Edo wrote:

enjoy it while you can folks - I have stepped out my usual circle this weekend - am down in Carlow where a month ago - everybody was voting no for lots of reasons having fuck all to do with the treaty - there is a serious case of buyers remorse going around - while CF and others seek reinforcement in other fringe blogs from various fringe operations in other EU states (the fact remains - If the French and others were so unhappy with the Treaty - they would be out burning cars in the street - which they patently are not)

Lisbon is dead - what it contains is not - and no amount of bitching about "elites" etc etc is going to divert democratically elected governments from bringing these into play if they are in the best interests of their nations - our problem is that the Yes campaign ran quite possibly the most inept useless and incompetent campaign in history - and the rest of Europe wants to know why and rightly so.

Personally - I would love Brian Cowen to say to the rest of Europe - "lads we're out for the moment - we're in a total tizz about abortion,consription,taxation and all those other things that weren't in this treaty - we're a bit full of ourselves at the moment and have reasumed our holier than thou status in regard to international relations - just dont cut us off completely" - I think EEA status would suit us perfectly - we wont have to comprise anymore on social and environmental concerns and we wont have Europe to blame anymore either - which will be quite a shock to the Irish system - we always need to somebody to blame, be it Britain, Europe or the US - we are badly in need of the self administered therapy of having to look at ourselves and the choices we make - in the mirror and face up to these ourselves - it will be good for us.

Still - Im damn glad I've held on to my US green card and French passport!

What people say on blogs and fora, fringe or otherwise, is one part of the picture of what people are thinking. As someone who makes very good use of blogging, and has put forward your own point of view on Lisbon across through websites, I would be surprised if you had a problem with anyone else doing the same. As to what kind of site this is, as far as I remember our members' poll showed more Yes voters than No voters and all views were thrashed out here in a decent fashion.

The majority of current EU governments would have a political perspective that I assume you broadly share, so fair does to you, you would like to see them wrap the situation up if they can. Being as we are in a democracy, you have to expect that there will be an opposition, both in Ireland and in the other EU countries. I am surprised that your measure of whether there is an opposition is cars burning in the street or not - not serious, surely.

I'm not rushing to make any predication of what the outcome for the Lisbon Treaty is going to be, but I am absolutely sure the issue of the democratic deficit in the EU, and the neoliberal economic and political agenda being promoted in it, is not going to go away. One thing I made my mind up about during the weeks before the Referendum, even before I had decided to vote, was that I wasn't going to put the EU on my back burner any more as the Commission is now effectively our government. I don't think we should be opting out, I think we should be stuck in to debate of where the EU should be going.

Your question as to why the Yes campaign was so dismal is an interesting one - perhaps because there was a 50-50 split in the party memberships over the Treaty. Only Green Party members ironically were big supporters.
I had a laugh when I saw Aengus Fanning voted No - you wouldn't have guessed it from reading the Independent.
I wonder how Cowen voted - a French journalist who travelled with him on the campaign said that he asked people to turn out and vote, but didn't go so far as to suggest that they voted Yes.