raystone
06-24-2008, 02:39 PM
The following FT article was written explaining how Ireland defeated the Lisbon Treaty. All groups had their own fear of the EU growth consequences and voted it down.
Ironically, a Politics of Fear campaign has to grow in the U.S. for personal responsibility and freedom to thrive.
This PDF is type of information that has to be spread far and wide to help form public opinion in our favor.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/ShatteredDreams07.pdf
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d13639e-3689-11dd-8bb8-0000779fd2ac.html
Opponents tap into fears surrounding economy
By John Murray Brown in Dublin
Published: June 10 2008 03:00 | Last updated: June 10 2008 03:00
Brian Cowen may have gone to his constituency yesterday to trumpet the benefits of the Lisbon reform treaty. But to the pensioners in Offaly the main question for the Irish prime minister was the poor level of retirement income offered by the local state-run peat company.
With just days to go before Ireland's referendum on the European Union's reform treaty, Mr Cowen was served a reminder of the adage that referendum campaigns are rarely fought over the question on the ballot paper.
His experience with the pensioners in the midlands made clear economics resonates more with voters than the technical aspects of an initiative aimed at overhauling the EU's working practices.
For the prime minister the consequences of this could be bad. Polls suggest Thursday's vote is too close to call.
"There is usually an assumption [the slowing economy] would make people more wary about voting No," says Brigid Laffan from University College Dublin. But with polls showing strong support for the No campaign, she wonders if this time "maybe they're just against the government".
Austin Hughes, chief economist of IIB bank in Dublin, says "the economic uncertainty is more likely to bolster the No side". He adds: "If we'd had this vote a few years ago, the No side would have much less traction. The only issue then would have been, could you get anyone to come out and vote. They were all too busy making money."
Higher borrowing costs, rising unemployment and the slowdown in the housing market, coupled with the global credit crunch and an international recession, have all served to hurt consumer confidence.
Mr Cowen had until this weekend declined to spell out the economic consequences of a No vote for fear of being accused of scaremongering.
But in a speech on Sunday, peppered with clearly emotive references to the mass emigration suffered by earlier generations of Irish, he warned: "The road we choose will determine the shape of our economy."
In previous Irish referendums on Europe the naysayers have focused on the issues of neutrality and abortion. But this time the economy is providing fertile territory for the No campaign.
Farmers fear that after Lisbon, Ireland will be powerless to prevent the country being swamped with Brazilian beef imports if a trade deal is struck at the World Trade Organisation; fisherman worry about EU quotas; and trade unionists fret at the neo-liberal thrust of the treaty.
At a popular level, you also hear shopkeepers and taxi drivers blaming Europe for the foreigners taking Irish jobs, underlined last week by new figures from the Central Statistics Office that 90 per cent of new jobs in Ireland last year were filled by non-nationals.
Ruairi Quinn, former Labour party leader and chairman of the Alliance for Europe campaign for a Yes vote, believes there is a new group of potential No voters - what he calls the soft No camp. One example, he says, would be those who run small businesses in rural areas, a notoriously independent-minded group, resistant to government regulation and interference from Dublin.
"That simplistic Coir poster that says 'it'll cost you' has a resonance," he says, referring to one of the arch-conservative Catholic groups against the treaty.
But he says it is the support of the business group Libertas, led by Declan Ganley, the previously little-known telecoms entrepreneur, that has forced the economy and business on to the agenda for the first time.
"This a new constituency. What its strength is, I don't know. Maybe there was always an element there in the past, but it has been given a legitimacy by Ganley."
Ironically, a Politics of Fear campaign has to grow in the U.S. for personal responsibility and freedom to thrive.
This PDF is type of information that has to be spread far and wide to help form public opinion in our favor.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/ShatteredDreams07.pdf
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d13639e-3689-11dd-8bb8-0000779fd2ac.html
Opponents tap into fears surrounding economy
By John Murray Brown in Dublin
Published: June 10 2008 03:00 | Last updated: June 10 2008 03:00
Brian Cowen may have gone to his constituency yesterday to trumpet the benefits of the Lisbon reform treaty. But to the pensioners in Offaly the main question for the Irish prime minister was the poor level of retirement income offered by the local state-run peat company.
With just days to go before Ireland's referendum on the European Union's reform treaty, Mr Cowen was served a reminder of the adage that referendum campaigns are rarely fought over the question on the ballot paper.
His experience with the pensioners in the midlands made clear economics resonates more with voters than the technical aspects of an initiative aimed at overhauling the EU's working practices.
For the prime minister the consequences of this could be bad. Polls suggest Thursday's vote is too close to call.
"There is usually an assumption [the slowing economy] would make people more wary about voting No," says Brigid Laffan from University College Dublin. But with polls showing strong support for the No campaign, she wonders if this time "maybe they're just against the government".
Austin Hughes, chief economist of IIB bank in Dublin, says "the economic uncertainty is more likely to bolster the No side". He adds: "If we'd had this vote a few years ago, the No side would have much less traction. The only issue then would have been, could you get anyone to come out and vote. They were all too busy making money."
Higher borrowing costs, rising unemployment and the slowdown in the housing market, coupled with the global credit crunch and an international recession, have all served to hurt consumer confidence.
Mr Cowen had until this weekend declined to spell out the economic consequences of a No vote for fear of being accused of scaremongering.
But in a speech on Sunday, peppered with clearly emotive references to the mass emigration suffered by earlier generations of Irish, he warned: "The road we choose will determine the shape of our economy."
In previous Irish referendums on Europe the naysayers have focused on the issues of neutrality and abortion. But this time the economy is providing fertile territory for the No campaign.
Farmers fear that after Lisbon, Ireland will be powerless to prevent the country being swamped with Brazilian beef imports if a trade deal is struck at the World Trade Organisation; fisherman worry about EU quotas; and trade unionists fret at the neo-liberal thrust of the treaty.
At a popular level, you also hear shopkeepers and taxi drivers blaming Europe for the foreigners taking Irish jobs, underlined last week by new figures from the Central Statistics Office that 90 per cent of new jobs in Ireland last year were filled by non-nationals.
Ruairi Quinn, former Labour party leader and chairman of the Alliance for Europe campaign for a Yes vote, believes there is a new group of potential No voters - what he calls the soft No camp. One example, he says, would be those who run small businesses in rural areas, a notoriously independent-minded group, resistant to government regulation and interference from Dublin.
"That simplistic Coir poster that says 'it'll cost you' has a resonance," he says, referring to one of the arch-conservative Catholic groups against the treaty.
But he says it is the support of the business group Libertas, led by Declan Ganley, the previously little-known telecoms entrepreneur, that has forced the economy and business on to the agenda for the first time.
"This a new constituency. What its strength is, I don't know. Maybe there was always an element there in the past, but it has been given a legitimacy by Ganley."