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Recent articles by Chekov Feeney
Thinking About Anarchism: The Politics of Climate Change 0 comments Make The bosses Redundant 0 comments Will the Lisbon Treaty vote change anything? 1 comments Recent Articles about Ireland / Britain Imperialism / WarMovie Review: ‘OFFICIAL SECRETS’ (2019) Aug 22 21 30 años de la masacre de Loughgall: rumores y contrainsurgencia britán... Jun 26 18 The Lisbon Treaty Campaign in Ireland: Review by a WSM member
ireland / britain |
imperialism / war |
opinion / analysis
Tuesday June 24, 2008 20:28 by Chekov Feeney - WSM (personal capacity)
With a large number of conflicting interpretations of the treaty in circulation before the vote, many voters’ voting decisions depended on whom they trusted the most. When it came down to it, the side that was represented by politicians and IBEC was always going to be in trouble. In the end, the loyalty test split the electorate on class lines.
Background to the ReferendumOn June 12th, 2008, the Irish electorate was presented with the opportunity to vote “yes” or “no” to the Lisbon Treaty. This was the seventh referendum on European integration in In 2005, the EU constitution, which was supposed to replace the existing European treaties with a simplified text and a streamlined structure, was defeated in referenda in both
Other than these and a few other minor changes, the The repackaging had been successful thus far. Stripped of its nationalist symbols and rendered excessively complex by the labyrinthine amendments, the political rulers of The significance of the Irish referendum was not, however, simply due to the fact that it was the only country to hold a referendum. However, in the case of The Balance of Forces in the EUThe IntegrationistsThe EU integrationist forces are extremely powerful. They include amongst their number a large majority of continental Europe’s major industries, corporations and capitalists and a large majority of the political elites in most EU countries, with particular concentrations in the heartland of the EU’s industrial economy – The EU has always been economically dominated by the outlook of mainland European industry – which remains heavily concentrated in a relatively small area stretching from Northern Italy to Western Germany and Westwards into Left Wing & Nationalist Popular OppositionThe integrationists are by no means without opposition. Popular opposition and outright resistance to the EU project from the left and from the broad family of traditional European nationalisms have been obstacles that the integrationists have had to repeatedly overcome on their slow march towards a coherent federal EU state. However, as the various EU treaties have all been agreed to unanimously by each of the component governments of the EU after detailed negotiations, the ability of popular opposition movements to affect the course of the EU is severely limited. In most cases, it is the very governments which have signed treaties which subsequently ‘ratify’ them through parliamentary formalities. From time to time various governments have decided to hold referenda, or have been forced to do so by their courts or domestic political pressure, and popular opposition has had a chance to show its face. ‘No’ votes in referenda have done little, however, to alter the course of European integration. They have merely been treated as speed-bumps on the road, somewhat slowing the rate of progress. In general, in the face of no votes, some clause or exemption has been negotiated between the EU and the member government in order to give the impression that the vote has been respected, with the treaty being implemented regardless. Apart from serving as general speed-bumps, the other meaningful way that popular movements have influenced the course of EU is through lobbying and applying various pressures on their national governments during negotiations. Such influence is, however, vastly weaker than the influence of the corporate world, with their armies of lobbyists and virtually unlimited access to key decision makers. Thus, the social aspects of the EU treaties remain relatively weak, lacking enforcement mechanisms or being too vague to be applied in practice. The integrationists face other opposition forces, however, and these forces have proved powerful in influencing the direction of the EU project over the years. They represent a section of Europe’s ruling class in a self-interested alliance with the Atlantacist & Corporate OppositionThe But what has this to do with the EU? “[T]here’s resentment in the rest of This leads us on to the European “resentment”. Firstly, the economic and monetary policies of the EU are geared towards servicing continental industry rather than The second major “resentment” relates to taxation. To put it simply, the continental powers would prefer that the tax money, which their states should be collecting, was not instead funnelled into offshore tax havens which are in practice, if not in law, based in For these reasons, the The other major opposition to the project of EU political integration has come, in recent years, from elements within the The political opposition of NATO generals and This ‘Atlantacist” opposition to the EU includes factions in most European countries – as their NATO links mean that they all contain a section of the elite who are more or less dependant on US hegemony for their power. It also includes several prominent US-based capitalists whose business interests in the EU give them significant influence. The most notable example is Rupert Murdoch, whose international media network gives him particular power and a unique ability to influence the opinions of the European masses against the plans of their leaders. Overall, however, this opposition is most strongly concentrated in the UK due to the historic ‘special relationship’ with the US, its close relationship with Commonwealth countries, its prominent, if subordinate, position in the NATO command chain and the shared language and close cultural ties with its former colony. The strength of the Atlantacists in the Nevertheless, the The Relevance of the Irish vote on LisbonIn this context, with the project of the integrationists already on the back foot after the rejection of the EU constitution, the Atlantacists and anti-integrationist forces were dearly wishing that the The Lisbon treaty already represents an agreed compromise between the various factions of the European business and political elite. At this stage the only real remaining weapon available to the anti-integrationist forces was popular opinion. While they can use the euro-sceptic press in the UK and elsewhere to rant and rave against the bureaucrats in Brussels, this had no affect whatsoever on the treaty’s ratification in parliament. In Defeat for the In terms of the effect of a no vote on It is even possible that defeat in the Irish referendum, followed by an upsurge in opposition to the EU elsewhere might cause the integrationists to take a significantly different tack – for example by focusing on integration between the core continental EU states through “enhanced cooperation” or a similar arrangement and leaving Ireland and the UK on the outside. Still, it is probably most likely that the no vote will merely be treated as another speed bump in the EU’s path and they will simply continue with their onward march and maybe agree a new protocol to explain away the Irish public’s rejection. The Treaty Campaign In
Given the wider context, it is not surprising that the political campaign surrounding the On the no side we had a wide array of groups. These can broadly be categorised as representing the left on one part and traditional nationalism on the other. The left incorporates Marxists, anarchists, some trade unionists and some social democrats. The traditional nationalists incorporate the catholic fundamentalists of Coir / Youth Defence as well as the various shades of Irish Republicanism (Sinn Fein, Republican Sinn Fein, 32 County Sovereignty Movement). Other oppositional groups sat somewhere between the two (Eirigi, People’s Movement). The Atlantacists were represented by Libertas, a political novelty in What was unusual in this campaign, however, is the fact that some of those advocating a no vote had access to considerable resources to run their campaigns. Both Libertas and Coir probably spent well over a million euros, money spent on billboards, posters, press conferences and advertisements. Both groups even spent significant amounts of money buying Google “adwords” – both purchased Google’s sponsored links for “EU referendum” – costing them over 2 dollars every time somebody clicked the link! Libertas were preparing their campaign and appointing staff up to two years in advance of the poll and their campaign had swung into top-gear, with a public launch of their campaign, accompanied by a truck-sized advertisement, in December 2007. They eventually claimed to have spent about €1.3 million, but that is unverified and the source of their funding remains mysterious. The amount of money that Coir spent is also unknown. Both groups have strong connections to US backed groups, the defence and intelligence communities in the case of Ganley and the pro-life movement in the case of Coir. However, while the significance of the campaign, and the length of time that it covered, ensured that the media coverage was voluminous and the public debate was all-pervasive, the information content of the debate was probably, on balance, negative. A diligent and reasonably discerning citizen who relied upon the media for their information about the treaty would, on average, have emerged from the debate less well informed about the EU and the significance of the treaty than when the debate started. Whenever a prominent campaigner issued a claim about some aspect of the treaty, it was widely reported by the media, no matter how obviously wrong or dishonest it was. Due to the fact that the elite forces on either side were naturally reluctant to argue their case openly, there was no shortage of spectacularly dishonest claims. The debate consisted of a bewildering blizzard of directly contradictory claims. For the vast majority of voters, the only really way to choose between these claims was on the basis of how much they trusted the people making them. A second major problem with the public debate was the constant tendency towards simplification. A large number of groups in But it wasn’t just the preponderance of wildly inaccurate and dishonest claims or farcical simplifications which detracted from the quality debate. Where information was accurate and well-grounded it suffered from an intense insularity, lack of context and narrowness of focus. It focused overwhelmingly on the question of “is the treaty good for Worse still, all such arguments were essentially speculative since the treaty was to affect significant changes to the EU’s decision making structures, to allow the EU to make decisions more efficiently and to carry them out more coherently. How these decisions would have impacted upon the interests of the Irish state would have depended upon what the decisions actually were. It is highly likely that they would, sooner or later, be used to attempt to end the tax-haven status of So, overall, the media coverage of the EU campaign was dominated by dishonest and clearly wrong claims. Where it managed to be remotely reality-based it was, more often than not, premised on a vast overestimation of the Irish state’s influence on EU decisions. The bigger picture of the direction of European integration and the major forces influencing that direction, were almost totally ignored and remain almost entirely unknown to the public. In order to demonstrate this point, the following sections examine some of the issues that formed the focus of public debate in the media, how they were presented by the various campaigners, what the reality of the situation was, and how the public debate diverged from that reality. Loss of Sovereignty
A significant proportion of the public debate focused on the claimed loss of sovereignty. Of the No campaigners, virtually every group bar the anarchists raised this as a complaint in one form or another. The specific complaints included the extension of Qualified Majority Voting, the dilution of the Irish state’s veto rights over a range of areas, the new legal personality of the EU, the paramount nature of the European Court of Justice with respect to national courts, the loss of an automatic right of a commissioner and the creation of official EU representative positions. On the far right wing of the No campaign, this loss of sovereignty was equated with an “EU takeover” and even the “End of Nations”. The reality of the situation is that European integration must, by definition, lead to a progressive loss of sovereignty on the part of national governments – that’s the whole point. The EU is a state in slow formation, each treaty has transferred some decision making power from the member countries to the EU and has consequently reduced the sovereignty of the member states. However, it is very much still a work in progress and it will be some time before effective political power rests in The Yes campaign either simply denied that the treaty implied any loss of sovereignty or avoided the question by describing it as “pooled sovereignty” or some other semantic chicanery. The reluctance to honestly address this issue simply sprang from the desire amongst the elites not to stir up traditional nationalist sentiment amongst the population – the ditching of the flag and other symbols from the constitution was testament to the strength of this fear. Therefore, in this at least, we can say that the Yes campaign was, at best, dishonest by omission. While the claims from No campaigners about the loss of sovereignty might have been accurate in the general case, more often than not they were wildly inaccurate and misleading in the specifics. The claimed loss of sovereignty was presented as being much more sudden, absolute and complete than has actually been the case. For example, several nationalist groups claimed that the treaty would inaugurate the primacy of the ECJ - a primacy which in fact dates back to 1962. Many of the other changes that were claimed to represent significant blows to sovereignty were simply slight adjustments to existing institutions rather than state-defining moments. Overall, in the public debate, the clear and obvious reality, of an incomplete and partial state in gradual formation with sovereignty being slowly and progressively ceded to the new state from its members was almost entirely obscured. Taxation
The “protection of The reality of the situation is that there has been a long term struggle between the continental core of the EU on one side and the In terms of the public debate, pretty much every single claim from No campaigners about tax was either totally wrong or wildly speculative. From Libertas, to Coir, the People’s Movement and Sinn Fein, all of the claims about taxation were dishonest. These claims were even echoed, in a milder form, by some of the left. The fact that they are normally against the low tax rate for corporations seems to have been forgotten and they were, in effect, happy to oppose the treaty on the grounds that it reduced the ability of US corporations to avoid paying taxes. This compounded the dishonesty with a huge dollop of hypocrisy. The Yes campaign’s claims about taxation and the treaty were somewhat more honest, yet the lack of context and an implicit vast over-estimation of the Irish state’s ability to influence such matters also meant that the picture that they painted was woefully inaccurate. Economic Policy
The effects of the The reality of the situation is somewhat complex. Firstly, it is unquestionably true that EU membership has been beneficial to It is also almost impossible to argue that the EU’s economic direction has not been progressing in a markedly neo-liberal direction in recent years. The Yet, once again, it is a mistake to think that this change would see Nevertheless, the prospect of granting the task of delegating such unpopular decisions to a remote federal government is an appealing one to many governments. Already, in many Irish disputes we see the government claiming that their hands are tied by EU legislation, for example invoking EU legislation during the bin tax dispute in 2004. The extension of liberalisation within the EU and the development of better enforcement mechanisms will eventually see the EU make and enforce such decisions at a federal level. There is no other reason to make such agreements, but it is likely to be a slow process. In terms of the public debate over The arguments of the left about the neo-liberal direction of the EU are difficult to argue with, although many of the specific claims were somewhat misleading, over-estimating the direct impact of the specific changes. The Yes campaign, for its part, relied upon generalised and non-specific allusions to how the EU had been good for Overall, thus, while the public debate did manage to convey the idea that privatisations and neo-liberalism are a strong force in EU decision making, this was obscured by the contradictory smoke emitted by the Atlantacists and where it did manage to make a splash in the media, it was often connected with a grossly exaggerated estimation of the significance of the current changes. Militarisation
The implications of the treaty for military matters was another major focus of public debate. The left criticised it as leading to increased militarisation of the EU. This criticism was also echoed by others including Libertas and the nationalist groups. At the more extreme end of the claims, some groups claimed that the treaty would effectively terminate The reality is, once again, significantly more complex. The EU protocol guaranteeing On the other hand, when it comes to EU militarisation, there is no doubt that the On the claims of militarisation, therefore, the No campaigners were clearly somewhat accurate, albeit alarmist in some cases. On the claims of a loss of neutrality, the Yes campaign was somewhat accurate, although, once again, the lack of context led to them putting forward a very misleading story. The real source of the misinformation, however, was in Yes campaigners repeatedly conflating the two – when asked about EU militarisation, the standard reply was to deny any threat to Irish neutrality as if the two questions were the same. Abortion, Euthanasia, Gay Marriage, etc
The implications of the The reality of the situation is that there was no prospect of the ECJ acting to force the Irish government to introduce legalised abortion or euthanasia. There was also nothing whatsoever in the treaty that makes this prospect any more or less likely. The claims of the nationalist No camp were, in this regard, totally inaccurate. However, once again it’s not as simple as that. As EU integration progresses there has been and will continue to be a harmonisation of social and cultural norms – the basic rights of citizens and so on. The period since So, while one can say unequivocally that the traditional nationalists’ claims about the treaty were wrong, their fears were not entirely misplaced. Indeed, it is the fear of gradual cultural assimilation into European secular norms that most strongly motivates this group to fight against European treaties. They understand that compulsory fidelity to doctrinaire catholic teaching is not much of a vote winner, thus they have to invent alarmist stories on some of the more polarising issues to try to reach a broader layer of public support. Immigration
One issue that was barely mentioned by campaigners, but still cropped up repeatedly in the media was immigration. Only a handful of individuals on the very fringes of the no campaign raised the issue in public in relation to The reality of the situation is that freedom of movement within the EU has been a reality for a long time. Essentially, on this point, we can consider First published on Irish Left Review |
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Spring zu Komment: 1 2When I hear about the 'Irish left', I feel an automatic reflex over my history and wonder where I missed out on this body, who seems to have lived so comfortably with the great priestly crafted country in Europe. Indeed, the goddamn priests even 'educated' the 'labour movement' as well as setting up the provies and cutailing , when required, the hunger strikers. They even managed to honour Margaret Thatcher before the Red Cap was given to Cartindal Daly for securing the delivery of Irish Catholic Education to him and his Roman agents....
But let remain even more basic and simply ask the following questions, which, I have no doubt, are all inter-connected.
Question One : So, why did the Irish people vote against Lisbon? I am still waiting for an explanation... and I feel sure that this article does nothing but talk it away. It might even have tried to explain why, in the near future, the same Irish will vote for the EU?
Question Two: What on earth is 'left-winged' about this 'analysis'?
Question Three: Dare one ask the significance of the author not being disposed to give his name?
What the hell kind of an analysis is it?
Seamus Breathnach
www.irish-criminology.com
1. The authors name is at the top of the article, right where it says author in fact. Your not giving the impression that you read the article very closely if you missed this! If your problem is that his first names happens to be that of a Russian playright thats something you needed to take up with his parents! particularly today not everyone in Ireland is called Paddy or Billy.
2. Whatever about other sections of the left the anarchist movement in Ireland has never hesitated to criticise the church. At the time of the second divorce referendum we put up posters with a picture of the child abusing priest Brendan Smith that stated "The church, they lecture us about morals while hiding priests who raped children'. See http://www.struggle.ws/wsm/religion.html for an article archive on this question
3. Sounds like you don't agree with the article (but you may not have read it too closely). Thats fine but maybe post a critique of what is in it rather than a load of unrelated musings. It is possible that the second time around the electorate will be intimidated into voting the 'right' way but in any case the whole process just illustrates how empty our 'democracy' id.