Well now – what a turn up. The Irish have refused to be led by the nose and follow the advice of all the main political parties, big business and trade unions, and said NO to the Lisbon Treaty. The BBC coverage on this should be most interesting – just listen to the tonality of it (as the late unlamented Hillhunt would have suggested). I was reading Mark Mardell’s take on it here which is lamentable in terms of asking the hard questions about the serial failure of the Eurocrats to seLl their lousy Constitution to the people of Europe. Instead Mark seems more interested in considering how a way can be found to get around this awkward business of democracy. I predict the BBC will be in mourning with grim faced news-readers breaking the news but they will try to gain encouragement from Mr Broon’s claim that he plans to go ahead and force it through Parliament.
IRELAND SAYS NO!
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News 24 trying to take their minds off the Irish vote with an orgy of Bush Bashing therapy.
As usual, though, the website HYS tells a different story. Wall-to-wall “thank God for the Irish” recommended messages.
Will it ever occur to the BBC that most of their audience is on a different planet to the one they inhabit?
We’re all Irish now.
News 24 bimbo interviewing two dodgy looking Irish govt “yes” men.
All agreed – public far too stupid to understand the issues.
They’ll have to get rid of all the bloody voters – then they’ll have perfected democracy – EU style.
Oh dear what with David Davis and now this the poor Beeb won’t know what news stories to run. Except a whole load of global warming reports this weekend as they appear to be the Beebs equivalent of the solemn music Radio Moscow used to transmit when a Soviet Leader died 🙂
Liberty rallies against the foul totalitarian wind blowing from the East.
However briefly it flickers, it is a good thing to be illuminated and warmed by the light of freedom.
1327: They will simply attack Caroline Spelman again!!!!
Good on the Irish. Up yours Delors!!!!
http://www.currybet.net/images/blog2007/20071216_up-yours-delors.jpg
Credit where it is due – R5L’s Anita Anand has just done a pretty good job skewering Labour MEP Richard Corbett over his elitist response to the Irish vote.
Silly Irish! Why kick up a fuss over a little-bitty thing like this whose only purpose is , pace the Beeb, ‘to streamline the decision-making process’? For shame! Best just to pretend it they don’t understand what they’re voting on and ignore them methinks.
Still, another nasty shock to Auntie’s minions who seemingly weren’t even aware that our friends across the water might have the brass neck to go off-message (unlike ITV, C4, SKY, The Lostwithiel Monthly Gazette etc etc) 😉
Don’t you just love PaddyPower bookies paying out on a ‘yes’ vote because of the ‘yes’ camp’s very early predictions?
“The Lisbon Treaty replaces a more ambitious draft constitution that was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005”
Is a blatant, politically-biased lie from the BBC. Some people in favour of the Treaty claim that the Treaty is less ambitious than the Constitution. However many on both sides of the debate have said that it is essentially the same.
In a typically biased presentation on the European Union,
BBC says:
“Irish EU vote lost, officials say”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7452171.stm
I say:
“Irish EU vote WON!”
The Irish vote is the top story in the Northern Ireland section of the BBC website just now. Lucky Northern Irish, getting to vote – what about the rest of us in the UK?
This story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7451710.stm
which gently pokes fun at the low turnout and quaint democratic rituals, is a typical piece of subliminal pro-EU propaganda from the Beeb. People weren’t really that interested after all were they? A fuss over nothing. Best leave it to the politicians.
In spite of the eventual result, only one old biddy of 76 could be found who voted no. (A nice picture of a white haired granny accompanies the article. Obviously too old to embrace the future). Like everyone else interviewed, she doesn’t understand the treaty.
At least she had the sense not to sign up. Sound advice for anyone when conmen come calling in my book.
God bless the intelligence of the Irish people.
I firmly believe that the political classes in Europe backing the growth of the EU is similar to professional athletes voting for senior leagues. They want an additional trough to feed at when their own people finally reject their sorry asses from the local troughs. It’s an unemploment stream for rejects.
from the link james posted above, this quote from an irish voter
“I didn’t know anything about it and it is immoral to ask someone to vote on something they don’t understand ”
so all the irish voter are thick as pig shit according to Al Beeb
thank you ireland for saying NO
If D.Davis wants to support freedom for the British people, he could campaign for a restoration of national sovereignty, and opposition to European Union supremacism.
‘EU Referendum blogspot’ provides a worthy, principled example to follow. (That site regularly berates the BBC’s treatment of the EU issues.) Updates from that site on the Irish vote can be found here:
“Yessssssss! It’s No!
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/06/low-turnout-in-ireland.html
Some questions:
1.) Will freedom lovers in the UK try to stop this cynical Labour government from trying to ratify the Lisbon Constitution/Treaty? The demand for a Referendum must be kept up.
2.) Will bodies such as the BBC encourage a debate on issues such as:
“Who governs Britain?”
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2005/09/who-governs-britain.html
Arch-europhile Denis Macshane on BBC News just now – “There are some big losers in this • Turkey for example.” Yup, it’s all good.
DB: Yes and Jane Hill talked about the Irish “…letting good people like Turkey down..” Like we give a ****
I just saw an oldish BBC Euro correspondent bloke interviewed by Emily Maitland – didn’t catch his name.
Could barely believe my ears.
He said Bill Cash was right – and this result meant serious trouble for the EU in many member states, which could trigger a major re-structuring of the whole EU concept.
Well, well, well
Incidentally, all this stuff about them voting no because they didn’t understand is, of course, not true. 30% of those that voted no did say it was because they didn’t understand it, but 70% had another reason:
24% To keep Ireland’s power and identity
22% To safeguard Ireland’s neutrality
17% Don’t like being told what to do/ forced into voting yes
12% Bigger countries will have too much power
Re Jane Hill – I have seen this woman do a couple of reports on 24 this afternoon and it has to be noted that her general tone is that this is a very very bad thing for “Europe”.
Whatever happened to impartial REPORTING of a news story, as opposed to partisan, opinionated blathering?
Jane Hill is the dopey cow who said to Kate McCann (about leaving he kids all alone in a hotel room in a foreign Country) “Oh well we all do that!”
I wonder how many people read political party manifesto’s as General Elections? Perhaps we should outlaw them as well?
I thought we paid politicians to make the case (either way)?
Fabulous. Good on the Irish.
Isn’t that link posted above by James a piece of juvenilia of the type we have come to expect from the BBC in lieu of proper reporting? Either he is rabbiting on about a weedkiller or he is saying they have done something wrong or stupid or he doesn’t understand a metaphor he is using.
At least Mark Mardell knows how to write – well, apart from his howler about the BBC’s “1800 (that means the year eighteen hundred, Marky lad) bulletin”. He’s going back a bit – long before the EU, EEC, EC and all the rest of it. Oh, happy days, if only we had our own country and our own rule back.
Millie Tant: Never going to happen. Just like the BBC politicians se the EU as a potential job when the voters finally wake up to hoe crap they are.
Just think
Neil Kinnock
His wife
Peter Mandelson
The cream of British politics? I think not.
Why is Denis Matyjaszek so concerned about Turkey ? He is on our payroll.
Would you be after having another pint Paddy?
Been away in Brazil. I am the lucky one. Vive LE IRISH.
Now Gordon Brown, you coward, let the Brits vote and end this stupid European experiment for good
Let all the peoples of Europe vote !
Ah, the BBC. Tough on democracy, tough on the causes of democracy. We little just can’t be trusted to vote the right way so they are going to re-educate us all.
“There are some big losers in this • Turkey for example.”
Turkey? Turkey? This Turkey? Oh, Ireland – what have you done?
meggoman: You’re avin a larf mate! Gordon won’t even give the English their own Parliament, so forget about the EU.
Le Turkie – Nuls points!!!
Excellent. Payback for not letting their Eurovision entry into the song contest.
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
a great day
It’s a very good day!
Gizzavote Gord!
James
In that article there is another interesting omission. Not only can they not find space to quote a few more dissenters, but when they talk about the lack of understanding of the Treaty, they don’t mention why.
The treaty was deliberately, consciously and disgracefully written to be unintelligible.
Now I kind of believe the fools in the EU genuinely did this to get it ratified, not in order to take more power. However the result is that the document is effectively meaningless, and the EU and European courts can make of it whatever they want. A treaty that is unreadable is far too open to interpretation to be accepted under any circumstances.
How can people be asked to accept it, or to vote on it?
Martin:
Hush thy gob…the word “English” is verboten; has been officially abolished for the past ten years or so. England does not exist. Perhaps it never has existed. Did someone fall asleep in the shower and dream it up? Yes, I think that may be it: a figment of someone’s imagination.
I gather that MacShane stormed out of the Mayo show on Five Live today – did anyone hear at what time it happened? I’m damned if I’m going to listen again to the whole three hours!
Chuffer: Did he? I listened to quite a bit of Mayo today. Hour one had a bit of the Irish debate on, but was mostly sport, but I didn’t hear it all.
Hour 2 had some half wit on a violin and some bird who is in Fr Who tomorrow..
I didn’t listen much after 3pm so it might have been in the last hour.
I heard a commentator on the BBC say (re the Irish vote) that “it is looking bad”. Bad for whom?
Just a thought – it would really streamline decision making if the ill informed general public were not involved in the loop at all, and that a self appointed aristocracy just made all the binding, eternal, incontestable laws by fiat. Oddly that is exactly what the EU structure deliveres. Democratic deficit? Democracy plays no part whatsoever in EU policy development or implementation. Ireland was allowed a vote only because the EU thought that it was in the bag. We have already been told that the EU will set aside this blip as it ignored Ireland, Denmark France and Belgium when they had the temerity to question the ratchet effect policy.
Is there ANY chance that the BBC will systematically reveille the EU and its in the same way it systematically attacked liberal economic and political reform in Britain during the 1980’s? There is only one – if the Eu “lurches to the right” and drops its statist big government micromanagement: then the screams will be heard from the ironically named Bush house…
That ‘idiot’ Jane Hill (she with the David Coulthard jaw) was prattling on about how the Lisbon treaty was deisgned to make the EU work so much better blah blah blah.
I just wonder if she’s had her face out of the old nose bag long enough to actually read it?
“Ireland votes ‘No’! – Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!”
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2008/06/ireland-votes-no-rejoice-rejoice.html
Look at the 2.15 entry on the Open Europe blog :
http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/referendum-liveblog.html
“Meanwhile, Neil has done an interview with former Europe Minister Denis MacShane on the Simon Mayo show on Radio Five Live. He is literally shaking with rage and stormed out of the studio before the end of the interview…”
To hear Dennis McShane spit his dummy out go to the Radio 5 live webpage and listen to today’s show (Simon Mayo). The interview is 7 minutes in.
You don’t actually hear him walk out, he just says he’s off (coz someone kept asking him difficult questions)
i sent denis mcshane the following email after his strop on five live today,,,,
dear mr mcshane
i had the pleasure of listening to you on radio five live. i enjoyed listening to you bluster your way though a fairly simple interview. the fact that you cant argue the joys of greater european integration with an unknown campaigner shows two things.
1 there is no benifit in this god awefull treaty.
2 you are in terminal decline.
i allso enjoyed your glum threat to “go away” because you couldnt hack the interview. if you cant think of anywhere, i can offer you hundreds of suggestions.
thank you for letting me enjoy your live on air breakdown.
cheers…………
what a lowbrow prick.
Denis Matyjaszek.
What is shows is just how much the political elite hate the guts of the “unwashed masses”
They’ve become obsessed with the Guardian reading lentil munching skinny latte drinking elite.
Me thinks we need to get Madame Guillotine out and have another revolution.
I was just listening to today’s Mayo show, just to hear MacShane walk out. But before I got to that part, I heard Mayo talking to some Beeboid (Johnny something) reporting on – what else – the Irish ‘No’ vote. It seems that the Irish behaved similarly to the Dutch and French during the last referendum. They all voted no, obviously, but apparently they all had the same reason: there is an anti-establishment mood in Europe.
According to Johnny Beeboid, all these people were “only too happy, it seems, to turn out at the ballot box and give the government, give the business organizations, and the trade unions, all of those people, give them a kicking, and saying, ‘We’re not listening to you and we’re going to go our own way.'”
Oh. So it wasn’t because they were uninformed by “both sides” and just didn’t understand it? Or because of any slick “No” campaign? Or, you know, two-thirds of them wanted to remain independent and free of European meddling?
Then we learn that there are also no simple reasons why they voted no; there are a whole range of reasons, maybe the turnout, who can say, really.
In other words, we’re supposed to be so confused as to why the Irish voted No that they must have been wrong.
Oh dear – well, we’ll just have to ask the question again won’t we?
Question is, can they do that? Can the government force another referendum until they get the result they want?
David Preiser (USA) – of course the stupid Irish were wrong. Idiots. But don’t you worry; they’ll have another chance within 6 months or so to “correct” their mistake.
If they get the answer “wrong” again then a few back-room negotiations will surely mean they’ll get it “right” the time after that. And the EU will keep asking the same thing until everyone ignores “No” and ticks the “Aw Yes, why not; stop annoying me with this stuff over and over again you ejits” box.
Bryan, I think that Switzerland has a timescale before a referendum can be re-presented and most US states will only allow them on House/Senate election days. I believe Ireland is like the UK and can call them whenever they like … except in cases like this they are legally mandated to.
There would have to be some silly rewording of Clause 1842 SubSection 483(c) to force an Irish vote on a technically “new” version.
But in theory, most of the new pan-EU bodies and jobs have been brought in already, so us EU taxpayers either start saving up for some massive redundancy cheques or we just accept that Ireland will be ignored and they’ll just carry on anyway.
Better Off Out!