Stephen Collins: 'Ratify Lisbon anyway'

[toxic avenger]

Words are actually failing me. A clear no vote, diminishing chance of a successful re-run, so Collins goes down the anti-democratic stitch-up route:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opi ... 80440.html

Selected quotes:

The Dáil must take the boldest of political steps - or else Ireland will return to being a client state of Britain, writes Stephen Collins

THE SQUABBLE between the Government and Opposition over a proposed Dáil commission to examine the pros and cons of the Lisbon Treaty only goes to prove that a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is doomed to almost certain defeat. At this stage it is hard to see how a confused and divided Yes side will be any match for a confident No campaign, awash with money and unhampered by any allegiance to truth.

So how can the Government find a way out of holding a second referendum while not ignoring the will of the people as expressed in June? The only way is for the Dáil to ratify the Lisbon Treaty while simultaneously opting out of areas such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which probably does require referendum approval, and the new defence arrangements whose misrepresentation prompted so many women to vote No.

Dáil approval, with opt-outs being put to a referendum later, would require the agreement of all 26 of our EU partners, but it could allow all member states to proceed with the new arrangements for the European elections next year as well as adopting technical changes in the way the union makes decisions. A deal to allow all states retain an EU commissioner would be easier to achieve under Lisbon than under the Nice Treaty and could be a selling point of the deal.

Of course the Government would also have political hell to pay for going the legislative route but it might not be nearly as bad as some Ministers think. After all the main reason given for voting No was that people didn't understand the treaty.

In that case a good proportion of the electorate might be relieved if the Dáil took on the responsibility of dealing with it, rather than opting for another long drawn out and confused public debate about issues people cannot, or will not, understand.

The anti-democratic arrogance is breathtaking. The people have voted the 'wrong' way, and must be ignored. How dare the majority do what the Irish Times thinks is wrong? We should let Irish Times staff decide what is best for us all.

[akanji]

One of my friend use to be a luggage general porter and left a luggages untagged outside sheppol airport and he was eventually identified by the name on his chest, but all he kept on singing and saying and shouting is that, NO TO LISBORN UNTIL HE GOT WACKED. L.O.L

[ibis]

Words are actually failing me. A clear no vote, diminishing chance of a successful re-run, so Collins goes down the anti-democratic stitch-up route:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opi ... 80440.html

Selected quotes:

The Dáil must take the boldest of political steps - or else Ireland will return to being a client state of Britain, writes Stephen Collins

THE SQUABBLE between the Government and Opposition over a proposed Dáil commission to examine the pros and cons of the Lisbon Treaty only goes to prove that a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is doomed to almost certain defeat. At this stage it is hard to see how a confused and divided Yes side will be any match for a confident No campaign, awash with money and unhampered by any allegiance to truth.

[quote:18rsst5y]So how can the Government find a way out of holding a second referendum while not ignoring the will of the people as expressed in June? The only way is for the Dáil to ratify the Lisbon Treaty while simultaneously opting out of areas such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which probably does require referendum approval, and the new defence arrangements whose misrepresentation prompted so many women to vote No.

Dáil approval, with opt-outs being put to a referendum later, would require the agreement of all 26 of our EU partners, but it could allow all member states to proceed with the new arrangements for the European elections next year as well as adopting technical changes in the way the union makes decisions. A deal to allow all states retain an EU commissioner would be easier to achieve under Lisbon than under the Nice Treaty and could be a selling point of the deal.

Of course the Government would also have political hell to pay for going the legislative route but it might not be nearly as bad as some Ministers think. After all the main reason given for voting No was that people didn't understand the treaty.

In that case a good proportion of the electorate might be relieved if the Dáil took on the responsibility of dealing with it, rather than opting for another long drawn out and confused public debate about issues people cannot, or will not, understand.

The anti-democratic arrogance is breathtaking. The people have voted the 'wrong' way, and must be ignored. How dare the majority do what the Irish Times thinks is wrong? We should let Irish Times staff decide what is best for us all.[/quote:18rsst5y]

That is pretty appalling alright. Once you start using the Dáil to set aside the results of referendums, where do you stop? Sure, the government is in a bind - it believes (correctly, I think) that Europe has decided it can't do without Lisbon, and that Ireland can't do without Europe - but, hey, who helped them and us into this bind by running the most lacklustre campaign since Nice I? It's Brian Cowen's lovechild, and nobody else should be taking the ugly thing home but him.

[toxic avenger]

That is pretty appalling alright. Once you start using the Dáil to set aside the results of referendums, where do you stop? Sure, the government is in a bind - it believes (correctly, I think) that Europe has decided it can't do without Lisbon, and that Ireland can't do without Europe - but, hey, who helped them and us into this bind by running the most lacklustre campaign since Nice I? It's Brian Cowen's lovechild, and nobody else should be taking the ugly thing home but him.

Agreement with Ibis on matter European?

*Calls ambulance before passing out*

[NotDevsSon]

Words are actually failing me. A clear no vote, diminishing chance of a successful re-run, so Collins goes down the anti-democratic stitch-up route:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opi ... 80440.html

Selected quotes:

The Dáil must take the boldest of political steps - or else Ireland will return to being a client state of Britain, writes Stephen Collins

THE SQUABBLE between the Government and Opposition over a proposed Dáil commission to examine the pros and cons of the Lisbon Treaty only goes to prove that a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is doomed to almost certain defeat. At this stage it is hard to see how a confused and divided Yes side will be any match for a confident No campaign, awash with money and unhampered by any allegiance to truth.

[quote:3c2ocr9c]So how can the Government find a way out of holding a second referendum while not ignoring the will of the people as expressed in June? The only way is for the Dáil to ratify the Lisbon Treaty while simultaneously opting out of areas such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which probably does require referendum approval, and the new defence arrangements whose misrepresentation prompted so many women to vote No.

Dáil approval, with opt-outs being put to a referendum later, would require the agreement of all 26 of our EU partners, but it could allow all member states to proceed with the new arrangements for the European elections next year as well as adopting technical changes in the way the union makes decisions. A deal to allow all states retain an EU commissioner would be easier to achieve under Lisbon than under the Nice Treaty and could be a selling point of the deal.

Of course the Government would also have political hell to pay for going the legislative route but it might not be nearly as bad as some Ministers think. After all the main reason given for voting No was that people didn't understand the treaty.

In that case a good proportion of the electorate might be relieved if the Dáil took on the responsibility of dealing with it, rather than opting for another long drawn out and confused public debate about issues people cannot, or will not, understand.

The anti-democratic arrogance is breathtaking. The people have voted the 'wrong' way, and must be ignored. How dare the majority do what the Irish Times thinks is wrong? We should let Irish Times staff decide what is best for us all.[/quote:3c2ocr9c]

1. There was no vote on the Lisbon Treaty (or any other treaty). There was a vote to amend the constitution to facilitate ratification and to add in extra lines into the constitution (a wording BTW FF entirely fukked up. A first year law student could have come up with a better draft to achieve the same effect!).

2. The role of ratifying treaties is ALWAYS a matter for the Oireachtas. All the amendment was, was an enabling provision. Treaties are always ratified by parliaments. (BTW the Oireachtas some weeks ago ratified another EU treaty.)

3. There is a strong legal case for saying that neither Lisbon, nor Nice, nor Amsterdam ever needed constitutional amendments, and hence referenda. It appears that successive governments have taken political decisions to amend the constitution when they were not needed.

In other words, legally there is no reason why the Oireachtas cannot ratify the treaty. It might perhaps do it using Article 26 to be certain.

The issue is whether politically it should do so. The problem Ahern/Cowen created is that they chose a referendum route when the belief is that there was no need for one. They then blew the referendum, and let patent absurdities be claimed by some on the No side without correcting them, from blatant misrepresentations of articles to complete fictions. As a result they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. There will be no renegotiation - for that to happen would require the agreement of the other signatories and from day 1 the other signatories, most of whom have already ratified it, have made it clear there is no chance whatsoever of renegotiation. That is not, and never has been, on the table. So it boils down to either Lisbon or Nice. The trouble with Nice is that it is a legal dog's dinner of a treaty, widely viewed as the worst treaty ever drafted in the EEC/EC/EU's history, riddled with holes and conflicts - for example, it makes a reduction in the commission mandatory, but requires unanimity to work out how the number of the reduction is decided post the treaty's adoption, producing a danger that if the 'how' could not be agreed, legally a new commission could not be formed, and if no commission is formed, under co-decision the EU effectively stops working because it is like an engine where a range of bits must work together and if one bit breaks down the engine seizes up. So for example, if a new commission cannot be appointed, all the money that comes to Ireland and everywhere else stops, as legally if there is no commission there is no body to authorise it's issuing. The safety nets the Nice Treaty should have contained in case the new commission's size could not be agreed, and in a whole range of other areas, were not provided. Nice is effectively a high wire act without a safety net, with its workings based on a lot of keeping fingers crossed, because if something goes wrong . . . "oh ************************".

The government is the author of the mess. They decided to go down an unnecessary route. They then ran a dog's dinner of a campaign and true to form tried to blame the opposition parties, even though it was their own treaty, negotiated by them, in a campaign chosen by then, a date chosen by them, etc. It is up to them to decide what to do next, whether they want to try another referendum on another constitutional amendment, whether they want legally to revisit Crotty, whether they want to use Article 26 or whether they want to try parliamentary ratification. I doubt if any of the opposition parties will make whatever they try easy. They arrogantly brushed aside opposition concerns during the referendum. They two main opposition publicly pleaded with the government to announce the date and begin an early campaign, only to find Ahern and Cowen (to be fair to him, Dick Roche was also trying to push them into taking decisions, but his bosses were dragging their heals) wouldn't make up their minds. The Government created the mess, stuck with a treaty Europe insists it needs, to replace a messed up previous treaty, and public opposition. It is their responsibility to come up with a solution, one which somehow takes into account the vote in Ireland, and the decisions in 26 other countries. It isn't going to be easy, but that is their problem.

[pikey]

I think the carry on of the yes side is the best thing to happen Irish politics in decades . People are genuinely waking up to the shysters running the country . Bring on Lisbon 2 .

[toxic avenger]

1. There was no vote on the Lisbon Treaty (or any other treaty). There was a vote to amend the constitution to facilitate ratification and to add in extra lines into the constitution (a wording BTW FF entirely fukked up. A first year law student could have come up with a better draft to achieve the same effect!).

2. The role of ratifying treaties is ALWAYS a matter for the Oireachtas. All the amendment was, was an enabling provision. Treaties are always ratified by parliaments. (BTW the Oireachtas some weeks ago ratified another EU treaty.)

3. There is a strong legal case for saying that neither Lisbon, nor Nice, nor Amsterdam ever needed constitutional amendments, and hence referenda. It appears that successive governments have taken political decisions to amend the constitution when they were not needed.

In other words, legally there is no reason why the Oireachtas cannot ratify the treaty. It might perhaps do it using Article 26 to be certain.

The issue is whether politically it should do so. The problem Ahern/Cowen created is that they chose a referendum route when the belief is that there was no need for one. They then blew the referendum, and let patent absurdities be claimed by some on the No side without correcting them, from blatant misrepresentations of articles to complete fictions. As a result they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. There will be no renegotiation - for that to happen would require the agreement of the other signatories and from day 1 the other signatories, most of whom have already ratified it, have made it clear there is no chance whatsoever of renegotiation. That is not, and never has been, on the table. So it boils down to either Lisbon or Nice. The trouble with Nice is that it is a legal dog's dinner of a treaty, widely viewed as the worst treaty ever drafted in the EEC/EC/EU's history, riddled with holes and conflicts - for example, it makes a reduction in the commission mandatory, but requires unanimity to work out how the number of the reduction is decided post the treaty's adoption, producing a danger that if the 'how' could not be agreed, legally a new commission could not be formed, and if no commission is formed, under co-decision the EU effectively stops working because it is like an engine where a range of bits must work together and if one bit breaks down the engine seizes up. So for example, if a new commission cannot be appointed, all the money that comes to Ireland and everywhere else stops, as legally if there is no commission there is no body to authorise it's issuing. The safety nets the Nice Treaty should have contained in case the new commission's size could not be agreed, and in a whole range of other areas, were not provided. Nice is effectively a high wire act without a safety net, with its workings based on a lot of keeping fingers crossed, because if something goes wrong . . . "oh * siúcra *".

The government is the author of the mess. They decided to go down an unnecessary route. They then ran a dog's dinner of a campaign and true to form tried to blame the opposition parties, even though it was their own treaty, negotiated by them, in a campaign chosen by then, a date chosen by them, etc. It is up to them to decide what to do next, whether they want to try another referendum on another constitutional amendment, whether they want legally to revisit Crotty, whether they want to use Article 26 or whether they want to try parliamentary ratification. I doubt if any of the opposition parties will make whatever they try easy. They arrogantly brushed aside opposition concerns during the referendum. They two main opposition publicly pleaded with the government to announce the date and begin an early campaign, only to find Ahern and Cowen (to be fair to him, Dick Roche was also trying to push them into taking decisions, but his bosses were dragging their heals) wouldn't make up their minds. The Government created the mess, stuck with a treaty Europe insists it needs, to replace a messed up previous treaty, and public opposition. It is their responsibility to come up with a solution, one which somehow takes into account the vote in Ireland, and the decisions in 26 other countries. It isn't going to be easy, but that is their problem.

The referendum was of course officially on amending the constitution, but we all know it was a 'yes' or 'no' to Lisbon. Perhaps, as FG's Tom Hayes argued, there was no need for a referendum. And of course it is the Oireachtas that ratifies. But all that is irrelevant. The country said no to Lisbon, clear as day. For someone to argue that the result should effectively be discarded, the parts that he thinks were rejected by the people (no-one has ever asked me), be excised for the time being, and the rest (in his judgment) be pushed through the Oireachtas without reference to the people, is the thinking of fascists. The people have spoken, their 'representatives' would be effectively staging a coup d'etat to go against them.

[Clanrickard]

2. The role of ratifying treaties is ALWAYS a matter for the Oireachtas. All the amendment was, was an enabling provision. Treaties are always ratified by parliaments. (BTW the Oireachtas some weeks ago ratified another EU treaty.)

NO! NO! NO! On legal advice the government put it to the people so it isn't ALWAYS a matter for ther Oireachtas. The Supreme Court said in the Crotty case that where an EU treay changed the direction of the EU it had to be put to the people. I know it's hard for the Mussolinis in the YES camp but that is democracy. All I can say reading Stephan Collins and the likes of you is GOD BLESS RAY CROTTY!

[FutureTaoiseach]

This sort of attitude - not taking no for an answer- is what makes people resent the EU in the first place and I strongly disagree with him. But I'm intrigued he brings up an optout from the Charter of Fundamental Rights - the enshrining into EU law of which is probably the worst part of the existing treaty to me personally. So while I strongly oppose the shenanigans of the yes camp trying to defy the Irish people's decision of Lisbon, I hope that SC's view that the Charter can only be ratified by referenda here is correct, as that would mean the worst part of the treaty is definitely dead, And as for a lot of no voters not understanding Lisbon, the same could be said about yes voters who cited supposed benefits of EU membership as reasons for voting yes, and if we go down the road of setting aside referenda results on that basis, then pretty soon the elites will be advocting similar grounds for setting aside election results too. The people are sovereign in our constitution and the elites must abide by our no vote

[Destiny's Soldier]

Collins' column might make sense if it were a "strictly confidential" briefing to Government ministers. Instead its a blatant in your face commentary favouring subversion of the will of the people.

Any attempts to ratify the treaty other than by consent of the people will inexorably lead to civil unrest and even civil war.