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Is the Irish Government planning to overthrow the Constitution?

category national | eu | opinion/analysis author Sunday July 06, 2008 17:54author by Howard Holby Report this post to the editors

The EU’s plan to keep the illegal Lisbon Treaty ‘legal’ (=’alive’) has so far enjoyed the full support of the Irish Government and recently entered the stage where it turned out that “We didn’t need full vote on Lisbon: FG”
(http://www.independent.ie/national-news/we-didnt-need-f....html)

This essentially means that the Government is considering the option to finally discard the referendum NO, and to effectively overthrow the Constitution of Ireland by ratifying a new constitution, the Lisbon Treaty, on behalf of the people of Ireland.
“The official decision on Lisbon should enter into legal force + comments”
(http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88222)

1. The plan to keep the illegal Lisbon Treaty ‘legal’
2. What the poll results really reveal
3. Democracy: luxury or obligation?

1. The plan to keep the illegal Lisbon Treaty ‘legal’

Soon after the EU had declared the Irish referendum entirely irrelevant, the pro-Lisbon leadership found it relevant to research the unofficial reasons behind the voters’ irrelevant official opinion. Needless to say: any political leadership truly interested in the opinion of their electorate, would have immediately revoked the Lisbon Treaty after the referendum NO had been announced. Therefore it is safe to assume that the purpose behind these polls [1, 2] has not been the leaders’ altruistic curiosity to obtain a deeper insight into the voters’ will, but something essentially different: to serve the overall EU-strategy to keep the illegal treaty ‘legal’, assuming one or more elements of the following schedule:

1) If the result of the Irish referendum is NO, declare the Lisbon Treaty ‘alive’ (=‘legal’) and urge the other member states to proceed with the act of ratifying the discarded treaty.

2) Organise polls to analyse the reasons behind the Irish referendum outcome [1, 2] to achieve the following goals:
- To distract the public attention from the top priority legal/constitutional considerations of the post-referendum scenario [3].
- To generate the impression that the voters’ opinion matters, despite the fact that high EU-officials has just declared the Irish electorate’s opinion a ‘problem to solve’ and an ‘obstacle to overcome’ [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].
- To create reasons for reversing the referendum NO either by a second referendum or a parliamentary vote. Astonishingly enough there are clear indications of a plan to attempt to realise the latter option. [7, 8, 11].
- To buy time for the other states to ratify the treaty and refer to the number of the states having ratified the treaty, as if such reference would excuse the EU’s stance defying Ireland’s decision [12].
- To allow for deepening the implementation of the treaty by exposing the illegitimate function of the ‘EU-presidency’ as ‘legitimate’ [6].

3) In analysing the results of the survey interpret the findings in a way that would justify the plan of a referendum re-run or a parliamentary ratification of the treaty.

4) If the idea of a second referendum, as expected, would meet the resistance of the electorate, simply refer to the ‘complexity’ of the EU-issue – the ‘complexity’ that has been intentionally created by the EU leaders as an ‘excuse’ to circumvent the referendums in the other 26 member states [5, 15] – and, following the practice of the other member states, override the referendum by a parliamentary vote [11, 13].

2. What the poll results really reveal

"The results showed that support for Europe and for EU membership is as high as ever it has been, with 89% of those polled supporting the union. This included 80% of those who voted no and 98% of those who voted yes."
"80% of those who voted were still supporting the Union and just 5% said they were against the idea of a unified Europe.”
“Two-thirds felt it would ensure that the Nice treaty was maintained. Even 39% of those who voted yes thought it meant the Nice treaty would remain in force also, suggesting they did not understand Lisbon was to replace it.”
“It showed the majority (76%) of those who voted no believed the result would be to renegotiate the treaty. [1]


When analysing the statistically relevant findings of these polls the genuine conclusion can only be arrived at by considering the appropriate rank of semantic relevance and by resolving any conflicts among the data. Accordingly, what these findings have revealed as the factor overriding the rest is that the qualified majority, 67% (two-thirds) of the NO voters and the majority (54 %) of ALL VOTERS (=53.4%*67% + 46.6% * 39%), would prefer an EU-treaty that would NOT change the current status quo of the Union.

Therefore when all data are evaluated in the semantic context of the other significant segments, these reveal that the NO voters’ answer to the questionnaire-items about a “renegotiation” and “unified Europe” can only mean a negotiation of a new EU treaty and a level of ‘unification’ that would keep the EU within the framework of Nice - a possibility which would definitely be cancelled by Lisbon.

“According to yesterday’s Red C poll, a significantly high number of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ voters said there should be stricter limits on the number of foreigners coming into Ireland.
The opinion poll found that while 65pc of ‘No’ voters “strongly” agreed there should be stricter controls, half of ‘Yes’ voters also shared this view.
Last night, Fianna Fail backbencher Chris Andrews agreed that immigration had been a factor in the referendum campaign.” [2]


The above information also contradicts the feasibility of the Lisbon Treaty on an essential level, because the ultimate ambition of Lisbon, the “economic, social and territorial cohesion” of the EU [13, 14] is a goal impossible to pursue without converting the region into a melting pot of constant migration [15]. The issue of immigration, being an issue that cannot be solved by any amendment of the treaty and especially not by a bilateral agreement, reinforces the impossibility of the renegotiation of the Lisbon Treaty as understood by the pro-Lisbon groups. The voters’ view on immigration is a key factor associated with a preference not only for maintaining Nice, but even suggesting returning to the pre-Nice stage.

The poll findings regarding the popular resistance against immigration confirm the formerly expressed grave concern that the forced EU-integration would increase social tension in Europe and would fatally undermine the social-economic balance of the EU-region [6, 13, 15]. The threat of an EU-leadership that is unable to realise this fact and is unwilling to withdraw from the flawed plan to unite Europe via a top-down centralised plan cannot be overemphasised.

The poll results also indicate that nearly 20% of the ‘yes’ voters “thought it meant the Nice treaty would remain in force”. This indicates that a large segment of the voters were indeed misled by the ‘yes’ campaign and by the incomprehensible text [13, 16]. Unaware of the grave constitutional implication of the Lisbon Treaty [16, 17, 18, 19] they believed to have voted for a harmless ‘reform treaty’ that would leave the Nice treaty in force.

Speaking of incomprehensibility: yet another significant poll statistics:
“The biggest single reason for the no vote was because people said they did not understand the treaty, but this amounted to less than a quarter of voters, at 22%.” [1]

According to the pro-Lisbon leaders this biggest single reason can now be referred to when arbitrarily declaring the referendum an inappropriate instrument to handle the overly complex issue of Lisbon [11] and passing the decision to parliamentary legislation in Ireland. However, the act of arbitrarily invalidating the referendum rejecting a treaty that will gradually transfer the authority of the state established by the Constitution of Ireland to the federal state in Brussels [14], is in contradiction with the Constitution of Ireland on several counts, for example:
“Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic state” (5).
“All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good.” (6.1)
“These powers of government are exercisable only by or on the authority of the organs of State established by this Constitution.” (6.2)

Both the act of denying the validity of referendums on a constitution and when doing so referring to the incomprehensibility of the text, which has been intentionally brought about by the EU-leaders to avoid referendums everywhere in the EU [18, 19, 20], furthermore contradict the principles of democracy [6, 12, 13] therefore are also in contradiction with Article 5, which declares Ireland a democratic state. By directly contradicting justice and morality in international affairs it is also in contradiction with the following provision:
“Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality.” (29.1)

The biggest hurdle for the pro-Lisbon side has been the text itself and the truth about the treaty [16], as these would undo the EU’s ‘hard work’ to hide the constitutional weight of the Lisbon Treaty behind the mess of amendments [5, 6, 16, 19, 20]. A straightforward text would reveal the truth that Lisbon would overwrite Nice, and would disprove the EU’s claims about “preserved sovereignty” [14], “improved democracy” etc. [4, 12, 13] and would significantly increase the number of the NO voters.

What the referenced polls have essentially revealed is that the NO voters, similarly to the ‘yes’ side, are pro-Europe and for a united Europe, but under fundamentally different terms than those of the Lisbon Treaty. Above any secondary considerations higher reasons such as the overall loss of national sovereignty [14] and the loss of democracy should be assumed as the primary reasons shared by virtually all NO groups [12, 13]. The detailed-level considerations, e.g. immigration, abortion, tax, unemployment, military neutrality, etc. can only be addressed via a negotiation of a new treaty with a leadership of an entirely different philosophy -rather than the renegotiation of the flawed Lisbon treaty with the current utterly dictatorial [6, 12, 13, 15] EU-leadership.

When examined together, the poll results invalidate any proposition ‘solving the problem of the Irish electorate’ by a new vote on a ‘renegotiated’ treaty, invalidate any assumed ‘need’ for a second (either direct or legislative) vote on any version of the treaty, and eliminate the assumption of renegotiating the Lisbon Treaty with certain bilateral agreements between the EU and Ireland [12]. In essence what these findings confirm is the same message Europe has been sending to the leaders via the most official forms of ‘polls’, by referendums: what is out of the question is the EU Constitution, either its former form or its current disguised version, the Lisbon Treaty [6, 12, 13, 15].

3. Democracy: luxury or obligation?

Regretfully, what the EU-leaders apparently mean by “hard work” [5, 6, 21] is only the 'work' to find more and more innovative ways to avoid listening to above message and to give a constitutional treaty to Europe that Europe does not want [6]. It is important to remember that the patterns of all anti-democratic systems are under a different classification than any party ideologies. All party ideologies can be used to develop a dictatorial system and all governments of the world, including the dictatorial regimes, claim to deliver wonderful benefits to the society they rule [1]. However, what all dictatorial regimes share – regardless of their preferred ideologies or slogans - is their common feature to suppress the will of those they rule and to ignore if the ‘good things’ they offer to the world are wanted by the world or not [13].

Democracy, the antonym of dictatorship, is not an empty, decorative label on the facade of a treaty/constitution. The reason why enforcing the principles of democracy [13] is discussed as a subject of highest relevance, because in any society where constitutional democracy is assumed – as it is assumed by the Constitution of Ireland and of the other member states, as well as guaranteed by the EU – democracy is not a luxury gift, or a choice of a political orientation, ideology or party politics, but a constitutional obligation of the state officials with a priority higher than any other legal obligations , and in the sense of the entire conceptual content of the term “democracy” [13]. Therefore, in any constitutional democracy the law itself should be the objective principles of democracy. This is an objective, undisputable fact, as is the axiom of A=A.

References

[1] Poll reveals Lisbon treaty was sunk by young voters
http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-q...1.asp

[2] Sarkozy visit could backfire, says MEP
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/sarkozy-visit-c....html

[3] The official decision on Lisbon should enter into legal force
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88222

[4] EU faces obstacle after Irish “no”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL1718568120...80620

[5] More questions for the far-wrong side of Lisbon
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88135

[6] A non-elected ‘president’ in a non-existent role?
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88203

[7] Ireland under pressure to vote again on treaty
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/20/ireland.eu
“Asked whether Ireland would need to stage a second referendum to resolve the impasse thrown up by last week’s rejection, Sarkozy said: “Is it possible without a vote? To ask the question is to answer it.”

[8] EU Constitution author says referendums can be ignored
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/220002....html

[9] Cowen gets year to sell ‘Lisbon II’ in new vote
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/cowen-gets-year....html

[10] Lies, Damned Lies, and a Referendum Re-run
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88061

[11] We didn’t need full vote on Lisbon: FG
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/we-didnt-need-f....html

[12] Is there a democratic life after a dead Lisbon Treaty?
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88033

[13] Our future under a ratified Lisbon Treaty
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87683
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87712
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87730

[14] Lisbon Treaty: national level competences to be transferred to the EU
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87923

[15] “Voting NO to Lisbon: to keep our homes, families and economic strength”
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87814

[16] What does the government hide by hiding the Lisbon Treaty?
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87595

[17] “Ireland: a vital fact proven; the Lisbon Treaty is a constitution”
(Conceptual map: the Lisbon Treaty is a constitution)
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87182

[18] “These Boots Are Gonna Walk All Over You”
An analysis by Prof. Anthony Coughlan
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2773

[19] Questions for the far-wrong side of Lisbon
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88057

[20] Bonde’s Briefing 19.12.07: Born in sun and sin
“The EU’s Prime Ministers met Thursday 13 December 2007 11.30 in Lisbon to solemnly sign the Lisbon Treaty which none of them has had time to read.
The text has on purpose been made totally unreadable, and the numbering system has been changed time and time again, Bonde, who was present at the signing ceremony, writes.”

http://www.bonde.com/index.php/bonde_UK/article/bondes_...91207

[21] Respect the Irish Vote: Aftershock in European Parliament
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6QmH-7fu68

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