Ireland says No to Nice
The people of Ireland made an historic decision.They rejected the Treaty of Nice which the government, the main 'opposition'parties and the entire establishment told them they must endorse. On theYES side apart from the government parties were the two largest opposition parties, the Irish Business & Employers Confederation, the leadership of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (which did not consult its members), theEuropean Commission and its agencies, the Roman Catholic Church (with thehonourable exception of two bishops) and virtually without exception the media.
From the beginning the Irish government's strategy was one to confuse thevoters. The government would have preferred to ratify the Treaty of Nicewithout a referendum, but the Irish Attorney General advised them that thiswould be unconstitutional and liable to a successful challenge in the IrishSupreme Court. The current Irish government is a coalition of the FiannaFáil party, which is allied in the European Parliament with the FrenchGaullists and the Progressive Democrats, a small right-wing party. It is aminority government and relies on the support of a number of non-partydeputies to remain in power. The major opposition parties Fine Gael (alliedwith the EPP group in European Parliament) and the Labour Party (a member ofthe PES, European Socialist Group) were even more enthusiastic supporters of the Nice Treaty.
To add to the attempt at confusion the government decided to hold fourreferenda on the same day. One of these, dealing with the removal fromoffice of corrupt or wayward judges, had to be dropped because it wasseriously flawed. The others were on the ratification of the International Criminal Court, the abolition of the Death Penalty and, of course, theill-fated Nice Treaty.
There was no necessity to rush any of these referenda. The death penaltywas last carried out in Ireland almost 50 years ago, and the Nice Treaty didnot require to be ratified before December 2002. The government attemptedto railroad the Treaty through with maximum haste and confusion. The otherissues were thrown in to cause further confusion. Fortunately the Irishpeople refused to be fooled.
The issue of Irish neutrality is very important to the Irish people. Sinceachieving our independence we have retained that neutrality. We have playeda very important role as an honest broker in UN peacekeeping in places suchas the Congo, Cyprus, Lebanon, etc. In recent years there has been a moveaway from that neutrality, led by the main establishment parties and byelements in the Irish army who would be happier playing soldiers in "realwars". Before the last election (1997) the then leader of the opposition,Bertie Ahern said he would hold a referendum if any change in our neutralstatus were to be advocated. He also rejected NATO's PfP as being totally unacceptable. Once in office he changed his mind and in late 1999 hebrought Ireland into PfP without any referendum. This was blatant dishonesty.
The three week referendum campaign was totally inadequate in terms of timefor a proper debate and the pro-Nice lobby refused to engage in any debateon the future of Europe. Their campaign was totally dominated bypersonalised attacks on those opposed to Nice. One junior governmentminister described the opponents of the treaty as "malcontents" and therewere similar comments from more senior government figures including theTaoiseach (Prime Minister), Bertie Ahern who claimed that the NO campaignhad received £100,000 (Euro 128,000) from right-wing fundamentalists in theUnited States of America. This was completely untrue. An attempt at a"red-scare" was also made.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Mary Harney, leader of the Progressive DemocratParty said that she would be "embarrassed" if the Irish people were to vote NO and there were many comments stating that a NO vote would be a "kick in the teeth" to the new East European applicant countries. These comments have increased in intensity since the result of the referendum wasannounced. The Workers' Party of Ireland produced very clear and coherentliterature explaining our position on the Nice Treaty. We were neveropposed to enlarging the European Union, and would welcome the newapplicants. However we pointed out that Ireland joined the EU as an equalwith the other eight members at that time. The new rules under Nice wouldcreate a two-tier Union of 27 members with the six largest countries beingable to outvote the combined strength of the other 21 states.
The Workers' Party, a small party that is currently not represented inparliament, ran a national campaign on very limited funds, but it was animpressive campaign, so much so that the Deputy Prime Minister and a numberof other ministers attacked us. "The Workers' Party", said Ms. Harney "ishostile to international companies that account directly for at least 140,00jobs in Ireland today. If these left-wing parties had their way they'ddrive those jobs out of Ireland. They'd impose high taxes and crippling regulation on all business, international and local, small and large. Andjust as they used to speak up for the oppressive Communist regimes theyoffer nothing but continued poverty and misery to the peoples of EasternEurope with their wild anti-enterprise policies" - (statement at governmentpress conference in Cork City 25th May 2001). This was the type ofhysteria which became a hallmark of the government campaign. The reality isthat Ms. Harney and her government have commenced a major privatisationcampaign which will see the loss of many thousands of Irish jobs. TheWorkers' Party has long favoured a policy of full employment and activestate intervention to create jobs through the development and harnessing ofour not inconsiderable natural resources.
The Irish people saw through the government's hysteria and its failure toengage in real debate on the Treaty of Nice. When the votes began to becounted last Friday it was clear that Nice had been rejected. Deputy PrimeMinister Harney's constituency returned the highest NO vote in the country(61%). The Taoiseach, Mr. Ahern's constituency, Dublin Central had thefourth highest NO vote (60.6%). Only 2 of the 41 parliamentaryconstituencies voted YES, both of them affluent areas in South Dublin.There was a solid working class NO vote.
There is a definite attempt in the Irish media and among the EU bureaucratsto portray the Irish NO vote as being one driven by selfishness. They aretrying to say we voted NO because we did not want to share Europe's wealthwith the Eastern European applicants. This is utter nonsense. In fact wemade it clear that we wanted these countries to join the EU on the sameterms as we joined, not as second class members. These are the reasons wegave for advocating a NO vote:
The Workers' Party is proud of the role it has played in the referendum on the Nice Treaty. Our members worked hard as did those in the other groupson the NO side. We are determined not to have this victory snatched awayfrom us by anti-democratic forces. We are now seeking the help of ourcomrades in friends in Sweden and other EU countries who oppose the further integration and militarisation of the EU. You can help us by sendingmessages to your own government that the wishes of the Irish people must beaccepted and accommodated and that means discarding the Treaty of Nice. You are also encouraged to send messages to the Irish government and Irishnewspapers on this point.
Click Here for the referendum statement
Thursday 7th June 2001