their national interest to be a vassal state for anyone else; it does, however, raise the questions of why the British delude themselves that their nuclear deterrent is in any way independent, why they were so willing to have Yorkshire turned into a vital target for anyone planning a missile attack on America, why Britain eagerly signed up to the Iraqi adventure, and why British soldiers are still dying in Afghanistan.

Anyway, as I was saying, the show is superb, and it seems to improve by the season. Season Three, though it has one 'writing-by-numbers' episode, is a treasure trove of brilliance, with the darkly ambivalent 'The Whisky Priest', infused with the spirit of Graham Greene, being my choice as the series' highlight.

But for all that, though, I think the finest, subtlest, most brilliant moment in the whole series is near the end of 'Party Games', when rumours are running wild that Jim Hacker is going to throw his hat into the ring to take over the leadership of his party, and thus his country.* A scene opens with a shot of the day's newspapers lying on a desk.

The shot lasts but a second or two before the camera drifts off, so if you're not quick you might not notice how the Guardian is spelled.
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* Yes, during a Parliament. An 'unelected' Prime Minister! Whoever heard of such a thing? Oh wait, hang on, isn't that the way it always works in the UK...

And People Take This Man Seriously?

Right, so I was talking about David Cameron's U-turn. You know, the way he lied to the British people when he promised them an opportunity to vote on the Lisbon Treaty? Ahem, yes, I know, sorry, it was only ever posturing. Still, though, what's his current strategy to keep the Europhobes onside?

It seems the big plan is to bring in a UK Sovereignty bill, 'to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament.' Frankly, this seems a spectacularly pointless piece of posturing.

This seems utterly unnecessary. As the UK government pamphlet in 1975 said, Westminster retains the right to repeal any laws it has enacted, including all European treaties, and thirty-seven years of European integration haven't changed this one bit. The Lisbon reforms won't do so either: as the German constitutional court at Karlsruhe ruled on 30 June of this year that the European institutions have no powers in their own right, merely administering delegated competences in prescribed areas, with all sovereignty remaining in the hands of the individual member states which remain 'masters of the treaties'.

Secondly, Cameron's other big idea is to introduce a 'referendum lock' into British politics: the idea is that henceforth no powers shall be transferred to the Union without the British people specifically approving such a transfer by referendum. To quote the man:

'We will give the British people a referendum lock to which only they should hold the key, a commitment very similar to that which exists in Ireland... This is a major constitutional development, but I believe it’s now the only way to reassure the British people that powers cannot be given away without their explicit approval in a referendum.'

Leaving aside the extraordinary fascination with referendums, as though representative democracy is invalid, the obvious problem with this promise, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with the British constitution should know, is that it's a basic principle of the British constitution that no Parliament can bind its successors; if one Parliament enacts a law to say it lacks a certain power, a later Parliament can always repeal that law.

This may simply be a case of the Conservatives pretending to shut the stable door after the horse has ambled out. Not because Lisbon is self-amending, as so many of its opponents have falsely claimed, but simply because there's no appetite in Europe for another big reform treaty.

It seems increasingly clear that Cameron is all talk. He's gone back on his word, and now he's proposing pointless cosmetic laws as a sop to those he's lied to. Most of them will swallow it, too, the gullible eejits.

Cast-Off Guarantee

Well, David Cameron's U-turn today was utterly predictable and completely inevitable, which leaves me wondering what he was playing at back on 26 September 2007 when he guaranteed the British people, via the Sun that now so openly supports him, that if he were to become Prime Minister he would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

His words:

'But there's nothing "new" about breaking your promises to the British public. It's classic Labour.

And it is the cancer that is eating away at trust in politics. Small wonder that so many people don't believe a word politicians ever say if they break their promises so casually.

If you really want to signal you're a break from the past, Prime Minister, do the right thing -- give the people the referendum you promised.

Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations.

No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.'

And this was accompanied by his florid signature! This is the kind of gobbet Classics students cut their teeth on as a matter of course, so I'll refrain from shredding it now save to make three quick points.

• Firstly, Brown had never given a guarantee that there would be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, signed on 13 December 2007 following negotiations which began in June 2007, based on the discarded text of the abandoned Constitutional Treaty.
• Secondly, it's madness to say that no treaty should be ratified with the people having first been directly consulted, given that -- if my hasty counts are right -- 42 treaty command papers have been presented to Parliament already this year, 28 were presented last year, and 65 the year before. Does he envisage weekly referendums?
• Finally, it's delightfully ironic that Cameron should have accused Labour of breaking a promise it hadn't made, before going on to make an explicit and unabiguous promise that he would himself go on to break.

Of course, nobody will care, because circumstances have changed since 2007, and it's very easy to claim that there's not really any sensible way Cameron could keep his word now, given that the Lisbon reforms are now part of EU law.

The thing is, it seems obvious that Cameron had made that promise in complete confidence that it meant nothing; it was surely designed to get the common-or-garden English Europhobe onside, for a couple of years at any rate, and was never intended to be kept. He obviously hoped that the Irish, or the Poles, or the Czechs, or somebody else would do his dirty work for him and derail the Union's attempt to streamline its workings while making them more transparent*; if they failed, and passed the treaty, well, it wouldn't be hard to simply say that now that the Treaty had come into force, it'd be impossible to put it to the people.

This isn't quite true, as it happens. It's not quite impossible. There is a precedent, of sorts. In 1975, despite having signed the Treaty of Rome, which explicitly set the signatory nations onto a path of 'ever closer union', the UK held a referendum on whether or not they should withdraw from that treaty. The question that was asked was, quite simply, 'Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community (Common Market)?

The pamphlet that the government issued at the time featured the following point:

'Fact No. 3. The British Parliament in Westminster retains the final right to repeal the Act which took us into the Market on January 1, 1973. Thus our continued membership will depend on the continuing assent of Parliament.'

There's no reason why this couldn't be done again. Cameron could offer the British a fresh referendum, asking essentially the same question as in 1975: 'Do you think the UK should stay in the European Union?'

If people voted no, well, then Parliament, which remains sovereign in these matters -- as the German and Czech constitutional courts have reiterated over the last year -- could repeal the Accession Act and the various acts that have implemented subsequent European treaties. And then the UK could leave the common market. Lisbon even gives them a mechanism for doing so.

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* Lisbon really does make the Union more transparent, by the way, despite nonsensical claims from the likes of the Sun about how future EU decisions will all be made behind closed doors. It requires Commission directives to be scrutinised by national parliaments before going to the Council, and requires the Council to vote publicly. The fact that the Council -- the Union's main decision-making body -- has hitherto voted in secrecy is very useful for governments which want somewhere else to apportion blame, as unpopular decisions can be blamed on 'Europe' and 'faceless Brussels bureaucrats'. Given this, it's hardly surprising that a prospective governing party, especially in a country with a rabidly xenophobic media, should be opposed to such transparency.

A Bruton rather than a Briton?

I was more than a little startled to read yesterday morning that John Bruton has decided to put his name forward for the Presidency of the European Council, should the Lisbon Treaty be signed into Czech law by Mr Klaus. I just hadn't seen it coming at all. The debate about the Presidency has been annoying me for ages, mainly because people keep referring to it as the European Presidency, when it's nothing of the sort, and because people in England have been getting their knickers in a twist over the prospect of Tony Blair getting the job.

Frankly, I don't know what David Miliband was on about the other day, when he said that Blair would be perfect for this job, as he believed that 'we need somebody who can do more than simply run through the agenda. We need someone who, when he or she lands in Beijing or Washington or Moscow, the traffic does need to stop and talks do need to begin at a very, very high level.'

The Council President's main job is to chair a handful of meetings -- or summits, I suppose -- every year. That's it. I can't really see him being called upon to go and conduct talks at the highest level -- that's surely a job for the President of the Commission, or, more probably, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. But if the President has to be sent in to negotiate, well, does anyone really think someone making a common case for 500 million people who generate more than 30 per cent of the World's GDP is really going to be ignored?

Surprised though I was, I, like Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber, think Bruton must have a serious chance of being selected for this role. I think Jan-Peter Balkenende, from the Netherlands, is probably the most likely contender, but I reckon Bruton's got a fair chance.


Let's look at the main names in the frame: Blair, Bruton, and Balkenende, as noted; Jean-Claude Juncker from Luxembourg; Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt; Vaira Vike-Freiberga from Latvia; Austria's Wolfgang Schuessel; Spain's Felipe Gonzalez; and Finland's Martti Ahtisaari.

It seems the Spanish have said that the Socialists are interested in the High Representative role, so it looks as though the symbolically more important Presidency is being ceded to the centre-right; this is hardly surprising given that almost every country in the EU currently has a centre-right government. Now, Blair is hardly on the left in real terms, but he is technically there, so he's surely out of the running for the top job. So too are the more genuinely left wing Gonzalez and Ahtisaari.

That leaves Juncker, Balkenende, Verhofstadt, Schuessel, Vike-Freiberga, and Bruton. They're all from small countries, so won't get anyone's back up, and are all from the centre-right.

Verhofstad will get nixed by the British, because Belgium and the UK can get arsey with each other in European matters, so unless there's a trade-off with Miliband to be High Commissioner, that probably reduces the list to five.

Likewise, Juncker would probably be seen by Britain and the Poles as 'too European' -- he's basically what you'd draw if you were asked to draw a caricature of a Eurocrat -- and will likewise almost certainly be ruled out. It's a shame, as given his years and years of EU experience, and his ability to get things done quietly, he'd be very good, but I think his obvious expertise, experience, and enthusiasm for the European project shall almost certainly hurt him. Four left, so.

Angela Merkel likes Austria's Shuessel, but I think this might be seen as German patronage, and more importantly others will see him as too right wing -- he'd had Haider's party as his junior coalition partners, after all. I have a feeling the socialist Spaniards will have doubts, for starters, and can't see this one flying. I hear he can't speak French either, and if true, that alone could irk Sarkozy; the French can be funny about these things. That leaves three.

Latvia's Vike-Freiberga could be a dark horse, and I'd half like her to get the job, because she'd probably be a reasonable choice and then I could namedrop by telling people that I met her in London a few years back. I doubt she has a real chance, though, as I suspect Germany would block her candidacy, given how pally Germany is with Russia nowadays: the Russians don't like the Baltic states. She was proposed as UN Secretary General a few years ago, and withdrew her candidacy after the Russians made it clear they would oppose any Eastern European Candidate.

Balkenende and Bruton then.


I reckon Balkenende has to be the favourite, not least because he's currently in his fourth stint as Dutch Prime Minister and knows everyone at the table who'll be making this decision. On the other hand, I can't help wondering whether it'd be wise for him to jump ship from the Netherlands at the minute, given the possibility of Geert Wilders and his crowd making further inroads into Dutch politics. What's more, I can't help thinking that the fact that he couldn't persuade the Dutch to vote for the EU Constitution back in 2005 might be held against him. After all, if it's possible -- wrongly -- to argue that Blair denied the British a referendum on the Constitution, imagine what could be said against Balkenende: the Dutch voted against the Constitution and then Balkenende went ahead and ratified a similar treaty anyway. He could look like a personification of the democratic deficit, and that wouldn't do the Union any good.


So what of Bruton? Well, frankly, I think he could be a brilliant compromise candidate that wouldn't pose any difficulties for anyone. To start with, he meets the basic criteria by being a Christian Democrat from a small country that's a member of the Eurozone. Although he's a conservative, his track record of working productively with left-wingers is impressive: his cabinet consisted of him, eight further TDs from Fine Gael, seven Labour TDs, and one TD from the Democratic Left. Despite him being a conservative Catholic it was his government that introduced divorce into Ireland, so he's not too conservative; on the other hand, his largely left-wing government introduced the low corporation tax that played such a huge role in creating the Celtic Tiger, so economic liberals should like him. In short, he's a right winger that doesn't throw his weight around and plays well with others.

What's more, he's deeply pro-European, but I don't think is so much so as to scare the likes of the British and the Poles, in the way that a Benelux candidate might; indeed, having worked closely with Conservative and Labour governments over Northern Ireland, I think he could be someone that British would be very comfortable with. His European credentials are impeccable, though. He was the effective head of the successful campaign to have the Maastricht Treaty ratified in Ireland, despite being in opposition at the time, and as Taoiseach he chaired the European Council and helped lay the foundations of the Euro. After leaving office he served as one of the delegates that drafted the proposed European Constitution -- which was ditched in the end, but which was substantially salvaged via Lisbon -- and has been the EU's ambassador to the United States for the past five years.

That's important too. Being Brussels's man in Washington has given him serious familiarity with America already, and it's worth noting that he addressed Congress back in 1996. Indeed, if the Council President is ever called upon to negotiate with the Americans -- and again, that's not really the President's envisaged role -- then I think he'd do okay. While no Blair, his last few years will have given him useful connections, and being an English speaker he'd come across as less exotic than Juncker, Balkenende, or any of the others. I think an ability to speak the Americans' language could prove a serious advantage, as could the fact that he embodies the responsible phase of the Celtic Tiger rather than the crazy excesses of the Fianna Fáil years.

What puzzles me most about this, though, is that Bruton came forward and nominated himself. writing to the 27 governments to ask to be considered for the job. Cowen has had to shuffle out to support the nomination. This is pretty irregular. It'd be more normal for someone to ask him in an interview -- and an interview would easily be contrived -- whether he would like the Council Presidency, and he'd say that he'd be honoured to be considered, and that he'd relish the challenge of the job blah blah blah, and then the Irish government or another would bring his name up when the heads of government meet in conclave. As it were.

But he came right out with this? Why? He's never come across as an arrogant or a reckless man. Does he know something we don't?

I reckon Balkenende's still the favourite, but it's probably only 60:40.

Fry's Poles, or, How Context is Everything

It's unfortunate how certain things get picked up on and misrepresented in the media. A friend linked on Twitter earlier to this Telegraph article by Gerald Warner, which quotes a Channel 4 interview with Stephen Fry, citing Fry as saying:

'There’s been a history, let’s face it, in Poland of a right-wing Catholicism which has been deeply disturbing for those of us who know a little history and remember which side of the border Auschwitz was on.'

Warner goes on to argue that Fry was trying to imply that Auschwitz was a Polish institution, and attacks Fry for attacking Poles and Catholics, pointing out that both groups suffered enormously at the hands of the Nazis.

Before leaping to any conclusions, it's worth watching the interview right through to the end, as the 'offensive' comments start five minutes into a six-minute interview about the Tories having recently allied themselves in the European parliament with the Polish Law and Justice Party. Context is everything, after all, but even so, let's take a look at what he actually says at that point:

Jon Snow: Stephen Fry - innuendo or facts?
Stephen Fry: Well, I've read the manifesto statements that they've made about gay people. I know they suppressed in about 2004-5, I believe, a gay pride march, this party, quite specifically, and they used the most inflammatory language about it, and I'm glad Charles mentioned also the anti-semitic element of the party, and, I think, there’s been a history, let’s face it, in Poland of a right-wing Catholicism which has been deeply disturbing for those of us who know a little history and remember which side of the border Auschwitz was on, and know the stories, and know much of the anti-semitic and homophobic and nationalistic elements in countries like Poland. This is a problem that is not going to get smaller, because as we start to pay for the financial disaster of the last year, as the bill comes in, a kind of great pimpled acne of nationalism and homophobia and racism is going to erupt around Europe because there's going to be trouble with unemployment, there're going to be all the problems. Do you remember the 30s? The problem with the 30s was not that period, it was the end of the 30s, it's when you start to pay the price, and that's why it matters now to make a stand, because yes, you may say "we can influence them, it will all be good," but we have to understand things will get worse.

Okay, so he was kind of burbling, but his general point is clear, I think: every society has its dark side, and these dark elements gestate in dark times, so we ought to be alert to them now, and to be heading them off, rather than giving them credibility by allying ourselves with them. Societies that have been ground down tend to look for people to blame their problems on, with the most obvious candidates for scapegoat status being those 'others' who live among us, notably foreigners, gays, and gypsies.

What's this got to do with Poland, Auschwitz, and Catholicism, and indeed, what has it got to do with the Tories? In essence what Stephen Fry was saying was that all countries have their demons, and parties such as Poland's Law and Justice Party seek to gain power through summoning those demons; the problem is that these demons are very hard to control, and once at large can take on a life of their own.

Well, let's start with this: anti-semitism was rife in Poland in the first half of the twentieth century, and this anti-semitism became increasingly pronounced in the second half of the 1930s. There were anti-Jewish riots and assaults, and Jews were segregated in Polish universities, blocked from jobs in the civil service, and barred from joining the main trade unions for professionals such as doctors and lawyers. Unemployed Jews were denied welfare benefits, such as they were, and Jewish businesses were routinely boycotted, with shops being looted.

This wasn't a uniquely Polish phenomenon, of course. Anti-semitism was common through Europe at the time, and indeed the numbers of Jews in Poland rose during the interwar period, as Russian and Ukrainian Jews fled to Poland to escape pogroms in the Soviet Union; German anti-semitism, of course, goes without saying.* Sadly, Polish anti-semitism was closely intertwined with Polish Catholicism, not least because Catholicism was seen as the hallmark of the true Pole, just as in Ireland it was for so long seen as the hallmark of the true Irishman. The result of all this was that when Poland was carved up by Germany and Russia in 1939, the fate of the Jews wasn't a matter of huge concern to many Poles; as far as they were concerned, the Jews simply weren't Polish anyway.

That's not to say that all, or even most Poles were indifferent to the holocaust that was happening on their doorstep, just that some were, and in a country as big as Poland, 'some' translates to 'quite a lot'. The Nazis were almost as dedicated to the elimination of the Poles as they were to the elimination of the Jews, and so while many Poles responded to this by putting aside their differences with their Jewish neighbours, there was no shortage of Poles who felt that Polish lives mattered more than Jewish ones. After the war, Jews returning their homes in Poland were often met with hostility, and hundreds of Jews were murdered, 37 at the Kielce Pogrom alone. More than 100,000 Jews left Poland in the years immediately following World War Two.

It appears that anti-semitism may be on the rise in Poland at the moment, and sadly, this rise appears fuelled at least in part by certain strands of Polish Catholicism, with anti-semitic rants being a staple of the Catholic radio station Radio Maryja. This might seem particularly odd, and indeed it seems as though some Polish Catholics have almost chosen to forget the lessons of Auschwitz. I think this is what Stephen Fry was getting towards: the Nazis' worst crimes were committed on Polish soil, there were a fair few Poles that just didn't care, and it would be a tragedy if today's Poles were to forget this.

In this regard, it's worth remembering St Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest who was killed in another's place in Auschwitz and who was canonised in 1982. Father Kolbe had clearly been at least mildly anti-semitic in the years prior to the German occupation, personally accepting without question such absurdities as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and with anti-semitic literature being published by the publishing press he ran. On the other hand, following more than two months of imprisonment after the Nazi conquest he sheltered and cared for perhaps as many as 2,000 Jews at his friary near Warsaw, tending to them as carefully and as lovingly as though they were Polish Catholics like himself. He's a useful lesson, and one well worth keeping in mind.

Catholicism, of course, ought never to be dragooned into the service of nationalism or called upon to justify anti-semitism or racism of any sort. Pius XI declared in 1938 that

'... in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites.'

A year earlier he had issued the German-language encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, drafted by the future Pope Pius XII, which condemned as idoloatrous and un-Christian the exaltation of race, nation, state, and political ideology:

'Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.'

Anti-semitism, therefore, is certainly never Catholic; sadly, however, this does not mean that Catholics are never anti-semites. The world would be a far better place if it were.

Stephen Fry's point seems clear, and it was most certainly not that the concentration camps at occupied Oświęcim were Polish institutions. We are living, he was saying, in a time of economic turmoil, and in such times it is all too often the tendency of the office boy to kick the dog. The Polish Law and Justice Party, he fears, have the look of a party that is seeking a dog to kick, and it troubles him that any British party should be standing beside them smiling benevolently while they do so.

In the afterward to the paperback edition of his autobiography, John Major summed up what he believed the European project was about and why it was worth fighting for: it was, he said, about keeping borders down, democracy in, and nationalism out. It seems a shame that his Conservative successors should have chosen to ally themselves with politicians who play on paranoia, who believe in bringing borders back up, and who rejoice in nurturing nationalism in its nastiest and most narrow-minded of forms.
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* Though we shouldn't subscribe to Daniel Goldhagen's sweepingly anti-German screeds, and again, there were of course some inspiring exceptions.

Fishy Claims About the EU

I'm afraid I made the mistake of getting into a spat today. Internet quarrelling isn't particularly edifying or worthwhile even at the best of times, and right now, time is hardly in great supply for me, even on days when lunch is eschewed and typing is done in abundance.

Over the last couple of days I'd spotted variations on this nonsense in a couple of spots around the net, generally in comment threads such as here and here*, so eventually, in annoyance, I popped over to the perpetrator's blog** to air my own thoughts. Folly, of course. There's no arguing with fools.

Seriously, look at this nonsense:

'Irish Ayes Are Smiling - More is the pity. This result may be perfectly clean, but it is still fishy: they have still lost in their fisheries three times as much as they have gained at all from the EU.'

This is a common anti-European trope, and a myth that the Irish fishing community appears to have to its bosom. It's rot, of course, unless you think it's meaningful in any sense to take direct Irish investment from our European partners and weigh it against the value of whatever fish have been caught by said partners in Irish waters. Even if you want to argue that said fish was worth €200 billion, rather than, say, €8.5 billion, as reckoned by the Sea Around Us project. Such a crude comparison is madness, of course.

For starters, Irish gains from the Union aren't limited to investments from our favourite charity, the German taxpayer. You need to look at trading gains too, and at private investment in the Irish economy as a player in the Common Market and as a member of the Eurozone. American companies have invested more in Ireland than they have in China, Brazil, India, and Russia; they employ more than 100,000 people, and export more than €60 billion worth of goods and services every year. So even if we had lost €200 billion worth of fish, well, there'd be no doubt that we'd still have gained. Sums, eh?

Secondly, at the time we joined the EEC, our waters were limited to a twelve-mile coastal strip. Our waters were only enlarged to a 200-mile zone in connection with the Third United Nations Law of the Sea Conference in 1976; the Americans and other countries claimed a massive extension of maritime jurisdiction, and so the EEC and others responded in kind. The new 'Irish' waters had traditionally been fished by German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, British and other fishermen, and had hardly ever been touched by Irish fishermen. How could they have been? There were fewer than 6,000 fishermen in the country, with fewer than 2,000 of them being full-time, and they fished in the main in our narrow coastal zone, catering to the tiny domestic market - we ate less fish than any other EEC country at the time, even with the Friday fast being regularly observed, fish providing scarcely 6% of our protein intake.

Is it really credible that a country with barely three million people in it would have been able to negotiate a 200-mile fishing zone without the aid of our European partners, especially if we'd planned on excluding them from our new waters immediately afterwards? And even if we had done that, how could we have exploited our new waters, with our tiny fleet of tiny ships, geared up to supply a none-too-enthusiastic domestic market? After all, I don't think we'd have got very far exporting our fish to countries where we'd put their fishermen on the dole... And then, of course, there's the question of how we'd have protected our waters. Could a handful of offshore patrol boats, and - back in the day - a couple of outdated corvettes really have done the job?

Is any of this likely to comfort our fishermen? Well, probably not, but for what it's worth, the Irish fishing industry is far healthier now than it was back in the day. Hard to believe, but true. Back then, like I said, there were fewer than 6,000 people involved in fishing in Ireland, with fewer than 2,000 of those being fulltime fishermen, and they weren't exactly making much money out of the operation. Now, though? I've had trouble pinning the figures down, because the fishing figure proper is rarely available in isolation, usually being blurred with onshore processing and with fish farming figures, but it looks like the total figure now is upwards of 15,000. Even if you take the lowest possible calculation it's still around 11,000. That's not to say they're not under pressure at the moment, due to changes in the Common Fisheries Policy to reflect the fact that fish stocks have been deracinated, but it's simply untrue to say that they -- and collectively we -- have been screwed on the fishing front over the last four decades. That's just not true.

And that's just yer man's first paragraph. On to he goes to claim that there was a built in one-for-one arrangement with Sterling well into the 1980s, rather than the late 1970s, to say that the British armed forces are largely Irish, when just 400 of their 112,000 personnel are from the Republic, and so on. Things are even odder in the comments, where he claims that the Irish wouldn't have minded being invaded by the British during the second World War, that the British would have been willing and able to protect us from the Soviets during the Cold War, and that there are a higher proportion of people in the Republic of Ireland who have served in the British forces than in any of the four constituent parts of the UK. I've been thinking for two days, and still don't think I know anyone from home who's done that, whereas as each hour passes I think of more and more people I know here who have served or are serving in the forces. Fourteen at the moment. And that's not including ones who are applying to Sandhurst and Dartmouth etc, let alone ones who've been in university units.

I can just about forgive his not grasping my point about economic independence, because it's a bit subtle, but I'll come back to that. Sigh...

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* This one nicely preempts Godwin's Law by invoking the Nazis in the very heading. Of course, it rather undercuts itself by calling on the Dunkirk spirit, in apparent disregard for the fact that Britain was only able to carry on 'alone' after Dunkirk by becoming a client state of the Americans. This was better than a compromise peace with the Nazis, of course, but it was hardly independence.
** His real blog. Not the ones spoofing or scorning it.

Normal Service Has Been Restored

There was a fabulous post on the Irish Election blog last year analysing six key reasons why Lisbon was voted down last year; today it returned to that post to consider what had changed this time out. It's fascinating reading.

The real question, of course, remains not why did Lisbon pass the second time out, but why did it fail the first time. Lisbon I was a huge anomaly in Irish voting on European matters. Take a look at this chart which shows the proportion of the electorate that has voted yes and no on the eight European referendums we've had.

Look at the No vote, and in particular, look at the No vote since Maastricht in 1992. Barring Lisbon I it's pretty consistent: 17.6%, 21%, 18.5%, 18.3%, 28.3%, 19.3%. It's basically 20%, isn't it, barring Lisbon I, when it rocketed to an anomalous 28.3%. Look at the Yes vote, then: it's all over the place, and is clearly dependent on how many people bother to vote. It was lower than the No vote for Nice I only because the total vote was tiny -- only 35% that time out. On six of the seven times when more than half the electorate has voted on the incorporation of a European Treaty into our Constitution, the positive vote has been far larger than the negative vote.

So what happened at Lisbon I, and what changed it at Lisbon II? Well, Simon says Lisbon I failed for six broad main reasons:

1. People felt they were being threatened by talk of Ireland being isolated if it voted no; Irish people tend not to take kindly to being bullied.
2. The leading advocated for the Treaty merely condescended to the people and their opponents, essentially just saying 'trust us'. The posters by the main parties said it all, really. There was no attempt to make a serious case for the treaty.
3. The main spokespeople for the yes side last time out just weren't up to the job. To this should be added the fact that last time out Fine Gael weren't as ardently European as they'd normally be, largely because they'd been offended by Cowen claiming they weren't playing their part. Again, we're a contrary bunch, and if you try to bully us, we'll usually do the opposite.
4. Voting no was presented as a pro-European option. I think this was the big one. The day after the vote I had friends vehemently insisting to me that they were very pro-European, despite having voted no. This was new.
5. Class voting was a factor last time out, with those who felt they've not done as well as they might have from the Celtic Tiger opposing the Treaty. I noticed this a lot working in the pub last summer. There was a smattering of xenophobia, and a fair dose of willingness to believe nonsense about European conscription, but in the main this was effectively just a protest vote against the establishment.
6. The Treaty itself was a problem, as it was perceived as inpenetrable -- I was the only person I met last year who actually spoke of having read it, and I was in the unusual circumstances of being very interested, very literate, and with a lot of time on my hands. More than 40% of people surveyed after last year's referendum said they'd voted no because they didn't understand the Treaty -- and loads more had voted no because of things that weren't in the Treaty! Given the Treaty's messiness it was very easy for all manner of myths to spread about it, whether about us intermittently losing a commissioner, which was going to happen anyway, or about us losing control of our tax regime, which we retained a veto on!

So what's different? Why did the No vote drop by 9% of the electorate and the Yes vote rise by 15% of the electorate? I think there were three main changes, two positive and one negative.

Broadly speaking, people were better informed this time than last year: there was a serious attempt by the mainstream parties to inform them, various independent groups sprang up to make the case for Lisbon, and the Referendum Commission was rather more vigilant than last year in quashing outright lies about the Treaty.

People also felt reassured by the guarantees from our European partners, promising that abortion in Ireland would remain an Irish competence, promising that our neutrality was our business, promising that our taxes would remain something for us to decide, and -- and this bit was new -- promising that the Council would rule that every country would retain a Commissioner. Granted, the guarantees aren't legally binding yet, but our European partners have been good to us so far, and -- perhaps barring the fishermen in Donegal -- we don't see any reason not to trust them.

The Economy, of course, is the negative factor. What do I mean by a negative factor? Well, I don't really think it drove people to vote yes, despite the Wall Street Journal's spin on this; it wasn't just that Irish people were scared and ran to Mummy. Rather, it was that Irish voters, now reassured by the guarantees and rather more clued in on the Treaty than last year, realised that this was no time for a protest vote. As the Irish Times put it, 'it finally came down to the economy and the ability of voters to distinguish between an unpopular Government and the issue of the treaty. The sophistication of the Irish electorate should never be underestimated.'

In other words, the economy didn't drive people to vote yes, but it did discourage them from voting no for frivolous reasons. If people voted no this time, they did so because they really don't like the Union. Sadly, the number who favour withdrawal seems to have risen from 9% to 18%. That's probably pretty much all the usual crowd, so. Their numbers have been pretty steady for the last twenty years.

Unfortunately, the fact that the Treaty had to be voted on twice has almost certainly caused this development. It hasn't looked good, although we have a long tradition of revisiting issues in referendums, what with the possibility of adopting a first-past-the-post voting system being voted on twice, divorce also being voted on twice, and abortion being voted on three times.

Still, the Constitution has changed now, and anyone who warbles about 'best out of three' might be better off thinking of this as a European tie, where it's one-all, but decided on goal difference, where the Yes Side scored 1,966,719 while the No Side managed a credible 1,457,021. Hmmm. That may not help.

Fingers Crossed On Lisbon

It seems there have been a couple of sketchy opposition exit polls that indicate it's a win for the 'Yes' side. Fine Gael are giving it 52% yes and 48% no, while Young Fine Gael are giving it 60% yes and 40% no. There's no telling how scientific these polls have been, though, and the figures should probably be taken with more than a pinch of salt. Still, though, this is encouraging.

I have a few friends who are perplexed about my support for Lisbon, since they can't see how this is good for Ireland. Leaving aside how they're often using 'Ireland' as a stand-in for 'Britain', fo me it's ultimately a no-brainer.

In general our interests are in tune with Britain and our other partners on the mainland: making our collective voice clearer and louder will give us more influence than we've been, and we'll need that influence down the line if we want there to be a European voice at the table where America and China and figuring out which way the world'll go. Giving the national parliaments a couple of months to go through proposals before the Council votes on them is surely a good thing, and having the Council vote in public on them has to be the most overdue of reforms. And like I've said, Lisbon gives us a mechanism to leave if we ever decide we'd be better off outside the tent.

It's not perfect, of course. In particular, I'm not convinced that the European parliament is other than a well-intentioned waste of money. It's a good idea, in that it's nice to have someone who directly represents you, rather than your country, in the European institutions: crudely put, the Parliament represents the people, the Council represents the countries, and the Commission represents the Union as a whole. And yes, I know big corporations and NGOs spent a fortune trying to lobby MEPs, and that there those who argue it's incredibly powerful. But barring how it can sack the Commission -- which is a very important capability, usefully applied once already -- I'm just not sure it works in practice.

The German Supreme Court was right when it said it's an assembly rather than a parliament, not least because as a rule its seven groupings operate in a consensual way, rather than as a government and and an opposition. Given the need to allow the small countries to have any kind of presence at all, electoral equality has to be disregarded, so that a Maltese vote goes thirteen times further than a German one; there's no way this is going to change, so a fully and equally enfranchised European demos isn't on the cards.

I get annoyed too whenever the Parliament votes to promote universal access to abortion across the Union. This isn't a pro-life point I'm making, I should explain: it's a sovereignty one. Ever since the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, it's been a staple of European law that abortion in Ireland is an Irish issue to be ruled on by the Irish people. Despite this, every so often there's a proposal in the parliament that disregards this. The most recent one I can think of was in January 2009, when the Parliament approved a motion by Giusto Catania of the Italian Communist party which drew on the -- as yet unratified -- Charter of Fundamental Rights and called on the Union to promote the right to abortion everywhere in the Union. Back in September 2004 there was a bit of a rumpus about a Portuguese attempt to ban the Dutch 'Women on Waves' ship from entering Portuguese waters; this sparked a debate about whether abortion should be permitted across the whole EU, with Vasco Graca Moura, a Portuguese MEP, making the astute point that the debate was a complete waste of time, as 'termination of abortions falls under the competences of member states'. In July 2002 the Parliament formally approved a report presented by the Belgian MEP Anne van Lancker which urged increased access to abortion facilities across the Union.

Obviously, as I've said in the past, I'm pro-life, but that's not the issue here. This is a matter of sovereignty. In the broad sense, abortion is regarded as a health issue in EU law, and health issues are considered national competences rather than pan-European ones; more narrowly, Irish arrangements regarding abortion are specifically protected as being a Irish problems that require Irish solutions; either way, votes and debates on these issues shouldn't have an implications for Ireland, and yet they're treated in the Parliament as though they do. You might wonder why they happen at all, really.

On that, I'd say that these votes, of course, never create binding obligations, as the Parliament is primarily a consultative body, rather than a legislative one. I'm pretty sure this is the only reason these debates are allowed. If the Parliament were to be granted teeth, it would also need to be given a muzzle.

Of course, all this means that the EU is, and shall remain an association of sovereign states, rather than a 'super-state', which you'd think the No campaigners would like. Of course, that'd require them to close their mouths and then open their minds for a bit. Have you seen any flying pigs lately?

Lisbon: Five Minutes to Midnight

I know, I've not been online here in ages. Still, I wrote a post for my Facebook page just there, and thought I may as well post it here too. Important times, after all. I was meant to be going home tomorrow, but then, I was meant to have submitted my thesis yesterday. Events of the last few months, and the last month in particularly, have thrown everything out of whack, and I didn't managed to make my Wednesday deadline. I'm currently typing like mad and hoping for a short extension.

Anyway, this means I'll not be home tomorrow. I'll be home soon enough, but not tomorrow, so I'm afraid I'll have to postpone any plans I'd made to see people, and I'll not be giving blood, getting my hair cut, or voting on Lisbon. Apologies to people I'd planned to meet, all of whom I've tagged here.

Given that I'll not be voting on Lisbon, and I'm surrendering all the time I'd have spent going home to getting my thesis finished, I think it'd not be too indulgent of me to say why I wish I could vote for Lisbon, and why I think everyone who can should do so.

Putting it simply, although the Lisbon Treaty looks like a chaotic mess, its end result, once it comes to pass, will be two tidy treaties, making the structure, capabilities, aims, and direction of the EU much clearer to everyone. As reformed by Lisbon, the EU will be both more efficient and much more accountable.

The most important reforms, as far as I can see, and the reasons for approving of them, are as follows:

1. Stabilising the rotating position that is the President of the European Council from a six-month part-time appointment, as it currently is, to a thirty-month full-time appointment has to be a good thing as it will collectively give all members of the Union a recognisable and coherent voice on global issues. Likewise the merging of the two key external affairs commissioners into one, and the merging of the three European bodies into one legal entity. By making things simpler, we'll make our voice clearer, louder, and more effective on things we all agree on.

2. Making the Council, the main decision-making body, vote in public will make the whole EU decision-making structure far more accountable, and will make it harder for national governments and the media to blame 'faceless bureaucrats' for European decisions.

3. Requiring the Commission to send all proposals to the national parliaments for their scrutiny eight weeks before they go to the Council surely has to be a good thing, not least because it'll provide an effective safeguard to prevent the Union from going beyond its remit.

4. The Council's new double majority voting system is an elegant balancing act that recognises the democratic weight of big countries like Britain, France, and Germany, while also taking full account of the importance - as sovereign nation states - of small ones like Ireland, Austria, and Malta. In fact, you could argue that far from Ireland having lost influence in this arrangement, we've gained it, but that ignores the fact that these voting arrangements are apparently hardly ever needed, with most EU decisions being made by consensus whether they need to be or not.

5. If countries still aren't happy, after all of this, Lisbon provides countries with a mechanism to secede from the Union, something that currently doesn't exist.

It does plenty more, of course, including guaranteeing various individual rights through the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and allowing citizens to petition the Commission if they can assemble petitions with a million signatories - that's 0.2% of the Union population, so not that many people, really.

It's important to stress how much of this is just tidying up things, and how much of it is still based on unanimity. Pretty much everything to do with external relations requires unanimity, and the entirety of the defence arrangements require unanimity. This means that the EU's five neutral country can't be forced to do anything militarily - yes, not even buying new equipment - unless they agree to. And even if you don't trust the government, in which case your beef is with your politicians, not your neighbours, such agreements can't be backroom deals, given that they'll be scrutinised by the national parliaments first, and voted on publicly by the Council.


Of course, there are loads of claims being wheeled out about why Irish people shouldn't vote for Lisbon, these claims coming from, broadly speaking, six groups, none of which make a convincing case, if you pay close attention, and actually check what they say against the two treaties themselves:

1. Libertas, who've generally been pretty quiet this time out. Their main claims last time relied on claims about Brussels imposing centralised taxes and about Ireland losing its commissioner every so often. The first claim was nonsense, and the second was established by Nice anyway. Since Lisbon I, our European partners have guaranteed that central taxation won't happen unless everybody wants it, in which case, well, everyone would want it, and have added a guarantee that every state will always retain the right to a commissioner.

2. The Green Rump, led by Patricia McKenna, who is making exactly the same arguments she made against Maastricht, Amsterdam, and Nice, and seems oblivious to the fact that pretty much every bit of Irish environmental legislation originated in Europe. Why she seems to think that America, China, Russia, India, and the OPEC countries would be more willing to listen to a dirge of European voices rather than one loud and clear one in the coming debates about global climate change isn't really clear.

3. Sinn Fein, who argued last time that we could get a better deal in Europe, and that we shouldn't be losing a commissioner, and who have since been in a huff because the government went back to Brussels, haggled successfully for us to keep our commissioner, and then said it would ask us again whether we were still unhappy with Lisbon. Effectively they were asked if they'd like tea, said no because they didn't like tea without sugar, were then offered tea with sugar, and snarled sure didn't they say they didn't want tea! There's no pleasing some people, especially when those people have always been in the steady minority of the eligible electorate that opposed EEC accession, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty, and the Nice Treaty. Aside from not having noticed a democratic trend against them both in referendums and in normal elections, they don't seem to have gotten the memo that European integration has allowed Ireland to stand on its own two feet and break free of economic dependence on Britain, which is probably one of the reasons why it's opposed by...

4. UKIP and their cronies from over the Irish Sea. Seriously, you need to read their leaflet to appreciate the scale of their lies. Is there anything in it that isn't a distortion? They present all manner of things out of context and as though they're either new developments, rather than decades-old ones, or else as though they don't still require unanimous consent from member states. And of course, no mention of open voting or equally-weighted national voting in the Council, parliamentary scrutiny at a national level, citizens' initiatives, or the secession mechanism. Liars, and liars with no interest in Ireland other than as a wedge to crack the whole EU open.

5. The Socialist Worker crowd are perhaps as odd allies for UKIP as Sinn Fein are. These tend to be the Lisbon opponents I like most, especially on a personal level, but they're deeply wrong on this, and I've yet to see any evidence for the claims that Lisbon is bad for workers. The fact that trade unions - even the stroppier ones - are in favour of Lisbon should be a clue on that front, really.

6. And finally there's Coir. Oh dear. Look, I'm Catholic, and I'm pro-life, and that shower of sanctimonious liars do not speak for me. They don't seem to have gotten the memo that God doesn't need our lies, and that the ends do not justify the means. The fact that the hierarchy and Des Hanafin, that old warhorse of the culture wars of the 1980s and early 1990s, have said that they're talking rot and that Lisbon is no threat to Ireland's complete independence on the abortion issue are, I think powerful arguments against this crowd. I still like the spoof Coir posters, though.

Seriously, I know a stopped clock can be right not just once but twice a day, but does anyone seriously think that all of these stopped clocks are simultaneously right? Generally speaking here, the best thing to do whenever you hear one of these people make a claim about the treaties is to find out what passage they're talking about, and look it up. There's a fair chance that a reference to unanimity will be in there somewhere, or else that the supposed change is something that's already been the case for decades.

You can prove anything with facts, after all. I just wish Michael O'Leary hadn't weighed in. Sigh...

The First Thing in the Lisbon Treaty

This week's Irish Catholic features a brief and infuriating letter from one Patricia O'Brien fron Dublin's Bayside, which those of us who read The Irish Times had the questionable pleasure of reading a fortnight ago:

'Dear Editor [it was 'Madam' last time],
The EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty studiously omits any reference to God or Europe's Christian history and heritage from its preamble.
I for one had no choice but to vote No.
Yours etc,
Patricia O'Brien,
Bayside, Dublin 13.'

When this claptrap first appeared in the Irish Times on 20 June it was dismissed the following day with a letter from one Alex Staveley who said

'Patricia O'Brien (June 20th) says she voted No because the treaty "omits any reference to God or Europe's Christian history and heritage from its preamble". Her argument is the equivalent of an atheist voting No because there is no reference to Richard Dawkins's books outselling those by any contemporary theologian or a Muslim voting no because there is no reference to the Islamic conquest of Spain, which meant classical Greek philosophical texts were translated into Latin and eventually found their way into the Renaissance.

We really need more constructive and feasible suggestions from the No voters if we are to move forward'

Mr Staveley may have overplayed his hand for rhetorical effect here, though it's not a bad hand, but I tend to think you should never play an ace when a two will do. The very first amendment to the Treaty on European Union -- that's the Maastricht Treaty, for those of you with long memories -- detailed in the Lisbon Treaty is as follows:

'1) The preamble shall be amended as follows:
(a) the following text shall be inserted as the second recital:
"Drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious, and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which we have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law,"'

Yes, that's the very first thing of substance in the entire Lisbon Treaty: an acknowledgement of Europe's religious heritage. And let's face it, what is Europe's religious heritage if it is not Christian? That's not to gloss over the importance of the Jewish, Muslin, and indeed Pagan contributions to European life over the centuries, but on balance and allowing for hyperbole I think it pretty much has to be agreed that Hilaire Belloc was right when he declared 'the Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith'.

It seems that Ms O'Brien, like so many others, voted not against the Lisbon Treaty, but against some phantom treaty that existed only in her febrile imagination.

I have very little patience with people who vote against things not because they don't understand them, but because they don't bother to try understanding them!

Separated by a Common Language

Are you going to vote 'no'?' asked an English friend of mine yesterday, seemingly out of the blue. 'Please vote 'no'. If you don't vote 'no' then we might never get a chance.'
'What are you talking about?' I asked, and then ventured a weary 'Lisbon?'
'The European Constitreaty.'
'Why do you call it that?'
'Because it's the Constitution, with a few of the words changed, and the mandatory flag -- though they still fly the flag and sing the anthem anyway!'
'It was never a Constitution,' I retorted, 'and should never have been called one. Doing so was a pretentious and absurd attempt to glorify it. It was only ever another treaty, and a far less dramatic one than the Treaty on European Union.'

'Well, the point is that every UK party promised we'd get a vote on it, and only one of them made any attempt to deliver on that promise.'
'They didn't, actually. Blair was forced into a corner by Rupert Murdoch, who said that he'd withdraw support for Labour if Labour didn't promise a vote on the version of the Treaty that had all the Constitutional stuff in. That version failed, following the French and Dutch votes. A new treaty based on that had to be renegotiated. No promises were made about this one.'
'Technicality.'
'That's not a technicality! It's a different thing!'
'It is different, but it's 95 per cent identical, according to virtually every European leader who signed it.'
'So what? You're 98 per cent identical with a chimp, but you're not one.'
'Me being 98 per cent similar to a chimp wasn't due to some overpaid bureaucrat signing a piece of paper.'
'You mean your Prime Minister?'
'In a darkened room. On his own.'

'I'm actually far happier with this than I was with the previous version. I'd been unhappy with the old preamble, and am glad it's been ditched. But why do you think you should have a vote on this?'
'Why do you have one?'
'Because I come from a modern country with a written constitution that demands that any possible adjustment to our constitution must be put to the people.'
'So it is a constitutional treaty.'
'In the sense that it might perhaps effect Ireland's own constitution, yes, maybe,' I conceded, 'but no more than Rome, the Single European Act, Maastricht, Amsterdam, or Nice. Rather less than Rome and Maastricht, in fact. Much, much less. But since the Supreme Court's Crotty Judgment in 1987, all European treaties have to go to a referendum in Ireland. It's a singularly bad way of ratifying treaties, in fact, since the vast majority of people won't read the things and wouldn't understand if they did!'
'Probably. But the fact is there was a cross-party pledge and two out of three have broken it.'
'Well, no, again, because it's a different treaty!'
'Ours is more identical because of the red lines.'
'What do you mean "more identical"? Everybody signs the same treaty.'
'The red lines. Exceptions. . . I think.'
'Those exceptions are part of the treaty. They have to be approved by other people. We have to approve your 'red lines' just as you have to approve ours.'

'For what it's worth, and this may interest you,' I continued, 'the Irish system of default ratification by referendum is in fact quite questionable. The Crotty judgment said that it'd be fine to ratify treaties by statute rather than by referendum provided that 'such amendments do not alter the essential scope or objectives' of the EU, and it's certainly arguable that the Lisbon changes don't alter what the EU is about. In fact, really all they do is hopefully clear up some of the clutter that makes it hard to do its job. However, the people have grown fiercely attached to their right to have their say on these treaties they haven't read, and any party that attempted to reverse the default position would be wiped out. In other words, the only real political rationale for us having a referendum on this matter is to prevent a backlash against the government. Curiously, though, the government parties are not allowed to enlist the resources of the state to campaign for the treaty.'
'Well, obviously. Or are your parties state-funded?'
'Not obviously at all. Until about ten years ago they could do so, and indeed doing so was really just a matter of political leadership. As things stand, the parties cannot enlist the resources of the state in any referendums.'
'It is political campaigning, though.'

'Do you have any idea of the sort of things we've had referendums on?'
'Probably really trivial matters that need resolution.'
'Ratification of European Treaties and of Irish acquiesence to the International Criminal Court, removing the constitutional ban on divorce, defining the status of the right to life of an unborn child relative to that of its mother, the right to Irish citizenship, the voting age, and the possibility of replacing our PR-STV system of voting with a 'first past the post' system, just as examples.'
'Those arent constitutional. Except the first two . . . and the last two . . . and the other three.'
'Now are you really saying that it should be impossible for a government minister to be interviewed by the national broadcaster about one of these things, backed fully by the government and the majority of members of our parliament as voted for by the people, without the national broadcaster having to go and find somebody to interview to put an opposing view?'

'Well the national broadcaster is another thing . . .'
'It's an arm of the state. It can't take sides, and can't be used to put forward the case of the government, without a counterbalancing view being put forward too.'
'It should be representative of the full spectrum of opinion.'
'Why?'
'Because otherwise it would be Pravda, the propaganda arm of the state. In many ways the BBC already is . . .'
'Too obvious an answer. And wrong too. Look, you say a full spectrum of opinion --'
'I said "representative".'
'So -- what -- someone from the extreme left, someone from the extreme right, someone in the middle?'
'No. Representing the views of the people, respecting people's understanding.'
'And how do you establish what the views of the people are?'
'Well it's not exactly numerical analysis. Use rules of thumb and opinion polls.'
'So if a referendum looks set to be passed by 95% of voters, with the remaining 5% being, shall we say, BNP types, do you go, well, they're the opposition on this issue, and give them a platform on the national broadcaster?'
'5% of the time. You don't choose your opponents in matters like that. All it does is encourage them, drives them underground.'
'Even so, do you give them a platform?'
'Depends how they conduct themselves on it doesnt it? Richard Barnbrook was given virtually no platform and he still made his way onto the London Assembly, yet now he has a platform he has shown himself for the rude, obnoxious lout he really is. Ultimately it is an argument against state broadcasting altogether, which as an argument I would fully endorse.'
'Well, oddly, I'm sure the European Commission would too, though I'd disagree.'

'Look, do you have any idea who the campaigners against European treaties are in Ireland?' I asked, 'For what it's worth, they always about 20% of the vote. Our opposition to EU treaties always comes from the same people, who reel off the same nonsense every single time. The few remaining socialists and communists in the land oppose them, Sinn Fein and other hardline nationalists oppose them, holier-than-thou Catholics oppose them, and a chunk of the Green Party -- the chunk that overlaps with the socialists and communists -- does so. Together they can yell and shout and roar emotive nonsense that while incorrect and usually contradictory nonetheless serves to get people to vote against the treaties, convinced that we'll lose our supposed neutrality, or our tax laws, or be forced to start butchering babies tomorrow.'
'So that's an argument against political debate then.'
'No, it's not, actually. And those people don't know the meaning of debate. Lying isn't debating. I'm just trying to see why you'd want this, that's all. It's a pain in the hole here, trying to make yourself heard over that hysterical shower of gobshites.'
'If they lie then it's the presenter's responsibility to challenge them on it. Of course not every presenter is as talented as Andrew Neil, sadly.'
'Posters. Leaflets. Newspaper articles. TV adverts. No presenters there. Look, let's put this simply: despite your claims about promises and such, at bottom you want a referendum on this so you can vote against it. That's certainly what you intend to do, yes? So why? Why would you vote against it?'
'Largely because I want this country to have the opportunity to make a de facto rejection of what the European Union has become: an expensive burden on the legal framework of the United Kingdom, and an affront to its sovereignty, instead of the trade bloc it was meant to be.'

'It was never meant to be a trade bloc -- why do you say that?'
'Well, that's what we entered into. The notion of a European President and Foreign Secretary is also horrifying -- particularly if Blair gets it.'
'No you didn't -- let's stay with the first point for a minute -- you signed the Treaty of Rome, same as the rest of us. I realise that the term 'perfidious Albion' is proverbial around the world, but why are you so keen to pretend you signed up to less than what the Treaty established?'
'The Treaty of Rome was a blank document encapsulated between a frontsheet and a signature page.'
'Rubbish. Not by the time Britain signed it. What does the first line of it say? The very first line? "Determined to establish the foundations of an ever closer union"! That's what you guys signed up to, same as us. Ever closer!
'In 1953. Mainly by people who aren't alive any more.'
'Signed up to by the British and the Irish in the early seventies, which is the relevant date from your viewpoint. And you've still got the same head of state! You signed up for ever closer union. The Common Market was only ever meant to be the first part of that. Everyone knew that.'
'Well, that's about the only function it's served remotely well as, and I'm not particularly sure it's serving the UK well any more.'
'Would you rather withdraw, then? That'd be okay, you know. It's not as if you're particularly constructive members of it. You're basically a fat kid sitting on the sidelines, saying you want to be on the team, but only if the team plays your way.'
'I dunno. But that's something I'd rather see decided at the parliamentary level, rather than at the EEC level.'
'So you'd trust your parliament with the decision to withdraw, but not with the decision to make things more efficient? A it happens, the Treaty provides you with a mechanism to withdraw.'

'It's not just about efficiency though is it? There's more in that treaty than efficiency measures.'
'It basically is, actually. There's not much more, really. It's ultimately a streamlining exercise. The current structures aren't designed for 27 countries and 450 million people.'
'It's not reasonable to use one policy to let a load of other ones through.'
'It tidies the commission, it makes the council more accountable, it makes the parliament more democratic, it gives the national parliaments an opportunity to vet proposed legislation in advance rather than being faced with facts on the ground. As for the Presidency and the Foreign Minsitry position, the second one really does little more than to merge two positions, while the Presidency effectively exists already and has done for years. All it does is replace the current six-monthly rotation system with a more stable two-and-a-half year system, which should obviate the need for things to stall with a new learning curve every few months . . . so what's bad about it?'
'I can't remember. I've mainly given up hope on it. I've just generally been very much anti-Europe since I learnt how much money they take away from us and waste, and how much of that "waste" is actually politicians taking it for themselves. And the loss of our sovereignty in general.'
'I'm pretty sure you gain far more from the EU than you lose. Besides, it's not as if you have a huge amount of faith in your own government's fiscal prudence, is it?'
'I seem to recall seeing a chart that had us second from bottom in terms of EU value for money. Oddly enough, Ireland was at the top.'
'Probably because we play the game, really. The Euro is a big factor too.'

'The thing about my government's fiscal prudence is that in two years I will be able to completely get rid of them, whereas getting rid of the EU government would involve a huge political coalition across the whole of Europe at the same time, and given that it's made up of coalitions of dozens of smaller parties. . . there's no real way to do it.'
'I'm not sure you can be so certain. They were elected with a huge majority last time despite getting just a third of the vote last time. They might get beaten by another party that will have only a third of the vote. Your system is a travesty of democracy, I'm afraid.'
'Tories are currently hovering above 40 per cent. They took Crewe and Nantwich four days ago, the 126th safest Labour seat.'
'Great, so you'll get a landslide despite being opposed by almost six out of every ten voters. Wonderful.'
'That's not exactly how the system works. We have the constituency link so everybody is in some way represented, even if it doesn't reflect 100 per cent on their viewpoints.'
'Meaning what?'
'Meaning that if the government wanted to turn Coventry into a reservoir, there's someone in the House of Commons who will fight to prevent that from happening.'
'Er, we have constituencies too, so I don't see why this is special.'
'The alternative is minority governments and coalitions which spent half their time in government in deadlock, meaning that no decisions get made, which can be seen across half of eastern Europe, or PR which means that you get wholly unaccountable politicians.'
'We haven't had a majority government since 1985 or so, and we certainly don't have deadlock. And who says they're unaccountable? In what sense? Well? I'm curious . . . I'm just saying, I've lived under and voted in two systems, and I think the British one is a joke. Complaints about Brussels being undemocratic always strike me as hilariously hollow when they come from a country where most voters are effectively disenfranchised.'
'I don't think it's perfect. It's far from perfect. But it's the best system there is.'

'No government has had a popular majority since 1931.'
'But there have been several changes in government -- popular by what definition anyway?'
'In the sense of you count the votes and see if anyone got more than half. In terms of votes, they've all been minority governments, with more people having voted for 'losers' than 'winners'. 64 per cent of voters didn't vote for Labour in 2005, 59 per cent didn't vote for them in 2001, and 56 per cent didn't in 1997. 58 per cent of voters didn't vote for the Tories in 1992, just as 57 per cent didn't in 1987 and in 1983, and 56 per cent didn't in 1979. It goes on . . .'