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Lisbon: the nuclear option
Read more about: Europe, Lisbon Treaty 
Quentin Peel in the Financial Times has been doing a nice job with occasional look-ins at the referendum campaign and prospects. Today he goes through the options that none of the EU governments or the EU institutions want to talk about: what happens if the treaty is rejected? He sets out 4: an added Ireland-only protocol with a revote, renegotiation, fait accompli (where the 26 would act as if it was ratified and leave Ireland to find its own solution), or dumping the entire treaty. He also looks at the very specific headaches it would create for Gordon Brown, where parliamentary ratification will be contentious. Particularly interesting is his view that Lisbon is an unloved project among the large member states, who might not shed too many tears with a walk-away. Note also the latest noises about another referendum (after the brief prospect of one in Poland): now Italy might have one.
I don’t think the option of a new 26 member EU is realistic. This was not what happened when the French and Dutch said no. To all intents and purposes, this will be the third time this blueprint has been rejected by a European electorate. Maybe this time the Eurocrats will get the message that the peoples of Europe feel that integration has gone far enough.
FT “fait accompli (where the 26 would act as if it was ratified and leave Ireland to find its own solution)” means that we would have to vote again or sort something out amongst ourselves (like sacrificing Cowen before the Gods of Libertas or some such) with no change in the Treaty.
I agree. The 26+1 EU option is bizarre and hard to see how it would even comply with previous EU treaties if the others went ahead and tried to implement Lisbon’s provisions affecting Ireland. I think it’s best understood as a game of chicken between the others and Cowen, with each waiting for the other to blink first.
As for the first option, since the opposition to the treaty is diffuse, it’s not clear what specific issues a protocol would address.