Solidarity with the Irish No, Hugo Robinson

Hugo Robinson — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Hugo Robinson (Open Europe): The Irish people have voted down the EU's Lisbon Treaty. The EU's rules are clear - if any one member state rejects an EU Treaty, the Treaty falls. It seems pretty simple - Lisbon should be dead.

Yet yesterday evening, the House of Lords rubber stamped the Treaty. The only explanation for this continuation of the ratification process is that it is a means to isolate and pressurise the Irish, with a view to reversing the referendum decision. Keeping the legislative process in motion reflects a presumption that the Irish will be talked out of their rejection - because otherwise, ratification is pointless.

Surely the only way to truly "respect" the result of the referendum - as EU leaders keep saying they will - is not to have the Treaty at all? The end result of pushing ahead with ratification would be a situation where 26 member states have approved the Treaty, and Ireland has not - making the pressure of isolation far more tangible than is the case now, where eight countries (excluding Ireland) are yet to ratify.

The contrast with 2005, when the French and Dutch rejected the original version of the EU Constitution, could not be greater. Apparently, when large countries vote No, their views are entitled to respect; when small countries vote no, they are to be treated with contempt. "A few million Irish cannot decide on behalf of 495 million Europeans," opined German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. "I don't think you can say the treaty of Lisbon is dead even if the ratification process will be delayed" insisted Jean-Pierre Jouyet, French secretary of state for European affairs.

Not only is this profoundly anti-democratic. It undermines the fundamental basis of the EU as an international system that must ultimately rest on the rule of law. If the EU both ignores the verdict of citizens in three separate referendums and overrides its own laws, it is simultaneously undermining its own legal and democratic legitimacy. EU elites do not seem to have grasped that there is a profound disconnect between their aspirations for Europe and those of their electorates, and that such reckless pursuit of integration by stealth will damage the EU in the long term. As Gideon Rachman at the FT argued yesterday, and Bruno Waterfield of the Telegraph argues today, there is a clear trend of Europe sliding from democracy towards technocracy, with decision-making power gradually being transferred away from voters towards self-selecting and self-serving experts.

Open Europe has launched a petition on the Downing Street website calling on Gordon Brown to respect the Irish No, and stop the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty. We have been heartened by the response from UK voters: the petition has become the fastest growing yet, with more than 17,000 people signing up. During this short period the petition has become the third most popular on the website.

There is a growing political constituency across the continent which is not prepared to accept an increasingly top-down, centralised and unaccountable EU. The Union has for too long has been driven forward by a narrow establishment, imbued with a deterministic belief that irreversible integration is commensurate with their vision of progress.

Perhaps now the tide is turning. Ordinary people are beginning to mobilise to tell politicians that this time No must mean No.

To sign our petition, click on the link below:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/

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Solidarity with the Irish No, Hugo Robinson