The Unreported Yes Vote
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There’s been so much debate in the past week about the sneaky underhanded reasons why 53% of the population voted no to Lisbon. First, No Voters were a bunch of unreformed republicans; yesterday it emerged they were in league with UK fascists and jailbirds.
But it’s always gone unquestioned that the Yes Voters were a happy and benign bunch of Irish Government supporters.
Last weekend, in the Guardian of London, Colm Toibín voiced an intriguing and heretofore unreported reason as to why some Irish people supported the Yes campaign. He reminded readers of how the Irish Government of the 1970s had to be forced by the European Commission to introduce equal pay for women and decriminalise homosexuality before concluding:
‘I support the European project as a way of protecting me from Irish politicians. I voted for Lisbon, not because I wanted to follow the Irish political establishment but because I despise it and need protection from it.’
It’s not the first time I’ve heard this pro-treaty argument used. Casually discussing Lisbon with architectural colleagues in the days before the poll, I sometimes heard it said that that a Yes vote was essential to protect the environment from an Irish Government which could never be trusted to sort out planning. And I’m sure that people in other walks of life saw logic in voting Yes for Lisbon because imposing a higher, external, authority would override the Irish government in their own particular area of concern.
Ireland in the 1970s was no picture of the Enlightenment. But we don’t have to travel far through history to discover rather more compelling evidence of social intolerance lurking in the societies of our larger European neighbours. I’m not saying that the treatment of minorities in this country is ideal, but if at this very instant you were about to be born into the world as a woman (or a homosexual, or a Moslem, or anything other than Irish-looking-heterosexual male) and you were allowed choose the country you could live in, would Ireland in 2008 really be the last country in the EU on your list?
I suspect that the Toibín Strand was a larger part of the Yes Vote than that campaign would care to admit. As an argument for voting one way or the other it ranks up there with euthanasia for invalidity. The current batch of political leaders in this country is, I’ll grant, unfortunate. But Ireland is perhaps unique in Europe in that the electoral system allows people from various sections of society a real say in how things get done (Greens, PDs). The system is wide open to any individual (Declan Ganley) or group ready to push new ideas.
Toibín and those who voted Yes for the reasons he did are shirking their responsibilities to the community by not engaging in and exploiting to its fullest the political process. People are free to not like the Irish Government but claiming a need for protection from it is using 70s rhetoric in a 00’s reality. It’s no longer valid.
It’s up to us to sort ourselves out. Europe will have to wait.
Was it not the Green argument too that most of our best environmental law has come from Europe and not Dublin?
Its interesting that the leaked polls didnt say much about why people vote yes.
Yes, the Greens and others with environmental concerns saw a yes vote as a vote for the environment. EU environmental law may or may not be better than that generated in Dublin, but the fact that it may be is not sufficient reason for supporting the Treaty: there’s no real reason why we can’t have the best environmental and planning legislation in Europe, with or without the EU.
Cian I doubt that question will ever be asked. People voted Yes because the Lisbon treaty is the greatest thing since sliced bread and don’t you forget it. Less the ninjas come after you
there’s no real reason why we can’t have the best environmental and planning legislation in Europe, with or without the EU. No reason why we couldn’t, just that, sadly, the record so far shows that we don’t. Incidentally, it will be interesting to see if Brians Cowen and Lenihan veto some of the environmental promises in the program for government on the basis that we are now in a downturn and cannot afford luxuries like the environment.
Even if you disagree with the provisions in Lisbon, there is no point in trying to deny the significant progressive measures that Ireland enjoys as a result of EU membership.
As an additional point. I find it interesting how a growing Eurosceptic sentiment in Ireland tries to disguise itself as a voice for a better European Union when what it means is it views a better Europe as one without the Union. “I’m pro-Europe, but”. A bit like Declan Ganley heading off to Westminster to a wankfest to virulent Eurosceptics. Yes, Ganley, your pro-EU alright. What a pile of toss.
Tomaltach, I take your point about the fact that we ‘don’t’ have good environmental legislation even though we ‘could’. But isn’t that up to us? I mean, are we to simply to turn to Europe every time we have to legislate for things that we can’t bring ourselves to address?
Having Europe do for us what we can’t is a tempting reason to vote for Europe, not a good one. As a society, we have to grow up and take responsbility for our own patch of turf, otherwise we may as well abandon the project entirely.
As a no voter, I must say I am curious as to why Declan Ganley is meeting Eurosceptics in London. Although, at the back of it all, in my gut I don’t really think that Libertas delivered the no vote. It was something else, something we haven’t yet put our finger on.
The no vote was due to the treaty being 247 pages long and confussing plain and simple i think.
No but Libertas are the big winners and we are the mugs.
Tóibín’s point about the EU having a positive effect on Irish legislation is credible but homosexuality was legalised in 1993, not the 1970s. One might more persuasively argue that it was the two Rainbow governments of the mid 90s that were responsible for this, as well as other socially progressively legislation introduced at the time. It might have been limited but it was more than had been done for twenty years before that. The 1980s, in the post-Pope flurry of Catholic activism, were arguably worse than the 70s, and Irish governments didn’t feel terribly pressurised by Brussels to brighten things up.