How?

They can afford to misinform, they afford to selectively quote. The Yes side cannot. They must be straight to the point, they have be ironclad, there can not be no doubts.

Evert’s choice of words is a striking example. Instead of referring to the Broadcasting Commission and the Referendum Commission he calls them “The Irish Government”. This is something that is hard to refute as these bodies, though set up by are Government and are independent are seen as Government Agencies as they have a statutory basis.

Lets take a look at the other “facts” claimed by Evert.

The Irish government removes legislation that made for equal airtime for both sides of the debate.

There never was legislation to this effect. There was a court ruling which stated that both sides in a referendum should be given “equity” of time nor equality. Also Broadcasting Commission, if he was referring to them, have nothing to do with RTÉ which he refers to in the comments section. RTÉ has its own authority in relation to this.

The Irish government enters into a contract with a PR firm to handle publicity for the “Yes” campaign without going through the required public tender process.

No public tender was required. Most of the Yes side would have preferred a different PR firm considering the result last time out. Clauses that retain the use of a firm in similar circumstance is standard EU practice.

“No” campaigners get likened to terrorists in the national press.

Its now wrong to have an opinion?

Bill Cullen can just refuse to disclose financial details of his campaign in support of a “Yes” vote. Remember, Declan Ganley got raked over hot coals on his campaigns finances…

Which campaign is Bill on? I don’t recall him fronting a group? If he has made contributions to a group, it will be sent to SIPO at the end of campaign.

Green party suggest postponing vote on NAMA until after Lisbon referendum

Surprising that politicians want to focus on one debate? I see this as a common sense move. Both the Green Party and Fianna Fail are officially pro-Lisbon so what’s wrong with them arranging their schedule to achieve their goals? Even if the grassroots Greens don’t want NAMA to pass they do want Lisbon to pass.

Sinn Fein is still the “Yes” campaigners strongest argument.

Opinion and what are is Evert trying infer?  That Sinn Fein are somehow pro-Lisbon and only campaigning to undermine the No side? Really?

Intel can make public statements and run a campaign promoting a “Yes” vote without accusations of it “not being a legitimate political party”.

Nobody asked Intel to start a campaign. Intel is not acting as a political party it is acting as a business which is putting its money where its mouth is. Intel have been challenged on this. SIPO is been contacted on it. So they are not free of accusations.

And the biggest fact: we already voted on this and it hasn’t changed. NO MEANS NO!

We have voted on a number of things more then once in this country.

• Electoral System twice (‘59 and ‘68)
• Abortion (‘83, 92, and ‘02)
• Divorce (‘85 and ‘95)
• Nice Treaty (‘01 and ‘02)

A lot of the Yes Campaign is going to spent like this, refuting these points which are selective and incorrect.

–

In a decision sure to spark furious condemnation from “no” campaigners, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland has announced new regulations on airtime set to grant the political-parties the vast majority of airtime during the campaign.

Broadcasters are not required to allocate exactly the same amount of time to both the Yes and No campaign when it comes to editorial coverage.

However, they must ensure that the total airtime given over to political party broadcasts is equal.

The guidelines come into effect from Friday, ahead of polling on October 2.

Willie O’Reilly, chairman of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, said the Coughlan case meant broadcasters were strait-jacketed into dividing time equally, regardless of the merits of any argument.

“The perversity of this is that weak arguments gain traction with repetition, and charismatic leaders of doubtful representation are feted by the media,” he said.

“It is a cranks’ charter….Fine Gael TD Jim O’Keeffe said the forthcoming referendum on children’s rights had cross-party support, but the policy of giving equal airtime to both sides in a referendum debate could result in a group such as “a paedophile association” being given 50 per cent coverage”.

Article 40.1 of the Bunreacht na h-Eireann – largely the basis of the Supreme Court judgements – states:

1. All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. This shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social function.

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…

A quick look in the EIB’s website will show one clearly that this is already the case. Under the heading “how to apply for a loan” it states quite simply:

“No special formalities are involved for the submission of applications to the EIB for individual loans. Project promoters are required simply to provide the Bank’s Operations Directorate with a detailed description of their capital investment together with the prospective financing arrangements”.

As for who is eligible to apply?

“Individual loans (direct loans) are granted to projects where the total investment cost exceeds EUR 25 million (EUR 10 million in the case of ACP). The EIB may finance a maximum of 50% of the total cost of any project.Individual loans are available to promoters in both the public and private sectors, including banks.”

De Rossa goes on to say that “The European Investment Bank has already provided €350 million to Irish banks to lend to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) “but businesses still cannot get funds from banks”.

A quick check with the EIB’s website shows that loans for Ulster Bank, AIB & BOI totaling €300m were signed on the 24th & 25th of March this year. The assertion that SME’s cannot get funds from banks has nothing to do with the Lisbon treaty. It has everything to do with the fact that the Irish banking industry has collectively committed financial seppuku through over-exposure to the property market and it’s ugly brother, the construction industry. They are hoarding every penny they can get their hands on hoping to create some sort of safety net for when the shit really hits the fan. Talking about which, it looks like the first turd went flying today.

Anyway, a yes for Lisbon will not make EIB funds any more or less available to Irish SME’s. As was to be expected Labour has kicked off it’s campaign is using exactly the argument that I expect to become prevalent over the next few months: “you lot voted no to Lisbon and look what happened to the economy!”. This is utter and absolute nonsense.

The economic downturn was created in the years before the referendum and that argument is non sequitur if I ever saw one. To see it being dragged out and paraded in public as an argument for Ireland to go running to Brussels to get more of the Euro-dollar is sickening. Stop sucking the euro-titty! We had the fastest growing economy in the world and there is enough of it left to rebuild an economy that is stable, self-supporting and most of all build around companies that will not run to the next low-cost country when labour costs increase.

But let’s ignore all the detailed, drawn-out arguments that I can put forward proving the pro-Lisbon campaigners categorically wrong. There really is only one : we already said no! That’s right, you had the democratic process, you ran your campaign, you held a referendum and you lost! End of story.

Now the fact that the Irish government has decided to ignore democratic process by running a 2nd referendum should be a clear sign of what awaits us if the Lisbon treaty is ratified. Now democracy is not a something that was recently made up by us anti-Lisbon malcontents to suit our argument. Democracy has been around since sometime around 508BC. The Irish constitution, on which our state is built, subscribes to this form of government. This means that when a referendum is held that the majority vote rules. Well the majority voted “NO”.

But oh no, Brian Cowen (no great proponent of freedom of expression) and his group of intellectual knuckledraggers, Labour included, have gone belly-crawling to Brussels and have come back to the Irish people with a number of “legal guarantees”. Well let me explain something; these so-called guarantees are not worth the paper they’re written on. If they were really legally binding they would de-facto change the whole treaty requiring it to be re-ratified by all EU member states. Most of which now that you mention it, never put this treaty to their people in a referendum. Convenient n’est pas?

So in short, we have a treaty that is already an almost carbon copy of a previously defeated treaty (remember Nice?), that most European citizens did not get a chance to vote on, whats-more that Ireland voted NO on, and now they want us to vote again based on a bundle of sketchy, no-good “guarantees”? No thanks, Mr Gilmore.

The Indo’s team point out that Kenny did not rule out a coalition with any party when speaking to TG4 at the FG Ard Fheis earlier this year. They quote the opposition leader as saying “Sinn Fein have changed. I am not ruling anyone out at all”. Fair point, nice work.

They also draw attention to the fact Kenny rounded on former party leader (now also former party member) Garrett FitzGerald over FitzGerald’s statement yesterday on how FG voters should use their second preferences.

FitzGerald said that FG supporters should favour pro-Lisbon parties – “If that means Fine Gael people, and Labour, voting for Eoin Ryan before [Joe] Higgins or [Mary Lou] McDonald, then that’s the way it should be, I believe.”

Obviously that would give Ryan a better chance of keeping the Fianna Fáil seat in Dublin, something Kenny wouldn’t love to see happen. The loss of that seat would be a huge blow to FF and in combination with a slap from the electorate in the locals has the potential to force Cowen over the edge. Kenny says he wants a general election…

Interestly, The Indo also note that foreign affairs minister, Michael Martin has called on Kenny to clarify his position on Sinn Féin – clearly FF has jumped on this as a chance to rattle the main opposition party before Friday. However, if memory serves me right (and it doesn’t always) Dermot Ahern was also making statements like “we won’t rule anything out” before the last general election, so there may be an element of hypocrisy in Martin’s request.

It’ll be interesting to see where this will go, if anywhere. I’d love to know Labour’s current position on Sinn Féin, anyone fancy putting in a call to one P.DeRossa?

Maybe Simon Cowell wants some of that action….

Edit: Can we all please nominate Mark Coughlan? Thanks.

While the other parties rely on the same, old politicians with the same old, tired ideas… we want YOU to run. We need real people with fresh ideas, not out-of-touch élites.

That’s where you come in. Here’s your chance to become a candidate, or nominate someone you know to be a candidate, to join our movement.

www.libertas.eu/candidate

Change never comes easily. Brussels bureaucrats fear a movement of the people. That’s the problem with the national parties. While they may be able to effect change in each member country, they are powerless in Brussels (where even the largest national party controls only a tiny fraction of the seats).

That’s why Libertas was created. The only way we are going to take back Europe for the people is by creating a pan-European movement, unlike anything that’s been seen before. Libertas is our last and only chance to give everyone in Europe their say.

Why don’t you go and protect your own interests against the Brussles elite? A pan-European movment of assorted Polish rightwingers, French aristocracy and you!

Go on, the establishment dares you!

The ambassador was also said to have noted that rural regions such as Kerry returned a much higher No vote than urban areas in last year’s referendum.

He reportedly made pointed references to those who “complain about other nations fishing in their waters. . . and forget who pays their milk subsidies”.

The Ambassador stood full sqaure behind his comments though and that is interesting.

“The reports make it sound like I was lecturing Ireland and the Irish but it was not meant to be aggressive or demeaning,” he said.

“A second No would have horrific consequences for Ireland and I am not the first to say it. I don’t think there is anything particularly new in that.”

The ambassador rejected suggestions his remarks could be considered undiplomatic. “They are not. I am simply conveying what my government thinks. That is my job.”

Mr Pauls said that in the run-up to the first referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, foreign diplomats based in Ireland had “stayed quiet” on the issue because they did not want to be seen as interfering in the Irish vote. The ambassador said he no longer considered this necessary.

“We are in a different stage in the ballgame now. . . Everybody seems to be forgetting that this is a family issue involving 27 family members. I find the prospect of a second No frightening and I am going to continue making that case.”

A different ball-game indeed, and the clear assertion that he has the backing of his government. The gloves are coming off for Lisbon II not least with money coming to a less-well off Fianna Fail from their new liberal buddies. The foreign governments don’t appear quite so willing to let the government get on with it and why would they – look at the parsing of the voter analysis done over at the Cedar Lounge, the only conclusion is an utterly inept government campaign cost them a victory and put Cowen on the slide toward where he is now.

Libertas were making all sorts of noise about this, getting the customary final paragraph but I wonder what kind of influence they will continue to have on the EU Treaty debate. The idea that they galvanised centre-right voters, pro-business and usually pro-Europe by proffering the good Chairman Ganley to speak to their concerns is slowly undermined by the hook-ups with various elements across Europe that turn voters off. It may be that they will have to sacrifice that treaty kudos for parliamentary representation, a major gamble if the EU elections go against them.

Nonetheless, we have officially been told – the EU will not be standing idly by this time round and, like Nice II, I wouldn’t be surprised to see far more people vote ‘yes’ based on a better understanding but also out of a fear of turning into Iceland.

Or at least, he wasn’t at the time.

Well, the government lost the referendum, so after a few months of soul searching and sulking in the Dail bar, Cowen and company headed for Brussels to see what the governments of other EU states would agree to in order to soothe the fears of the Irish voter. I don’t know if they used Ganley’s tickets, but here’s hoping they did. At a time when the government refuses to give cancer vaccines to children, you’d hope they’d take up any chance to save the tax payer a few quid.

Last week, Minister Michael Martin offered the following summary of the consequences of the Brussels talks.

Last week’s agreement means that, if Lisbon is ratified, we will retain the right to nominate an Irish person to future European Commissions. This is a major concession on the part of the other member states. Our people’s clear desire to retain a permanent Irish presence at the commission table in Brussels will be respected, but only if we ratify Lisbon.

Our second aim last week was to get a satisfactory response to concerns that surfaced about the possible implications of the treaty for a range of issues such as taxation, defence, social and ethical issues and workers’ rights.

On Friday, EU leaders gave us a commitment that Ireland will have its concerns satisfactorily addressed. Specifically, they have undertaken to provide full legal guarantees with regard to taxation, Ireland’s traditional policy of neutrality and the provisions of our Constitution concerning the right to life, education and the family. This represents a very significant achievement.

The bottom line is that the Irish people have spoken and EU leaders have listened. Those who were expecting mere declarations in response to Irish concerns have been proven wrong. What is being offered are firm legal guarantees with treaty status. In addition, the summit confirmed the high importance attached by the union to workers’ rights, one of the issues included in the Government’s statement of the Irish people’s concerns.

Personally, I’m not impressed by the new arrangement regarding commissioners. It’s not as though you can see many benefits from having Charlie McCreevy over in Brussels, but given that Libertas made the commissioner issue the linchpin of their campaign, you’d have thought that Ganley and his minions would have been happy about this. After all, Ganley ended the press conference where he produced the tickets that he bought the pro-Lisbon party leaders by offering to pay their taxi fare to the airport and declaring

Our message to voters is very clear. On Thursday, send Brian back to Brussels, and tell him not to come back without a commissioner. On Friday, he will have both the mandate, and the means, to get a better deal.

Ganley reacted in the following way:

The Irish government and the powerful elite in Brussels are showing utter contempt for the democratic decision of the Irish people in rejecting the Lisbon Treaty. Not one sentence will change in a “new version”. Some non-legally binding texts will be added in an attempt to fool the people. They tried this with the French, they tried with the Dutch, they are trying with the Irish. It’s time to put a stop to this bullying.

Now what needs to be understood at this point in time is that Ganley knows no more than any of us. The government will announce the details of the legally binding guarantees only after the technical details have been finalised, most likely in June of next year. It is probable that these guarantees will take the form of an international treaty, which is about as legally binding as they come. Ganley seems to be claiming that he knows the details of a treaty that doesn’t exist yet. It seems that not only is Ganley a wonderful businessman but he’s part-time psychic as well.

Let’s face it, Ganley and Libertas lack any resembling credibility. Their history is short but complicated and their message is ever-changing.

Ganley claims to be pro-European. He claims to have supported the government on all of the other referendums held relating to Europe over the years. This would include treaties like the Mastricht and Nice. Previously, I offered the following summary of the contradictions in Ganley’s position.

He never read the Nice Treaty, but supported it, apparently thinking it wasn’t really necessary to do so, yet when it came to the Lisbon Treaty, he condemned others for not having read the document.

He supported the Nice Treaty even though other countries did not get to vote on it, yet when it comes to Lisbon, it’s wrong that other countries don’t get to vote.

The Nice Treaty that he supported created the situation whereby membership of the Commission would be reduced, yet he urged voters to reject the Lisbon Treaty because it would mean we would not have a commissioner.

Ganley supported Nice in spite of the fact that it removed our veto on matters relating to ‘enhanced cooperation’ but asked the public to oppose Lisbon because ‘enhanced cooperation’ threatened our tax system when the only real change the Lisbon treaty made to matters regarding ‘enhanced cooperation’ was to make it slightly more difficult to achieve.

He supported the government’s approach to the defeat of the Nice Treaty referendum, but opposes the government when they use the same approach to the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty.

It’d take a professional conspiracy theorist or an excellent psychoanalyst to figure out just what happened to Declan to make him change his mind between Nice and Lisbon, but since I’m neither, I”ll leave it to readers to come up with their own theories. What I will say though is that Ganley’s apparent change of opinion in regard to the matters discussed above was glacial in its speed when compared to the rapidly changing arguments presented by Libertas during the Lisbon referendum campaign.

Libertas posters were reported as claiming that Lisbon affected Ireland’s ability to set its own corporation tax rates. Ganley now accepts this, but during the campaign he generally moved on to vague chatter about enhanced co-operation. After the treaty, he admitted that the absence of the Lisbon treaty really didn’t eliminate the supposed threat to Ireland from enhanced co-operation.

Other Libertas bill boards focused on personalities like Lucinda Creighton and Peter Mandelson, who had nothing to do with the campaign. Lisbon had nothing to do with Mandelson’s dealings with the WTO and Lucinda Creighton’s views on European military policy shouldn’t have been an issue. The Libertas campaign also suggested that by voting No we would save our commissioner. This was also false. There were reports that Libertas were also making unfounded claims about the impact of Lisbon on Ireland’s abortion laws. Every time that Libertas was caught out spreading a falsehood they modified their position.

Now with a new referendum in sight, Libertas’s priorities and arguments have changed yet again. Gone (for now) is the talk of corporate tax rates, European armies, Peter Mandelson, commissioners and all the other nonsense of the past. This time, we must vote ‘No’ because of democratic deficits and for other reasons not considered important enough to paste across billboards last time out. The only constant in the Libertas campaign is their commitment to oppose the treaty using any argument available to them. It’s not the government that seeks to “fool the people”, but Libertas. They’re no more pro-Europe than UKIP. Libertas was never about Lisbon. It’s all just been a stepping stone for Ganley on his quest to re-model the EU after his own design.

UPDATE: A politics.ie thread produces the transcript.

But Fine Gael and the Conservatives are closer to a similar position on taxes; the Irish government with tax increases imminent (the income levy) and Gordon Brown promising increases in national insurance (and VAT?) within a couple of years, while FG and the Conservatives are opposed to any tax increases.  On the other hand, Lisbon is a bit of a landmine for Dave, as he surely hopes his promise of a UK referendum will be moot by the time he might be in a position to offer it, as it would be highly likely to generate a No result.  Whereas FG have the luxury of an unambiguous pro-Lisbon position that allows them to outflank FF as the reliable Europhiles in Ireland.  And on Northern Ireland, it can’t have much more of a tour d’horizon although Enda was perhaps curious to see what Dave might say at the UUP conference next week.

So all in all, there was probably more meat in the discussion of strategy than policy.  Enda could certainly take note of Cameron’s approach in PM’s questions — one very pointed question at the start which then leads into a broader to and fro with Gordon Brown, with the hope of a soundbite that makes it the evening news.   For example, I thought Cameron’s line about Brown giving the UK “the debt levels of Italy and the accounting practices of Enron” was not bad at all.  Among the many questions prompted by comparing the two leaders, one perhaps stands out.  Cameron has a rapport with many London voters and Boris Johnson shows that the party can overcome the image of buffoonish toffs to win elections there.  But does FG have electoral buoyancy in Dublin?  It’s hard to see an election win without it.