The Impending Battle for Lisbon
Read more about: Europe, Ireland, Irish Politics, Lisbon Treaty, Referenda 
We can see already that there are groups with a multitude of colours sharpening swords for the impending Battle for Lisbon. This time though it appears it will be a battle not of parties but of people.
The Yes side has conscripted an array of celebrities to their army including Bill Cullen, Eimear Quinn (Of Eurovision fame, apparently) and Mick Galwey “rugby legend”. Those named are just a few of the people who make up of the “We Belong” club – a celebrity based third-party who are campaigning because am… we belong in Europe, apparently.
Judging by their site and campaign team they are going to be a primarily internet based campaign aimed at young people. Joining these we will have Generation Yes, a team of Trinity College attendees whose leader, Andrew Byrne, also works with the Cox/Laffan lead “Ireland for Europe“, the successor to the Alliance for Europe. Overall the entire Yes side is shaping up to be a crowded place, and each team will need to make a lot of noise to be able to claim some credit.
As they all appear to be preparing an online campaign (with the exception of Generation Yes who I don’t see as being very active outside of Dublin), they will be required to be very vocal in what they do, I don’t think Brigid Laffan is prepared to run down Grafton Street with flares in her hand singing “High School Confidential”.
On the No side we have Coir, Sinn Fein, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party and the other lefty fringe groups. Now, I’m sorry, but none of these groups are able to pull off a No vote. I’m sorry, it’s just not going to happen unless somehow Cowen and Lenihan implement the An Bord Snip cuts before the referendum.
So - although they face little threat and would hardly need it - there is method to the Yes side’s campaign. This is evident in the Red C and TNS/MRBI polls.
Politicians are not popular right now, so it seems the Yes side’s tactic will be to keep them locked away in their offices and let Bill “I sold apples for a penny” Cullen and Pat “Let’s hug Europe” Cox take charge this time ’round. By my reckoning this gives them a 30 points advantage before a ball is kicked or a leaflet dropped (when I said unpopular, I meant it…)
My own analysis, like many others, has the result going 80/20 Yes due to economic uncertainty and the fear of being cast out of Europe. However, it will be a vicious battle with vicious soldiers and it begins very, very soon. All that’s left to do now is to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
The question is - will the numbers of groups pushing for a Yes result in a dilution of the message they’re attempting to get across? Will the numbers of Yes groups effectively bottleneck on the “road to Lisbon”, resulting in a better than expected result for the No side and thus more speculation about what could have been from Higgins, the Shinners et al, post-referendum…
Eh.. 80/20? Sure.
Is 80/20 a reference to what you think the percentage votes will be or is that the odds of a Yes result?
Simon, 80/20 is a rounded figure and not too different then what pollsters are saying.
Michael, it’s the way I and pollsters are finding that the majority of votes will go. 80 yes, 20 no.
I beg to differ. I’m not buying the “non-political” spin put on the pro-Lisbon groups. “We Belong” director Olivia Buckley was FF director of communications in 2002-7. Her uncle is FF Ferbane Cllr Eamon Dooley, and her first cousin, Sinead Dooley, is Cowen’s full-time constituency secretary in Laois-Offaly, heading up the office in Tullamore. Meanwhile, “Women for Europe” boss Olive Braiden ran for FF in the 1994 Euro elections. “Ireland for Europe” is led by former FF General Secretary Martin Mackin, former MEP Pat Cox, former Labour General Secretary Brendan Halligan as well as Brigid Laffan and cannot possibly be termed “non-political”. Phoenix Magazine is correct to say “The mantra that Lisbon II is too important to leave to the politicians lies behind the creation of organisations like ‘We Belong’, a group of self-styled celebrities and personalities from the world of business and sport who favour a Yes vote. But as with ‘Ireland for Europe’…it’s the same old political hacks and Eurocrats that are really calling th shots…the presentation of visionaries and ‘cool’ personalities from the arts, sport and business is designed to give the impression that it’s not the political establishment and fat cats who are driving the Yes side.”
You deride the no side as consisting of Coir and “lefty fringe groups”, forgetting that it was ever thus in EU referenda before Lisbon, yet the people rejected Nice I. And even going back to the 1987, 1992 and 1998 referenda, where there was no Libertas, and where the much maligned “fringe groups” headed the opposition to those treaties, 30-40% of the Irish electorate who voted still voted against the proposition. There is a strong sense in this country that the Establishment are out of touch with the man on the street on a range of issues including European integration and immigration-controls. Despite their triumph in the European elections, the political-elites would be unwise to interpret the peoples decision as indicative of a collective will to oveturn the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. I sense a repetition of some of the mistakes of the first campaign, where they argued in favour of a proposition that was not being put to the people – namely – that we should remain in the EU. Well I think they will find that we already know that. But that is not the proposition we are being asked to adjudicate on – namely the Lisbon Treaty – and many of us are waking up to the negative role the Eurocrats have played in this crisis, including the Franco-German interest-rates that contributed signficantly, as well as the importation of exploited migrant-labour – to the housing-bubble by whose end 25% of Irish men were employed in the construction-sector. A dangerous overdependence on construction is what has this country in the state it’s in, and part and parcel of that is monetary-union. The French economy was in crisis in 2005 yet the French did not draw the conclusions that the Irish political-elite are asking us to draw. It may well be that the conventional narrative – that the elites are attempting to rewrite – that in the context of economic meltdown, industrial-unrest and a deeply unpopular government – the people are likely to take out their frustrations at the ballot-box – becomes a harbinger of what will transpire on October 2nd. I have my doubts that an electorate concerned with rising unemployment will want to increase competition from cheap labour by abolishing passport-controls through joining the Schengen Area, as provided for by Paragraph 7(ii) of the 28th Amendment to the Constitution Bill 2009. It should also not escape the attention of the Irish people that since Spain voted for the EU Constitution in 2005, unemployment has doubled to 17%.