Count day
10.03.09
If i was really good I’d have an intense picture of tally counters looking seriously at bundles of ballots being counted but frankly I have too much else to worry about.
Yesterday was the Lisbon Treaty, re-submitted to the people for approval. As things stand, it looks as though the result is going to be a resounding yes this time as opposed to the slight majority that the No campaign garnered the last time.
There’s an [occasionally] entertaining twitter feed here if you are interested. I guess, however, if you were a No campaigner, it’s not quite so entertaining.
No one came and canvassed me. No knock at the door, asking if I had any views on the subject which in one was a pity. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I moved house lately and so was registered to vote about 10 miles away rather than across the road. But I still went and voted anyway because I believe that it’s important to vote either which way if you really care about the future of your country.
There’s been some debate on the subject in various different places. I tended to avoid it on the grounds that…political debate in Ireland is impoverished by entrenched positions and an inability to deal with uncomfortable realities. The yes campaign – for the most part – dealt with aspirations. We need Europe. We’re stronger by passing this treaty than by not passing it. The No campaign, for the most part, dealt in scare mongering lies. We will be forced to legalise abortion. We will be forced to kill off our uneconomically productive old people. We will be forced to send our young men off to war via conscription.
None of that was true. In particular, one campaign in my view should be cause for censure if we had a mechanism for it, and that’s the Coir Campaign. There was not one of their posters that I could look at and say “yeah, they have a point.” They depended on scaring the living beJaysus out of voters in the same way as their apparent not-colleagues, Youth Defence do when it comes to abortion. Realistically, it’s very Machiavellian, and the end justifies the means, doesn’t matter what happens to your integrity.
I voted yes last time round and I voted yes this time round as well. The way I see it, this treaty is not really a treat per se; it’s a way of streamlining how the monolith that is EUROPE does business. We’re forced to this because it has become far bigger than it ever dreamed of. I’ve worked in Brussels for a short time and when I say that it needs streamlining, I’m not really joking. I was not, however, so much in favour of enlargement without the streamlining being done first. This was the widening versus deepening argument. The truth is we got the widening anyway, it’s not efficient, it costs money and now we need to do some deepening anyway. For me, the Lisbon Treaty is pretty much a memorandum of management on how to do things more effectively. A lot of the people who are anti this are in favour of companies doing stuff like this, particularly when it comes to reducing headcount, for example. And a lot of the other people who are anti this are – apparently – socialists. Strange bedfellows.
There’s been a lot of argument over whether we should have a second referendum at all. I’m not against it. After all, there was that tendency to ask the people whether they wanted divorce or various versions of access to abortion every time either because someone didn’t accept the NO, or because for some, the NO was really not emphatic enough. And we don’t get to have referenda over any other treaties that we sign, particular human rights related ones. On balance I’m not convinced that a referendum was the right way to decide this treaty at all given that it was more house keeping than conceptual. Anyway.
The fact remains that Lisbon 1 was very heavily tainted by misinformation and lies and a large number of people voiced the feelign that they voted no because “they didn’t understand it”. It’s hard to reconcile that as a responsible way of doing things. But this time, in some respects, was even worse. There were people out there who were willing to vote no without reference to the treaty at all just to get at the government. This is short term thinking and in my opinion it’s stupid. You use general elections to get at the government. When it comes to constitutional changes, using that as a stick to beat the government with is puerile.
I know some people who voted no and I understand what their concerns were. They had nothing to do with abortion, conscription or euthanasia. They are people who have historically had issues with the European project and who could clearly enunciate why they were voting against constitutional amendments to allow the government to sign the Treaty. I don’t have a problem with this. I know other people who voted no because they are against abortion, against Fianna fail, couldn’t be bothered to read the treaty, or voiced a comment that the men of 1916 didn’t die for this. Well the men of 1916 didn’t die so we could pass 90 million to the banks either but that’s actually not the point. The fact is, I don’t vote according to what the men of 1916 would have done, frankly. 1916 was more than 90 years ago and the world has changed, life has changed and Ireland has changed.
I know some people who voted yes because they were scared of what Europe would think. This is hardly a sensible way to approach things either. Do the people in Cork really give a toss what the people in Dublin think when it comes to voting for or against Kathy Sinnott? The truth is, both approaches are a cop out.
I voted yes. I voted yes because for me, the treaty is nothing especially to worry about, has lots of good stuff in it and frankly, after that, life is still going to go on. They may be good reasons, they may be bad reasons but at least they weren’t based on speculation as to what the minimum wage would be in 18 months time. The local economy will have far more tos ay on that. Also, most of Europe is getting rid of conscription, not introducing it. Most of the things that the No campaign campaigned on is irrelevant. Stuff they could have worried about didn’t seem to bother them. I can’t figure out what that was.
The result looks like it’s going to be emphatically a yes. I’m quite happy about that although I’m not sure how much that is based on turn out increases or the beauty campaign of “Who scared us most.”
And this is the part that really aggravates me. The serious No voters that I know, that I mentioned above have been appalled and shocked at the behaviour and comments of most of their bedfellows. Where I have considered the Coir poster campaign to be hilarious, they have considered it to be frightening. Because they are afraid people will believe it. And I guess because they knew that it would damage their campaign. Unfortunately, there were a lot more voices out there raising insane objections to Lisbon treaty being ratified than there were sane voices. This is detrimental to democracy.
Both Caoimhin O Caolain and Joe Higgins have suggested that scare mongering on the part of the Yes campaign is why the no campaign lost. And that a 40% vote is a “good showing” for the no campaign according to Joe Higgins. I want to know why they can’t address the inanity that was the Coir campaign and I am sure if you did a poster census around Dublin, there would be more Coir campaign posters than any other campaigning organisation including Fianna Fail.
Then you have this.Particularly this one.
We need to reassess how we do stuff like this. Really.