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The conditional respect of pots and kettles
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Today’s scenes in the EU Parliament, as detailed by Simon here, show a particular hypocrisy on the part of the protesters who urge the EU to ‘Respect’ the Irish vote. However they are not hypocrites because they only wish to respect the Irish voice now as opposed to a few centuries ago, as was oddly suggested by Avril Doyle, but because they are only telling the EU to listen to Ireland after it gave the “right” answer.
The issue of respect at European level has played a significant role in the Lisbon Treaty debate and in every application it has been conditional. We would lose the respect of our EU counterparts, we were told, if we gave the “wrong” answer and voted ‘No’. The underlying assertion here being that respect between countries can only exist when there is total agreement on all issues.
Today’s protesters are equally conditional in their support - would we be seeing the same silly green tops had Ireland voted ‘Yes’?
The fact is that both extremes of the Lisbon debate in wider Europe are only looking for convenient alliances, not constructive relationships and perhaps this in itself is indicative of the illness that is truly weakening Europe.
Even now we are hearing the line that while countries will ‘respect’ the Irish vote they must also ‘respect’ the ratification of Lisbon in other countries - although they fail to state how this is practicable. When it is expanded upon the point is made that if 26 say ‘Yes’ and only 1 says ‘No’ then surely it would be undemocratic to destroy Lisbon - no-one seems to ask them why it was agreed that Lisbon must be unanimous if it is now felt that any single country effectively using a veto on the issue would be doing a great disservice to everyone else?
The reality is that Ireland will not pay much heed to UKIP and their ilk as they understand just how self-serving and conditional their support is. Here is hoping they also take no notice of those who say they cannot respect an Ireland that does not want Lisbon - their respect was never worth having in the first place.
as was oddly suggested by Avril Doyle
“Odd” how exactly?
I hope no-one’s under any illusion that the so-called British (for which we can probably as well say English) ‘Eurosceptics’ aren’t the same types who would defend Bloody Sunday, shoot-to-kill or any other number of dark chapters in what is euphemistically referred to as Britain’s ‘relationship’ with this island.
“Odd” because it was irrelevant to the topic and it implied that these people actually respected our vote - Surely Doyle would have know that they respect Ireland’s right to make its mind up about as much as the most imperialistic British parliamentarian did in centuries gone by.
Rather than argue with them on the fact that they don’t really care about Ireland’s vote she decided to invoke Ireland’s own Goodwins. I find that an odd thing to do when it’s an argument that’s easily won. I found Brian Crowley’s waffle about them not respecting our flag equally irrelevant - like anyone should be surprised.