Samizdata

Below is the story of the Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty. It is as clear a warning to those within the EU reach (grasp, claws etc) about the nature of its objectives and procedures as it gets. Yet it seems that the public, both in the EU and in the Eastern European countries so keen to join, do not register the rising levels of undemocratic behaviour. Just like in the tired old ‘boil a live frog’ myth1. But in this case, not only there is a frog in a pot with hot water, there is another one waiting to jump in as soon as the cooked one shrinks…

First, the Irish Government disregarded last year’s clear referendum result. The Telegraph reported in September:

Mr Ahern has virtually promised his EU counterparts that the Irish will say “Yes”, unlike last time, when they rejected the deal, thus threatening to unravel plans to enlarge the EU in 2004. This is European democracy, Henry Ford style – you can reach any answer, as long as it is yes. In simply refusing to recognise the outcome of the first referendum, the government makes the point of the No campaigners more eloquently than a thousand speeches.

Second, the governement changed the rules and amended the law on the conduct of plebiscites. Ireland used to have admirably fair rules on referendum campaigns, providing for equal airtime on state media and for the distribution to each household of a pamphlet setting out the case for each side. The government scrapped this rule. The way was thus clear for the Yes side to exploit its massive financial advantage. It outspent the anti-treaty campaign by a factor of 10 and played heavily on fears of what Ireland could lose by turning its back on Europe’s ambitions.

Third, the Irish government changed the question. Mr Ahern also rigged the question. Voters were asked to ratify Nice and, in the same vote, to oppose Irish participation in the EU army. Thus, many supporters of neutrality – a natural anti-Nice constituency – felt obliged to vote Yes. Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP for South East England explains what has been done to the question:

To see how outrageous this is, imagine that in a British referendum, Tony Blair phrased the question: “Do you want to join the single European currency and preserve the supremacy of the UK Parliament?”

Fourth, the Irish were facing moral blackmail. They were told that if they voted No, they would deprive 70 million people of the benefits they have themselves reaped from EU membership, even if the money has now virtually dried up. The rejection of Nice Treaty for a second time would, apparently, have delayed for at least three years the plans to bring the new members – Hungary, Poland, Latvia and the Czech Republic into the EU. Every big gun from Lech Walesa to St John Hume was wheeled out. Ireland, they all argued, has done well out of Brussels; now let’s give eastern Europe the same opportunity.2

Daniel Hannan again ‘fastidiously’ points out that given the Irish voted for enlargement…

…[it] is something of a surprise, then, to read the Nice Treaty and find that enlargement is barely mentioned: it comes in a codicil tacked on at the end, and could easily have been agreed without a referendum. Nice is about deepening rather than widening the EU.

It provides, among other things, for the scrapping of 39 national vetoes, the harmonisation of justice and home affairs and the establishment of pan-European political parties. The Euro-elites were never going to allow mere public opinion to stop all this. Once again, they have got their way.

…and concludes that:

In order to ratify an essentially undemocratic treaty, Ireland has had to debase its own democratic procedures.

Makes sense to me. In order to cook the frog, you need to increase the temperature…

1 = In the experiment a frog was dropped into a pot of hot (not boiling) water. It immediately jumped out, as would any sensible frog. Then it was placed in a pot of cool water sitting on a stove. This was more to its liking, so it swam about and lounged comfortably. The heat was turned on and raised very gradually. Soon it was hotter than the water in the first experiment, but the frog didn’t jump out. This was because there was no dramatic difference, as there had been when it was taken from room temperature and dropped into hot water. The frog became accustomed to the increased temperature as it was raised little by little. Before long the temperature was so high that the frog was unable to jump out of the pot, and it died.

2= Polish prime minister Leszek Miller, keeping a pledge he made to a local television station, drank a glass of Guinness and sang the popular folk song “I love you, Ireland” when told the Irish had definitely voted Yes.