Meanwhile Mr. (Vincent) Browne goes to Brussels. Did he learn anything new? Not entirely. July 24, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, European Union, Irish Politics.trackback
Odd little piece by VB in the Irish Times yesterday. Under the heading:
Second poll still on agenda, despite Sarkozy’s sweet talk and the subhead
European Council could sway some Irish voters by promising one commissioner for each state if treaty is passed
…we learn that our intrepid correspondent has been baiting the beast in its home.
I visited Brussels in the last few weeks and met several people in the European Commission. Some argued that the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty was not quite as trivial as many, myself included, had argued. Yes, the EU had continued to function under the existing decision-making mechanisms with 25 and latterly 27 member states over the last four years. Yes, there was no gridlock, there was no chaos.
But, for there is a ‘but’ in this sentence…
But, they insisted, there were serious problems and one of them had to do with the six-month EU rotating presidency. Almost every head of government who held the presidency for six months assumed a grandeur, a self-importance. And while this was vaguely entertaining at times, it was also an obstruction.
And the scale of the problem?
Almost every one of these heads of governments came into the role with their own grandiose agenda. They were going to “sort out” the EU, going to take “bold” initiatives on climate change or energy security or whatever you’re having yourself.
I’d tend to agree with that analysis. It’s hard to think of a worse situation in any entity than a change of ‘leadership’ at the rhetorical level every six months with all the attendant nonsense that that can result in.
The agreed EU agenda was of only passing concern for them as they did their own grandstanding on the international stage. They got to meet other “heads of state”, such as George Bush and Vladimir Putin (when he was president of Russia) and the Chinese guy, the Japanese prime minister. Very Important Persons.
And, invariably, they (the rotating EU presidents) lost the run of themselves. But worse than that, because they were around for only six months, they didn’t have time to get over the giddiness of office. They didn’t have time to get to know the ropes, to master the real agenda and to get to know the people with whom they were negotiating.
True again.
Now why is any of this of any importance at all to Browne given his previous positions? Well, he seems implicitly to buy into at least part of the argument above.
Because the corollary of the above is that the Lisbon proposals about the Presidency were – in effect – the correct way to go with a rather figurehead-like Presidency quashing the dynamic so ably described by Browne.
So… even more curious to read Brownes subsequent thoughts:
There is an initiative that the European Council (that is the heads of government meeting together) could take that might swing the Irish vote and that would not require the renegotiation of the Lisbon Treaty. Remember, a swing of just 4 per cent would do the trick here.
First up, I hadn’t thought of that. But he is of course correct. 4% does indeed ‘do the trick’. So, what is the initiative?
The Nice Treaty (ie the existing constitutional arrangement) requires the number of commissioners to be reduced below the number of EU member states. This could cause real problems in November of next year, for if there is not unanimous agreement at the European Council on reducing the number of commissioners, then the new commission, which enters office on November 1st, 2009, would be invalid and anything done by it would or could be deemed to be invalid. (Incidentally, in a column some weeks ago I failed to acknowledge the existing power of the European Council, acting unanimously, to reduce the number of commissioners.)
Pausing for a second to address a side issue I have to say I’ve found Browne’s thoughts on these matters to be a bit chaotic and more than a little contradictory, and his assertions of opinion dressed as fact a bit dubious. Not least an example of that was the front page article in the Village in the latest issue which trumpeted “The Big Euro Lies”.
Various ‘lies’ were suggested – ‘Ireland can be expelled from Europe!’, ‘Ireland can be ‘left behind’ by Europe!’, ‘There can be a ‘two-speed’ Europe without us!’, ‘The Irish No vote has caused a Euro crisis!’ and so on. Which is fine as far as it goes. But then, unfortunately, in the page of quotations accompanying the piece on the Referendum there wasn’t one that backed up the idea that any of these ‘lies’ were being said by anyone of any political substance. Or anyone at all as it happens. Which isn’t to say that some political commentators and analysts (both here and abroad) hadn’t mused on the idea of a rebooted EU etc, but from the YES campaigns or the government nary a mention. And not surprisingly, because the last thing they wanted to do was to upset further an already fractious and fragile public opinion on these issues.
But coincidentally in the same issue of the Village in an article (on the same page as the “Lies” article no less) he’d woken up to the fact that this number of Commissioners was a real problem – ‘potentially critical’ as he put it. Well, yes. But it’s not as if this point wasn’t made during the referendum campaign ad nauseam. And it only takes one ‘real problem’ to indicate that the certainty that he expressed previously that failure to ratify Lisbon wasn’t a problem was simply incorrect (incidentally this isn’t the first time he’s blown hot and cold on Lisbon, his piece the weekend before the vote in the Sunday Business Post was masterful in its ability to straddle two conflicting viewpoints).
But his thoughts in the Village are worth recounting further in some detail, because he stated at the outset of the article there that ‘the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty actually makes very little difference to the EU…’. Except that is… if the Commission is ‘invalid’. And that apparently, according to him, suddenly makes a very big difference indeed.
‘The significance of there being an invalid Commission is considerable. The Commission, while not the most important institution within the EU (that remains the Council) [and that's an important admission in itself as regards the inter-governmental nature of the EU], is the hub of the EU. It has sole responsibility for initiating EU legislation. It has a central role in relation to competition policy, a central issue for the EU, and several other functions’.
Sounds bad, doesn’t it? Ah, but sure we know that it makes very little difference… that guy, Vincent Browne, told us so.
‘Were it not to be validly constituted…’
Go on.
‘…there would be…’
Go on, go on…
‘…considerable institutional…
Ah, go on, go on, go on….
‘… considerable institutional chaos.’
Sorry?
So from a point where the rejection of Lisbon ‘actually makes very little difference’ we then move swiftly through (in fairness) four paragraphs of text to … ‘considerable institutional chaos’. Chaos he says.
Oops.
And to rectify this appalling vista?
‘… there has to be an amendment to the existing Treaties… which would have to be ratified by every member state, in accordance with their constitutional requirements, which in Ireland’s case, would involve another referendum’.
That so and so Sarkozy. How dare he be right – assuming he said the words he says he didn’t say about having to bring it back to the Irish people.
Anyway, on to Browne’s conclusion in the Irish Times which curiously changes tack a bit…:
However, while the Lisbon Treaty states that the number of commissioners shall be 18 or no more than two-thirds of the number of member states, it gives the European Council the discretion to decide otherwise. So the European Council could decide that henceforth, if the Lisbon Treaty is passed, there shall be a commissioner from each member state. So the shape of a possible deal with the Irish could be as follows: that the European Council, at its meeting in October or December, gives a solemn undertaking that if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified by every member state, including Ireland, it will exercise its discretion to have one commissioner for every member state. This would meet the objections of some people in Ireland to the Lisbon Treaty, perhaps a sufficient number of Irish voters.
Wait. That’s it?
One commissioner for every state. That’s the key to unlocking the 4%?
This is news?
He equivocates a bit:
It would not do the trick for me and for many others – the issue of the militarisation of the EU through the absorption and funding of the European armaments industry, via the European Defence Agency and otherwise would remain a major issue – but that is not the point. The point is if it would be sufficient to swing the vote here, and it might.
I don’t get it. I really don’t. Commentators the length and breadth of the country have been suggesting that in addition to restatements of opt-outs (including some deal on the EDA) it would be necessary to see the Commission issue resolved prior to any hope of holding a new referendum. Indeed sentiment within the Commission was already long before the referendum vote divided on this very issue with some not at all happy with the idea of reducing numbers. And speaking of referendums, Browne accepts that one must be necessary to deal with this situation.
And it takes the best part of two months for Vincent Browne to come up with this? Except of course it doesn’t. He first flagged this in the Village prior to his trip to Brussels.
And that makes his headline “Second poll still on agenda, despite Sarkozy’s sweet talk” inexplicable, and the following paragraph:
But don’t be fooled, the agenda remains: Ireland to hold a second referendum on the same Lisbon Treaty some time in 2009, probably early 2009. And Nicolas Sarkozy unwittingly offered an argument for voting “Yes” that some might find persuasive.
In a way this gets to the heart of my complaint about these two pieces. Browne tilts towards a dubious and rather contradictory rhetoric in his points about the ‘agenda’ remaining and the ’sweet’ talking Sarkozy. The reference to ‘don’t be fooled’ only emphasises that.
But it’s absolutely irrelevant whether Sarkozy was sweet, sour or sweet and sour. Not least because it is Browne himself who last month when the current issue of the Village was released indicated a second referendum was inevitable to deal with the Commission issue… and that ‘agenda’ that he points to above in the Village article is as much his as anyones as a way of getting past all this. Indeed the Sarkozy visit becomes obvious as the sideshow it really was in this context. So in light of that who is being fooled?
I can’t help but feel Browne wants to have it both ways on this issue.
One further point. Travel does indeed broaden the mind, but as Browne clearly didn’t have a damascene revelation about the Commission issue while in Brussels, but many weeks earlier, it makes it all a bit puzzling as to why he finally reveals this to the Irish Times readership only now.
I found Brownes opinions about Lisbon to be crude, visceral and sometimes naive. If you look at the entirety of his contribution it is, as you demonstrate on specific issues above, often conflicting, and certainly his arguments were not a touchstone of clear thinking.(I have a suspicion that Browne’s opinion on other matters is often not so different). Overall, the rigour of his thought doesn’t measure up to the high stature he has in Irish journalism, but then, unless I’m wrong, his stature was earned in a very different apect of journalism – that of investigation and exposure.
His 4% swing theory is shockingly naive. Or am I missing some aspect of the tone or the essence of some rhetorical device? Who can believe that a re-run will boil down to pulling back 4%? Even a rapid survey of the possibilities exposes this fallacy: what if turnout is lower? What if some Yes voters switch because of new No issues or because of a dislike for being asked again? What if some of the many Yes people who decided belatedly just change their minds? What if the Yes coalition breaks – IFA/Unions/oppostions/ etc? And what about the many other reasons why a referendum gives the weather on a particular day and not the climate? No, this 4% issue is silly and reductionist. The truth is, if there is to be another referendum, the whole battle has to be fought again and there are no guarantees.
Of course the European Council has the power to decide on the timing of the introduction of the Nice Treaty reform reducing the number of Commissioners. By the way the idea is to reduce the number of Commissioners to the actual number of real posts requiring to be filled. This, I would have thought was a good thing – devoutly to be desired. Having a Commissioner is (should have) NOTHING to do with “representing” a particular member state. Indeed Commissioners have to swear a legal oath that they will not do this (sometimes they fall well below what is required). The job of national representation for Ireland in the EU falls to the elected government (and the elected Irish Members of the European Parliament).
Anyway I pointed all of this out in an earlier post to Cedar Lounge just after the referendum. By reading Cedar Lounge Vincent could have saved himself the trouble of a trip to Brussels. Tomaltach is right – any future referendum will have to be fought on the overall merits of the case. But the Irish people should not gamble on the willingnes of the other 26 EU countries obliging them indefinitely by abandoning a treaty approved by the overwhelming majority. And – before anyone else says anything – please remember thaty far more people have voted for the Constitution/Lisbn Treaty in referendums than have voted against.
This is precisely the sort of thing which gives the EU and it supporters a bad name – because they pisses about with democracy and interpret it pretty much as they choose. It’s insulting to the intelligence:
(a) when you lose a referendum, to suddenly start including other referendums as counting against and thereby cancelling out the result you do not like ;
(b) to portray the one country that actually has a vote on the matter as frustrating the will of the others, when you know very well that if other voted, many of them would not approve the Treaty either ;
It’s very tempting, when you are involved in political projetc with which you agree but with which other people do not, to produce this sort of argument in order to convince yourself that people are behind you anyway. (This sort of argument, like the argument that the UN resolutions really/i> permitted the invsion of Iraq, is designed to reauusure the people who make it rather than to convince anybody else.) In the long term, however, all it does it discredit both you and the project you support. I doubt, for instance, that anything has done quite so much harm to the EU project as the habit of insisting that referenda that go the wrong way are re-run until the right result is obtained: but the habit of making votes mean only what we say we mean is so common in EU practice as to be essentially a modus operandi*.
Why does this happen? It would be fair to say that supporters of the EU are playing against a double disadvantage, the first part of which is the sheer amount of dishonest nonsense talking about the EU and the second part of which is that it is still, by the standards of the nation-state, a relatively new affair and lacks, in people’s minds, the natural legitimacy that the nation-state possesses. But so what? You still have the choice between playing by democratic rules and accepting that where people do not support a project, you cannot go ahead with it – or you can prefer the approach in which you deny votes you would lose, deny the significance of votes you have lost and rerun votes when you think you can change the result you got the first time. But the trouble is, that the more you do that the more you have to do it, because people can see what you’re doing and they became more and more of the opinion that you do not respect their say.
[* one little-noticed manifestation of the EU vote that doesn't mean what it means is the way in which is an MEP resigns their post, they are replaced by the member of their party who received the next-highest vote in the Euro-constituency at the election. In other words, somebody who failed to be elected is given the very post which the electorate decided they should not hold. I don't see why I shouldn't regard this as an abuse.]
ejh,
I would agree that setting the precedent of re-runs makes them the norm.
I would agree to that the newness of the EU poses a difficulty. But perhaps more so, its uniqueness. An huge umbrella is being retro-fitted over existing nation states and democracies. How do you confer legitimacy on the new over-arching power without damaging the thing that people have genuine allegiance to: the nation state.
I think its fair too to argue that the referendum is not a suitable mechanism for taking a decision on a complex treaty. Certainly, those who framed our constitution in Ireland didn’t think so – or they would have written a clause in the constitution to say that the people must be consulted on these issues. In fact, the framers, wisely in my view, left external relations to the representatives. As you know the courts later decided that since the people are sovereign, they needed to be consulted if a substantial chunk of that sovereignty is to be signed away. This means that much of Lisbon (perhaps all of the institutional stuff) would be ratified by parliament. Perhaps much of the other stuff as well – though the real risk there is that the Courts would subsequently disagree.
In any case, now that a referendum has been held, it would be impossible for the parliament/government to attempt ratification (of any part of Lisbon) without consulting the people. This to my mind makes a re-vote inescapable unless the EU decides to partition or abandon Lisbon (or Ireland decides to step outside the process and settle for some kind of associate membership).Since none of these scenarios are either likely or desireable – I think we are left with a re-vote. Which leaves only two questions for the political leadership here: when and how.
And what happens if that, too, goes the “wrong” way? And what if the electorate get really pissed off that whenever they don’t eat up their dinner, it gets put in front of them again until they do?
ejh, all fair points, but remember, none of them are what Vincent Browne who argued for a No vote and has supported that stance since is saying. He actually argues that a second referendum is necessary precisely because the Lisbon vote wasn’t passed and that this is the cause of entirely predictable institutional ‘chaos’ (his word, not mine) in the EU in the very near future. Now since this was precisely the argument that the YES side put forward and he airily dismissed both prior to and until very recently after it seems a tad contradictory. So even on his own terms VB has presented an entirely confused case.
There’s a broader point here. The Lisbon reforms didn’t come out of the blue. They do address elements that have to be addressed and in that respect I think it’s entirely legitimate for national states (who are, after all the driver of this, not some nominal EU entity above and beyond those 27) to seek to progress them as best they can. It’s a massively contradictory process, no denying it, but it’s the best that can be achieved given the constraints between national and supra-national. And that’s something that whatever the faults of EU boosters is an element that is continually ignored or dismissed by those sceptical about the project.
ejh – “What if the result is the same second time round? Fair question. I think the best answer would be for Ireland to say to its EU partners “Our people do not want even the limited political integration offered by the Lisbon Treaty. But we recognise that at least 25 other Member States do want to proceed to closer union (the UK being a case in doubt). We note that the almost certain to be elected next Conservatrve government in London wants to renegotiate Britain’s fundamental relationship with the EU. We will now do the same thing – leaving the 25 to go ahead with the full Lisbon project. We will now open negotiations for a new relationship with the EU.” The Brit Tories also want out of European political union completely but are happy to stay within the EU trading relationship and with some limited forms of “cooperation” with other EU countries. Perhaps Ireland could happily join it nearest and dearest neighbour in such an arrangement. After all Declan Ganley’s Tory euro-sceptic pals in London have already urged this. The only snag is that Scottish independence is no longer faciful – and could lead to an independent Scotiland within the European Union (Lisbon et al). Indeed Wales might follow suit. But still I am sure that Ireland and England could happily co exist in a club on their own. Of course Dublin might have to accept that London knows better on other policies as well – but, hell, you can’t have everything
Had an interesting discussion with someone recently about these very matters. UK membership dictated – to an overwhelming degree – the necessity for RoI membership (not that the RoI didn’t want to, indeed it was profoundly disappointed that it couldn’t go in earlier) of the EEC. But now of course the situation is different. It’s definitely not in our strategic economic or national interest to realign with the UK, and there is no serious potential for us to join the EFTA, not least because that’s a halfway house to the EU, not away from it and there would likely be no appetite (let alone political sympathy) to allow Ireland to join. But the half-way house of being on the outer rim with the UK would be very detrimental to us.
That said, I think John’s proposition is reasonable and within the broad terms of the EU project. Political dynamite though, and given that choice I wonder what decision would be made?
The recent column by William Hague in the Irish Times makes John Palmer’s point very clearly:
Hague writes “If Lisbon remains unratified by all EU member states, a Conservative government will put Britain’s ratification of the treaty on ice and hold a referendum, recommending a No vote to a document we believe represents an outdated centralising approach to the EU“.
I think there were many No voters who are very pro Europe but got scared off by some of the No slogans and didn’t really have the time or opportunity to wade through the arguments in depth. They didn’t grasp the bigger dynamic here about where Europe is going and the change in regimes across the continent. Many of these voters would be the last to willingly assist a British conservative government in throwing the European project into disarray. I think in any re-run it will be crucial to reach this constituency and impress upon them the importance of the juncture we are at.
John,
two remarks on your comment. You say Ireland and England could happily exist on their own. First, our political elite wouldn’t want that – I think they very much want to retain our position in Europe. But of course they may let us sleep walk into that scenario. In that case, yes, we would have to work out a modus operandi whereby Ireland and the UK exist in tier 2 and make the best of it. But this arrangement would hurt Ireland more than the UK – we depend more on Europe and have gained more from it than the UK. We would suffer more in that scenario. Whether we’d suffer enough to teach us that we need to knock on the door again and sign up fully is another question.
But your second remark about Wales. Is there really any significant support in Wales at ground level – or anywhere else – for talking a more assertive independent route a la Scotland?
I wouldn’t think so myself, but perhaps I’m wrong. Certainly the extremely pro EU SNP stance places it in a most interesting position vis nationalists in this state.
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.JohnStuartMillJohn Stuart Mill
WbS/Tomaltach: I was, of course, being satirical in suggesting a happy England/Ireland partnership by themselves on the edges of Europe. That would certainly NOT be in Ireland’s interests. But I do fear it could very easily happy if the Lisbon Treaty is definitively rejected in Ireland and then the British Tories open negotiations of some semi-external association of what is left of the UK with the EU. The Irish government would then have an unenviable choice. I all along thought the only alternative road to EU integration for Ireland would be some slow and humiliating return to the British Commonwealth (”We would be neat and clean and well advised – Oh won’t Mother England be surprised”). Declan Ganley knows what he is doing – even if Sinn Fein have not smelled the coffee yet and the Irish Far Left continues to halucinate.
On Wales – I don’t know either. I think the Plaid made a mistake by going into coalition with discredited NuLabour. But I may be wrong. Plaid Cymru certainly expected a boost from the growing optimism of the SNP for an positive independence referendum outcome in 2010. Certainly opinion in both Scotland Wales is far, far less euro-phobic than in Tory dominated England.
I’m not even sure that it would be economically possible for Ireland to realign with the UK in that way. The UK simply isn’t what it was, either in actual terms or in regard to our trading position with it (and vice versa). And even if it were attempted I’m old enough to remember both the pre-EEC and pre-Irish Punt days and without being anglophobic at all I simply don’t see that as a progressive move in the slightest. Incidentally interesting stat in the RedC poll yesterday about men over 45 being those who are most pro Lisbon (I’m not quite in that bracket – but close), that doesn’t surprise me at all.
Difficult to know isn’t it about Wales? I don’t blame Plaid for going into coalition, I presume they thought they could get some element of governing legitimacy, but… and maybe they will, but they just don’t seem to be operating (and clearly aren’t) in the same sort of environment as the SNP. That said as discussed last week the SNP have many hills to climb before independence…
John and WBS,
About Ireland and England again. When I said Ireland would suffer more from Tier 2 status, I meant, we’d suffer by not having a seat at say, negotiations on Agriculture, or on Trade issues generally. I don’t think the tier 2 scenario would necessarily mean anything like the commonwealth. I would see Ireland remaining the EEA at the very least and so our level of trade with EU / Britain need not necessarily revert to our pre-EEC dependence on Britain. In fact, I am fairly certain that wouldn’t happen. WBS is right – both the British and Irish economies have changed so much that the match simply wouldn’t be there.
Still though, the general thrust of this, whereby Ireland and the UK are on the periphery, is frightening!
There’s really quite a simple point here which is that if there is a vote on a subject then (unless the issue is one of irregularities in the ballot) it is an abuse of democracy to insist there be another vote. If this is not so then democracy is no more than a rubber stamp.
Ejh,
I absolutely see your point. But like so much with democracy – it is not so black and white. The electorate has every right to change its mind, but not only that, it cannot be forever bound by a previous decision without possibility of reversal. We voted I think twice on ending our PR system. That doesn’t mean we have to hold on to the current system forever – we may one day decide it would be better to change to say a party list system or even first past the post for that matter. The point is, there is nothing wrong with reconsidering. Ah, but the passage of time you say. True. It makes it more credibile if there is a passage of time, because then, the argument runs, the situation changes, the backdrop, the political landscape etc. But what amount of time is considered enough to legitimize a rethink? It cannot be scientific. And in the current case, perhaps in even a very short amount of time the parameters will change and the political landscape will shift, making the next vote a different proposition ( i.e the electorate realises, which clearly it didn’t first time, that this may be a watershed in our membership, and all of the stuff debated in this thread about the shifting landscape in Britain). In the end, this legitimizes a second vote.
Shorter Tomaltach: “although I understand this is an abuse of democracy, because I’ve decided the electorate didn’t understand what it was doing, I think it’s all right to make them vote again until they give me the result they should have done”.
Ejh,
You paint the scenario where we go on being asked repeatedly to voted again and again on Lisbon. That won’t happen. If we fail again we will certainly not be asked a third time or a fourthe time. We may of course be asked a second time – and given the portion of people who voted ‘No because they didn’t know’ and the fact there may be clarifications of peoples concerns, I think it is legitimate.
The fact is that we may have painted ourself into a very uncomfortable corner here. And we need to get a way out.
I acknowledge that repeated referenda do undermine it. But the people reserve the right to say No again – as we did on PR.
I am glad that our constitution can only be altered by referendum. But I would be horrified to see it become a regular way of conducting foreign relations. I really do think that we need to get over this at some point. To that end, I really would like to see a government who had the balls to ring fence the areas that would not fall under Crotty, and pass them in the Oireachtas as mandated by our constitution. Tehen the rest can go to referendum if necssary.
I’m afraid democracy is as grey as the atlantic mist and full of inconsistencies. I’m not saying that is a good or bad thing but it needs to be recognised. We give our oireachtas the power to make war and peace, to collect and spend all our taxes, to run our health service etc. Yet we do not ‘trust’ it on a reconfiguration of the single most beneficial project indepentent Ireland has ever enterred – even when the opposiition is in full agreement with the ruling partes.
In that scenario, I’m prepared to have a re-run of the referendum I think we need to pass, even if it marginally diminishes the referedum as a tool of the people.
Yet we do not ‘trust’ it on a reconfiguration of the single most beneficial project indepentent Ireland has ever enterred – even when the opposiition is in full agreement with the ruling partes.
In that scenario, I’m prepared to have a re-run of the referendum I think we need to pass.
Fantastic. Quite fantastic.
Wow! Ejh, you blow me away there with the devastating power of your argument. Good stuff, keep it up and this debate will bear fruit!
Tomaltach is implying that there is something inherently wrong with people voting No because they did not know enough about what was proposed, and that this is a reasonable basis for bringing about another referendum. Yet this is at best based on the assumption that the people who voted No because they didn’t know enough about it did so because they knew nothing about it, or at least less than he.
But what if they knew at least as as much as he, but decided on the basis of what they knew that they did not know enough, given what was proposed and how it was being presented?
I’m afraid democracy is as grey as the atlantic mist and full of inconsistencies. I’m not saying that is a good or bad thing but it needs to be recognised.
Tomaltach, perhaps you should recognise that anything as grey as the atlantic mist and full of inconsistencies is in fact antithetical to democracy.
you blow me away there with the devastating power of your argument
I think the point is that your own argument is sufficient in itself, no? It demonstrates very adequately your view of democracy and the electorate.
No, there is nothing inherently wrong with voting No because people didn’t know enough about what was being proposed. But if it is true, yes, you’re right, I would view it as a legitimate basis for a revote. But as I’ve said, there are other factors as well that legitimise a No vote.
I talked to one No voter, for example, who said he voted No because he thought he thought we could re-open the substantive reform talks easilly and because he thought there would be no negative consequences to a No vote. Based on what he’s seen so far, he says he thinks he got it wrong and would alter next time round if these risks still pertain.
We can dream all we want about what the architecture of a perfect democratic system would look like – and No it wouldn’t resemble the atlantic mist – but none of this will help us address the quandry we are now in.
Neither Ejh nor Hugh Green have demostrated what kind or extent of damage they think would be inflicted on our democratic system by a revote. We have re-voted before on several issues and I don’t recall our democracy being any the weaker for it. If our democracy is lamer that it should be, there are far more urgent matters to address than worrying about a re-run of a referendum.
Frankly I see a clash here between an idealistic view of democracy as rigid, indefectible, and mechanical; and a view which sees it as imperfect, nuanced, conflicting and yes, at times, malleable. And I’m afraid, these two views are so hostile to one another that it is quite impossible for them to engage in any meaningful way. Or so it seems.
ejh, the problem is that while in the abstract your original point is entirely reasonable (and logical), in the concrete, in this campaign the No side were at pains to argue that the government had to go back to the well for something else and recognised (as for example Gerry Adams and Declan Ganley both have on various occasions) that this would necessitate a second referendum in order to get the democratic seal of approval by the Irish people. In other words all the main groups on the No side not merely sought renegotiation (”A better deal” as they put it), but implicitly and explicitly accepted that a second referendum on whatever emerged whether a completely new Treaty or a renegotiation of the current one or whatever was necessary.
Secondly, this isn’t a Presidential or General Election. It’s a vote on a process that has currently manifested itself in the Treaty. That leaves it open for the process to be reshaped through engagement and negotiation. At every point it is open to the RoI electorate to vote No and No again. I find it entirely reasonable that a government would look at the vote, go back and see what was feasible in terms of changes and then bring those back to the Irish people. That’s a far cry from the proposal that it’s just a revote on the same issue again and again and again until we get the ‘right’ vote. That’s not what is being proposed here by anyone – not least because it would be political suicide. That may be ignoble, but it suggests to me that any ‘damage’ (as Tomaltach puts it) that some may think has been incurred is minimal if at all.
Worth reiterating Tomaltach’s point. There is no bar on the same question being put, but it won’t happen. Nor is there a bar on a referendum taking place on the same issue albeit with different forms being addressed. That’s part of our Constitution as well and if that way is open it should surely be respected as much as the idea that people shouldn’t be forced to vote on the same text twice…
what kind or extent of damage they think would be inflicted on our democratic system by a revote.
Yes I have. The damage would be that people would be givenm the clear impression (and rightly so) that it only counts if they vote one way. If you vote the other, it doesn’t. And it doesn’t because some people are sufficiently high-and-mighty to put themselves above the process, decide unilaterally that the electorate didn’t udnerstand what it was doing and tell them to try again.
It discredits democracy to behave in that way.
And it’s very clear that it only happens if you vote against what the EU wants. Vote the right way, and the voice of the people is sovereign. If it had gone the other way, do you think there would be any question of people saying “ah, well, it wasn’t clear what people were voting for and why, so we’d better give it a second go just to clarify”?
Do you really think people can’t see that? Do you really think that acting in such a way doesn’t breed cynicism, resentment and apathy?
I think Tomaltach’s statement that I cited in #19 is a disgraceful one which expresses contempt for democracy. It abrogates to itself the right to decide what needs to pass and what does not, when the people have already expressed their opinion on that matter, and in doing so it says something very typical of EU enthusiasts which is their desire to declare themselves democrats but in practice to have only that measure of democracy which suits them.If they don’t win, it doesn’t count.
I don’t know if I’m adequately expressing how angry this sort of thing makes me. When you lose a vote you accept it, or you are not a democrat. Yes, of course there may be other votes in the future, but only at the end of a long process of discussion. Not as a second go at essentially the same thing, because the EU enthusiasts and the political establishment decide the silly-minded people got it wrong.
I find all this talk about the “quandary” “we” find ourselves in quite bizarre. Or I would if it wasn’t so obviously part of the worldview of many Yes advocates.
There is no quandary for the Irish people. There was a vote on whether we wanted to accept certain changes to the status quo. We voted No. Given that the rules of the EU are pretty clear about needing the consent of all members to make changes to the EU framework, all this talk about two tier Europes or being pushed into some peripheral role is just so much propaganda. Ireland can say No to the Treaty and can say No to any proposal to reconstitute the EU on a basis that restricts Ireland’s participation and there is essentially nothing that the elites of the other member states can do about it.
The only people in a “quandary” are the Irish ruling class, the EU bureaucracy, European political elites and, apparently, a handful of “leftists” who have a bizarre attachment to the EU “project”. The rest of us aren’t in any quandary at all. The EU will have to remain as it is or come up with new proposals that are acceptable to Irish voters. Unless of course the pro-Yes political elite of this country and the rabidly pro-Yes media manage to force another referendum through by hysterical fearmongering, misinformation and bullying.
Again, that doesn’t tally with the actual vote (and how it was conducted by both sides – although arguably the Yes side were more coherent in their message that there was no clear Plan B). Or indeed the response. There is no ‘one way’ to vote on this issue, not least because of its complexity. There are further changes/guarantees opt-outs that will be given because as noted above it’s a process not a single distinct issue. So whatever comes up next on the table won’t be the original issue, and the idea that ‘there is a right way’ to vote becomes moot.
The issue of how well or poorly informed the electorate is entirely irrelevant – as much as the nonsense about whether it was a class vote, or one thing or another. The bottom line is that the Irish electorate said No to this package. Now it’s up to others to try to formulate something else. I don’t think people were silly minded to vote No, although I don’t agree with that vote. I live with it and hope that whatever is formulated goes through. And if the people vote No again I live with that.
And as regards had the vote gone the other way? Well that would have been because of the assumption that people were overall happy with the package presented. There would have been no necessity to consult, to consider, to go through the process (it’s one of the distinctions between people accepting a proposition and not. If they do you assume its okay, if not you do what you can to change it to their liking). They’re not, so another attempt is made to fashion something that they will accept.
None of this is un or anti-democratic. It’s the heart of negotiation and consensus. You don’t like what I offer? I change it as much or as little as it has to be. Again the people remain sovereign. And while you’re entitled to throw up the idea of EU enthusiasts as overly wedded to the process the reality is that the EU in and of itself is a rolling negotiation, not a simple machine for diktat.
It just doesn’t come down to ‘accepting’ a vote in this context or not. It can’t, again due to the process based aspect of the issue. And it won’t, be a simple second go at ‘essentially’ the same thing. I think that’s far too easy a characterisation of what we’re seeing unfolding here.
There is another point. No decision Yes or No is without cost. And while you admit that there may be a long discussion how long is long? A year, two, five? None of that is either implicitly in or not in our Constitution. Politically it has to be a year at least. Maybe more. But certainly not less.
Who raised the word quandary Mark P? No-one else here.
But you too ignore the thrust of a No campaign which was for renegotiation or concessions on various issues. So it clearly wasn’t exactly for the status quo. And I guess any government looking at that might well consider itself, whatever I think one way or the other, as being in a quandary.
A further thought, I think there’s nothing bizarre about leftists who saw the way the EEC/EC/EU membership benefited this country across three decades being in favour of the ‘project’, even those like myself who would be far from federalist in viewpoint.
Oh come on, how many votes that have gone against the EU have been re-run – and how many that have gone their way?
And what are the “vote again” proponents actually saying?
I’m prepared to have a re-run of the referendum I think we need to pass.
That’s not really “we’ll be voting a long time from now on something very different”, is it?”
I think there’s nothing bizarre about leftists who saw the way the EEC/EC/EU membership benefited this country across three decades being in favour of the ‘project’
Nothing at all. If people are in favour of the EU, or the Lisbon Treaty, that’s perfectly defensible. What’s bizarre is the view that the main purpose of a referendum is to get the right result.
First I would like to say this. Despite my view of democracy as a thing which is riddled with inconsistency and prone to contradiction and other flaws that we all know about, despite all of that, I agree with Churchill : that Democracy is the worst form of government – apart from all the others. And despite my misgivings about it, I am a staunch believer in democracy and I view it as a thing which is precious and delicate and requires perpetual vigilance. It doesn’t make me any less of a democrat that we disagree about how democracy should function best in theory – representative versus direct – or in the real world – our views on Europe and the nature of political reality.
Regarding those nuances. Ejh says “If it had gone the other way, do you think there would be any question of people saying “ah, well, it wasn’t clear what people were voting for and why, so we’d better give it a second go just to clarify”. But this ignores the point I made earlier: that the views of the Oireachtas and in particular the government, also have a strong democratic legitimacy. Indeed very strong – as I said, our constitution leaves all the major decision making to them.
In this instance – a quirk arises where that conflicts with the outcome of a referendum whose essence isn’t altering the constitution. In the case of a Yes vote, this scenario doesn’t arise. The levers of democracy have been pulled in opposite directions. That is why the current situation represents something of an impass, though I mean that in the calmist possible terms. This is not a crisis.
Again my statement “I’m prepared to have a re-run of the referendum I think we need to pass“. From the discussion I hope you are beginning to see that this statement was framed with particular arguments about the nature of the campaign, the inconsistencies, the change of political context, and so on. You cannot equate my statement with the belief that we should rerun ad infinitim until we get ‘the right answer’. Let’s be clear – that is neither possible nor desireable.
We disagree on whether, or certainly the extent of, the damage a re-run does to our political system. Fine, we disagree on that issue. What I think is misplaced is the howls of ‘undemocatic’ towards those of us who argue, basically, that the No side were wrong, that there is more context that was missing, that there are risks in sticking with No, and that we should, essentially, re-argue the case. That to me is the essence of democracy rather than its denial.
Ejh you lambast what you say is the notion that “the main purpose of a referendum is to get the right result.“. No, but the main purpose of politics is to get the right result. Or to win the argument about what the right result is. That debate, discussion, engagement is what its all about. Those of us who still want to see Lisbon enter force have an obligation to stay the course if we believe it was right (unlike Eamon Gilmore who is playing games and hasn’t quite made up his mind). But the rest of us, we need to stay the course and sustain the argument for what we think is right and what we think is possible, and in the process to use, but not abuse, the tools of democracy for that purpose.
But this ignores the point I made earlier: that the views of the Oireachtas and in particular the government, also have a strong democratic legitimacy.
But not in this instance they don’t. Because that wasn’t the rules. John Palmer likes to do this too: if the vote goes the wrong way suddenly all sorts of other things have to be taken into account. But in fact it doen’t matter if every single elected representative in the whole island supported the Lisbon Treaty. On this issue the voice of the people was sovereign.
What I think is misplaced is the howls of ‘undemocratic’ towards those of us who argue, basically, that the No side were wrong, that there is more context that was missing, that there are risks in sticking with No, and that we should, essentially, re-argue the case.
But this is a very self-serving view of what you are doing. You are not generously offering to reargue a case, you are insisting that when the people have spoken that they should speak again because you do not like what they have said..
It doesn’t make me any less of a democrat that we disagree about how democracy should function best in theory
No, what makes you less of a democrat is your approach to a democratic vote in practice.
Actually ejh, that’s a very interesting question. Which votes in particular are you thinking of where precisely the same text was sent back to a nation?
And it keeps coming back to two distinct interpretations of yours that I think are untenable in the actual environment of the campaign that we experienced. Firstly the No side explicitly sought changes/negotiations and some of which would (I suspect) be relatively easy to provide (i.e. the Commissioner issue). That was the in practice reality of how they conducted their campaign. Secondly that somehow there is some platonic democratic bar on the referendum occurring which trumps any suggestion that it should be held. In the Irish context, as I’ve noted before, and Vincent Browne too (which is what kicked this off), any movement forwards even under Nice requires a referendum.
And I’ll be quite clear about where I stand on this. I would would vote against in a context where the same text unaltered was presented to the people again. So for me it’s not about getting the right answer, but the one which ultimately satisfies the Irish electorate…
Incidentally, ejh, I can’t help but feel that we in Ireland went through a process close to what you think the EU situation is in the 1980s and into the 1990s where – for example – the divorce issue was put before the people twice and where we had (into the 2000s) numerous abortion referendums. The text in the former was identical (IIRC) and near identical in the latter – or vice versa
.
Which votes in particular are you thinking of where precisely the same text was sent back to a nation?
Who said anything about “precisely”? I’ve not, any more than I’ve said anything about “indefinitely”. Of course there’ll be cosmetic changes, but I am sure both you and I can tell the difference between something that has changed substantially to reflect the opposition of the electorate to the previous proposal and something that has not. Do bear in mind that a phrase actually used on here was “re-run”. It was used by Tomaltach. Read again, what he wrote. That’s why I am very justified in seeing this process as simply an attempt to have a second go. (And if it passes ,the second time, what happens then? Best out of three?)
There were, if I recall, nine years between the divorce referendums. That’s rather longer than a governmental term in any democratic country I can think of. If they want to come back with precisely the same wording in 2017 you’ll hear no complaints from me. If they want to come back later this year or next year with something that says pretty much what the last one did, with just a couple of tweaks for show, accompanied by lots of commentary about how foolish and ignorant the electorate were last time but now they have the chance to redeem themselves, I’ll regard that as a scam.
The problem is that beyond your nine years of the same and your one year of ‘pretty much what the last one did’ there are many other options. Those two you reference aren’t great options. On that I can agree. And I still can’t help but feel that you’re evading the referendum as it was fought (by the No side) rather than as you’d like it to be.
And I presume, although I don’t want to speak for Tomaltach, that he regards it as necessary for there to be considerable changes before a ‘re-run’, a phrase I don’t like because I think it’s inaccurate. But if we look at the actual record of EU referendums as distinct from the stereotype we see that far from demanding the right answer, as with the Constitution, and before that the Danish Maastricht vote (or the Irish Nice vote – where we too got optouts), and indeed the Euro votes where No has been said at the very least there have been efforts as with the Danes to provide a range of opt-outs that have lasted to this day (none of which were minor or inconsequential)… in the case of the Euro countries which said no just remained outside it. So what exactly comprises the evidence of an EU that demands adherence to a single line with no compromise?
what exactly comprises the evidence of an EU that demands adherence to a single line with no compromise?
This is a straw man – that’s not what ejh has been saying at all.
I think your own earlier formulation is quite telling:
as regards had the vote gone the other way? Well that would have been because of the assumption that people were overall happy with the package presented.
…
it’s one of the distinctions between people accepting a proposition and not. If they do you assume its okay, if not you do what you can to change it to their liking). They’re not, so another attempt is made to fashion something that they will accept.
None of this is un or anti-democratic. It’s the heart of negotiation and consensus. You don’t like what I offer? I change it as much or as little as it has to be. Again the people remain sovereign.
The people, in this formulation, have the right to say Yes, or Yes-but, or Yes-with-reservations or Yes-with-strings-attached. Everything except No, in other words: the process isn’t about finding out what the people want, it’s about finding out what version of what’s already on the agenda they’re willing to accept.
Look at it another way: imagine that the question posed in the referendum was actually “Do you reject Lisbon?” and that the referendum passed. (Not such a ridiculous idea; the Italian constitution only provides for abrogative referendums, i.e. voting on whether or not to revoke a specific law.) Now, haven’t the people accepted the proposition put forward in the referendum? Conversely, if this hypothetical anti-Lisbon referendum had fallen, wouldn’t the proponents be within their rights to tweak the proposition and resubmit it? If not, why not?
Ultimately what’s at issue in this debate is whether we accept that, whatever else happens, the European supra-governmental project will keep on developing in pretty much the same way it’s been developing up to now, subject (perhaps) to a few tweaks (unspecified and far from guaranteed) in response to pressure from below. Grant that assumption and what you, Tomaltach and John are saying makes perfect sense. But it’s a profoundly undemocratic assumption.
On the No vote: there appears to be an assumption on display here that if people voted ‘No’, they did so because they were sufficiently convinced by the arguments made by some element of ‘the No camp’, i.e. that their viewpoints coincided to a decisive degree with those of SF, or Libertas, or COIR. That is, the reality of the No campaign, as WbS calls it, is assumed to coincide substantially with the reality of the No vote.
But is there any evidence that might provide a basis for this assumption? You didn’t need to be convinced by any of the aforementioned parties to vote No: the unconvincing arguments of the Yes campaigners might have been sufficient.
If the vote had been Yes, there would have been no talk of any further referendum on the matter, and just as there is talk of holding a new referendum now because the result was contrary to the wishes of ruling elites, it seems very hard to imagine No campaigners being taken seriously if they said, ah, but the people did not understand our case well enough, and people voted Yes because they were labouring under misapprehensions, they did not realise the serious consequences, so we should hold another vote. And if they said immediately after the result that to work for a new referendum was the essence of democracy, would they be taken seriously?
Again, all you both say makes perfect logical sense, but not in the context of this campaign. NO campaigners explicitly contested it on the grounds that negotiation possible, that more could be achieved, a better deal given. In other words across the broad spectrum of opinion from Yes to No the idea was that – at the very least – either as it was or with some alteration. Otherwise why bother asking the No proponents into meetings to discuss the issue after the referendum, and more to the point, why should they bother to go? Because they, and take SF as an example with a full submission on their proposals for how they want it amended already ready to go, weren’t passive in their stance but activist. And that suggests that my point about this being a process, not an event, that as a Treaty it could be reworked, renegotiated, ‘tweaked’ if you will, means that the sort of absolutist approach to this whereby it is possible to try to stake out a moral highground of democracy pitched against the undemocratic becomes – to my mind untenable.
Not least because we’re looking at so many different and competing axes of democracy at the national, at the EU, etc…
I make no assumption at all about the motivations of people who voted NO other than to say that they were in the main entirely sincere and genuine for whatever reason they did so, precisely the same as YES voters. I don’t look to the No vote to validate or not my position one way or another. I’m simply looking at how the NO campaign ran itself and its internal and publicly expressed logic and the follow on from that. Or let’s put it a different way. Had the No campaigners been ignored last week would that have been acceptable? Obviously not. Why not? Because they are the closest we have to representation of that NO vote?
Re asking ejh to provide examples, I think that’s fair Phil. If a position is put about, one which you seem to buy into as well, that these are self-evident truths, that euro-enthusiasts are implicitly anti-democratic that the EU is inexorable in pushing towards a ‘right’ conclusion, etc, etc as being fundamental to supporting yours and his position (as indeed you do when you say fundamentally this is about an EU that develops in the same way subject to (unspecified) tweaks from below) then I think that deserves some evidence.
But this is to elude the central point I make referring to Brownes piece which indicates that under the constraints of Nice a Yes or No on Lisbon is simply not relevant since we’ll have to have another referendum simply to sort out the ‘chaos’ as he put it of the Lisbon Treaty not being passed.
It’s a Treaty, it’s a governance structure of an inter-governmental entity, there are knock-on effects from previous treaties etc, etc. It’s not divorce, it’s not abortion, it’s not a General Election.
Finally how is my position that I would look for substantial changes anti-democratic, or that a second referendum would have to be held to validate them, when that is precisely the position held by Sinn Féin and Libertas (and now also Vincent Browne), both leading lights of the No campaign?
that suggests that my point about this being a process, not an event, that as a Treaty it could be reworked, renegotiated, ‘tweaked’ if you will, means that the sort of absolutist approach to this whereby it is possible to try to stake out a moral highground of democracy pitched against the undemocratic becomes – to my mind untenable.
On the contrary, that’s precisely the basis for my argument that the process is undemocratic. Yes is final, No isn’t – to the point where the process isn’t about the people stating consent or refusal, it’s about the EU finding a version the people will consent to. That’s got nothing to do with democratic accountability or popular sovereignty.
Thought-experiment: the Constitution doesn’t require a referendum before Lisbon is adopted, but does provide for abrogative referendums. A referendum is held on a proposal to annul the Lisbon provisions with regard to Ireland, and passes on a similar vote to the one we saw this year. Is that Yes final? If not, why not?
If the vote had been Yes, there would have been no talk of any further referendum on the matter, and just as there is talk of holding a new referendum now because the result was contrary to the wishes of ruling elites, it seems very hard to imagine No campaigners being taken seriously if they said, ah, but the people did not understand our case well enough, and people voted Yes because they were labouring under misapprehensions, they did not realise the serious consequences, so we should hold another vote.
Quite.
Yes is final, No isn’t – to the point where the process isn’t about the people stating consent or refusal, it’s about the EU finding a version the people will consent to
Quite. There are no amendments to Yes if Yes wins. Only to No.
Except perhaps that it’s even worse than this: it’s about making the assumption that we get as close as we can to the original version because the people voted the wrong way and we need them to put their mistake right. This is plainly what Tomaltach is saying. It’s managed democracy if I ever saw it.
This has been going on since the Danish re-run (we don’t want Maastricht, well here you are, have a modified Maastricht instead)and it has quite a few applications. I like for instance the way in which it gets decided that the Lisbon Treaty does not count as a constitution so that they can avoid asking the UK for a vote which they would certainly lose.
All this reminds me of when I was a member of the CPSA union (later PCS) back in the early Nineties. Our leadership had a habit of accepting votes, both at Conference and ballots of the membership only when they felt like it. They had a sizeable repertoire of excuses. Conference didn’t count because it was unrepresentative (unless the vote went the right way). Or turnout was too low (although this wasn’t an issue when it went the right way). Or there were irregularities in the ballot (oddly though there were never any irregularities when they won). Eventually of course all this ended in the High Court when they tried to annul the election of Mark Serwotka as General Secretary, but they got away with it for years. But ever since then I’ve loathed the attitude to democratic votes that treats them as if they were merely a consultative process which can be ignored or re-run if the electorate don’t accept the wishes of the political leadership.
A number of thoughts.
Can I defend Tomaltach (this seems to be my thing these days, defending people from accusations of Stalinism or from insults against Trotsky). He’s a democrat and I think it’s a bit unfair to accuse him of being otherwise.
Firstly Lisbon isn’t a Treaty on a Constitution. That’s a small but important distinction and crucial to the reworking following the Constitution debacle.
Secondly, this reminds me of discussions I used to have trying to describe PRSTV to people in places using FPTP. They’re both democratic, but they’re differently democratic and each has pros and cons.
And this leads to my third point. You’re applying (and I’m thinking particularly of your points ejh re CPSA) the binary of Yes/No that is found in Presidential or General Elections (and in some issue based polls) to a situation where a Yes/No isn’t necessarily the final word. A Treaty can be reconsidered or renegotiated – indeed arguably is always open to amendment. Which means that while not a consultation, it is possible to bring different combinations before the people – there is a very strong case for multiple options being put before the people on these sort of issues. I’m profoundly uneasy about the idea that ‘democracy’ can be boiled down so easily as it is being presented here. On this island we have some fairly interesting variants on that theme from the powersharing government in the North to PRSTV which lead to outcomes that are not entirely clearly ‘democratic’ in the sense of majoritarianism and depend hugely on negotiation and compromise. I frankly think that’s a good way to deal with an increasingly complex world. And the point is that democracy is more complex in potential and application. And so are Treaties.
So that in view, taking your thought experiment Phil. Without being smart about it I think it depends. All this is contingent on the nature of Treaties. They are composed of many elements that can be opted into or out of dependent on circumstance that makes your central point about Yes means Yes, or No means No, inapplicable.
A Treaty referendum can be substantially different dependent on what is negotiated. And once that is recognised, that as with Lisbon, or previous Treaties, where from polling data it is clear that elements of the Treaty were of particular concern it is possible to come back with a ‘better’ deal. Or ‘worse’ dependent on negotiations.
To argue that ‘there are no amendments to Yes if Yes wins. Only to No’ tells us nothing particularly useful. If we apply this to any other area of political or social life we see that there is nothing unusual about it (not least in political formations where it is entirely usual for votes to occur at conferences annually on the same issues – who complains?). There are no amendments to Yes if Yes wins because there don’t need to be – a majority is sufficient for it to work – as it is in any other context – if you say Yes that’s generally without reservation. We go by the idea that a majority has indicated positive acceptance of a proposition. But No to one combination doesn’t logically (or ethically) mean that one is saying No to every possible combination. And that leads the way to the option of amendments. “You don’t like that? Fine. How about this?”. This isn’t some sort of anti-democratic plot, it’s implicit in the structural aspects of Yes and No themselves and arguably a continuation of the previous negotiations. At all times the people are able to make the choice. Lisbon failed in this form. A re-run of it in this form is unthinkable. Now something else must be devised and proposed and put before the people. And the people aren’t stupid. If it is the same as last time, it won’t pass. Rightly so.
Nor does ‘we get as close as possible to the original version because the people voted the wrong way’ which is simply a projection onto the situation since we have yet to see any formula in the future, as is the word ‘mistake’, neither of which incidentally has been used as an argument or a term by any Yes group in Ireland or the Irish government.
Indeed arguably this is a more democratic approach because the flexibility intrinsic to the EU (ejh, you mention Denmark/Maastricht in negative terms, but look what Denmark achieved by being able to go back, or indeed the UK or Germany, each with profoundly different positions within the EU, each with their national opt-outs and veto’s in specific areas of core national interest from currency to defence. And these weren’t minor inconsequential opt-outs but extremely significant ones which have last for a decade and a half in Denmarks case and would continue to do so under Lisbon. Nor was the Nice 2 referendum without a significant clause on neutrality for Ireland) which allows for a reworking and renegotiation in a way that government formation or candidate election doesn’t. In other words, the Irish people can say No in the expectation that their concerns will be addressed. And again, and this hasn’t been dealt with in any of the responses above, the No campaign explicitly played to that concept of concerns being addressed which at the very least left room for a ‘reasonable expectation’ by those voting that the Lisbon Treaty wasn’t a fixed and unchanging entity but could be worked on in subsequent negotiations. How is that less democratic than the binary alternative where there is only ever Yes or No, no shade, no nuance, no room for negotiation or compromise? And no clear indication as to when a matter might be brought back to the people.
As regards the nature of the EU that it somehow trying to find a version that people will consent to, well, I can’t see why that per se is undemocratic as well. What on earth else should it be doing? A responsive EU that is open to amendment and opt out as with Denmark, as with Ireland iand can encompass divergences like that is surely the essence of a democratic project.
Fourthly and most central to this discussion, and once more in none of the responses by Phil, ejh or Hugh is the issue raised by Browne addressed, which is that following the defeat of Lisbon we must vote in another referendum on Commission size or some other alternative reworking of Lisbon – and this is due to the actual logic not of Lisbon, but of Nice. Which neatly points to the way in which Treaties aren’t static but active and amenable to both change, reworking and have effects that continue.
So it is impossible, even from a purportedly ‘democratic’ viewpoint to argue that no referendum can be run after Lisbon when the defeat of Lisbon itself has triggered the circumstances necessitating precisely another referendum in order to manage the ramifications of Nice continuing.
That to me is as simple and straightforward an argument for avoiding positing this as a blatant example of being democratic/anti-democratic as is possible. And, worth also noting how precisely this dynamic of referendum outcomes leading to subsequent referendums has been seen in Ireland previously as with the repeated attempts to get abortion dealt with in a satisfactory fashion.
And here’s a further thought. As leftists and progressives aren’t we trying to progress situations precisely through negotiation, compromise? Since when are we absolutists who refuse to brook anything short of zero sum binaries? Isn’t this absolutism entirely inappropriate both for our larger projects and in the context of our philosophies? To be honest that seems to me to be an elitist position (because it makes the implicit assumption that a) given the choice the ‘people’ will always vote agin the EU and b) there are only two views on these issues, Yes and No and no shades within them or any option of different responses given different options).
I also find this adherence to five or nine years returns to issues counter-intuitive, considering that in future democratic systems we hope to have recall of representatives, presumably rolling consultation with electorates on the issues of the day, etc, etc. This, the Treaty, is precisely the sort of issue which is amenable to such consultation and amendment.
I’ve put my cards on the table as regards my position on all this. No Yes vote from me on anything without significant concessions, not least because it would affront me to be presented with the same again. But I’d also suggest that there is a bit of dancing around the issue going on, at least as regards the continual belief as expressed above that nothing substantial would be forthcoming in referendum 2. Let’s see.
in future democratic systems we hope to have recall of representatives, presumably rolling consultation with electorates on the issues of the day, etc, etc. This, the Treaty, is precisely the sort of issue which is amenable to such consultation and amendment.
If it were, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. As you said further up,
There are no amendments to Yes if Yes wins because there don’t need to be – a majority is sufficient for it to work – as it is in any other context – if you say Yes that’s generally without reservation.
51% Yes is an unreserved Yes which need never be revisited again. 49% Yes is a provisional No which can – even should – be reversed through subsequent consultation.
It’s the directionality of the process that affronts me – in two complementary senses (top-down managerialism and irreversible incrementalism). If Lisbon had passed, would the Irish people ever have been asked how it’s working out for them? Would they ever have got another chance to say No?
arguably this is a more democratic approach because the flexibility intrinsic to the EU … which allows for a reworking and renegotiation in a way that government formation or candidate election doesn’t
What you’re describing is responsiveness, not accountability. The details of this or that policy put forward by the professionals of EU politics may be revised to take account of popular concerns, but they don’t derive either their authority nor their policies from the people they represent. It’s a basically paternalistic model.
but look what Denmark achieved by being able to go back
It’s not really relevant, is it? We could for instance produce any number of counterfactuals about how things might have been better if this or that referendum result had been reversed on a re-run. It was nevertheless a case of hurrying through a second vote on the best conditions the EU could muster for itself because the rejection of Maastricht wasn’t acceptabe.
So it is impossible, even from a purportedly ‘democratic’ viewpoint to argue that no referendum can be run after Lisbon
Which nobody has actually argued. and I wish you would keep suggesting that people have.
As leftists and progressives aren’t we trying to progress situations precisely through negotiation, compromise?
Yes, but only when that’s actually what’s happening – not when what’s happening is that people who think the electorate have behaved badly think that they should be made to try again as soon as possible and with as few changes as possible. You want to talk about what the No campaign actually said – well, have a look at what the people who want a rerun are actually saying. They are openly saying that there should be a re-run because a Yes vote would have been a good thing.
And why does there have to be any further referendum? You say:
we must vote in another referendum on Commission size or some other alternative reworking of Lisbon
But why must you? As Mark P points out above, if it creates a crisis it’s only a crisis for the governing classes. The world doesn’t stop because they can’t get the Lisbon Treaty through. Perhaps the political crisis caused by the vote (which has implications in other countries as well as Ireland) will mean that the Treaty collapses. You may well consider this a bad thing and may very well be right. But if it happens, it happens. The assumption that there needs to be any further political action to progress the issue is an assumption, not a fact.
As indeed is the assumption that there need be no amendments if Yes had won. Why? Given that the vote would at any rate have been far closer than anybody had anticipated, and that Lisbon was known to be unpopular in a number of member states, why would there not have been a strong case for revising or scrapping it? It wouldn’t have happened, because it’s not what the governing classes want. But it wpould make as much sense as assuming that Yes doesn’t need revision but No does.
I also find this adherence to five or nine years returns to issues counter-intuitive
It’s not: it’s a democratic principle that if votes mean something then they mean something for a substantial period. The whole idea is to avoid the situation where if people vote one way on an issue they will simply be re-balloted until they change their mind. You’re not right when you say that if nothing changes the vote will stay the same: that’s not what happened in CPSA. The leadership always won their revotes, because people got the impression – and rightly – that it simply wasn’t worth persisting, because only one result was ever going to be satisfactory.
Thus with the EU. And it’s this stacked deck which is intrinsic to the way in which the EU and its enthusiasts approach democracy. All sorts of assumptions are made to justify it and all sorts of sophistry employed to legitimise it. But it can be summarised as “avoid a vote if you think you’ll lose it, run it again if you think you can reverse it”. It’s not a democratic project. No project is, where whether votes are held, or whether they are rerun, depends so often on what the result has been, or is likely to be.
Phil, if it were then we probably would be having precisely this sort of debate, if not on the substance then on the detail. To suggest otherwise is to suggest there is only one ‘right’ direction or attitude to Europe, the one under the Exit sign. In other words Lisbon would be subject to consultation, submission, consideration, reworking, etc.
As regard directionality, or indeed 51% Yes/49% No, once more I refer back to my point about the structural aspects implicit in Yes/No respectively, but also the fact that inside Lisbon is an explicit secession process – as distinct from the implicit one we now have. Were those who wished to pull away from Europe to do so they could organise politically on a national basis. The curious thing is that such parties have yet to garner sufficient support (and even the Tories are playing a very duplicitous game on this score with their ‘we’ll have a referendum if the Irish don’t pass theirs’ – yeah right). Moreover the weighting of power to the parliament under Lisbon is precisely the mechanism which would allow for greater ‘democratic’ oversight. Reforms don’t occur if reform packages don’t go through and it’s a bit specious to argue that somehow things have to change for the better without making the effort to change them.
I’ve already discussed and disagreed with you the idea that the EU is top down managerialism in the way that you characterise it. Not least the intergovernmental aspect undercuts the development of an EU identity in that regard. And if managerialism exists the root source is… national governments. Big surprise. But national governments remain potent political arenas and are not beyond change or alteration.
As for it being paternalistic, once again Lisbon sought to deal with that through various reforms. Insufficient – without doubt, but once more the attempt was being made and would presumably have been extended as time progressed. And here’s the thing, if there is no reform of the structures then we’ll be left with an EU that is broadly flawed in terms of democracy.
ejh…
I think if you keep mentioning Denmark to support your contention that the EU merely reruns referendums to get the result it wants it’s entirely relevant to look at the substance of what was gained in those referendums (even if I disagree that it does). If those were the issues the Danes found objectionable and they were amended one might reasonably wonder what the problem is.
Again you argue that ‘people who think the electorate behaved badly’. I don’t, who does? It does create problems, and those problems have to be addressed.
“So it is impossible, even from a purportedly ‘democratic’ viewpoint to argue that no referendum can be run after Lisbon”
Which nobody has actually argued. and I wish you would keep suggesting that people have.
…would be fair enough if you didn’t actually continue…
And why does there have to be any further referendum? You say:
“we must vote in another referendum on Commission size or some other alternative reworking of Lisbon”
But why must you? As Mark P points out above, if it creates a crisis it’s only a crisis for the governing classes. The world doesn’t stop because they can’t get the Lisbon Treaty through. Perhaps the political crisis caused by the vote (which has implications in other countries as well as Ireland) will mean that the Treaty collapses. You may well consider this a bad thing and may very well be right. But if it happens, it happens. The assumption that there needs to be any further political action to progress the issue is an assumption, not a fact.”
Once again I point to Vincent Browne’s thesis.
As regards your further points there are issues of democracy in the broader environment, not least the democratic rights of individual nation states to progress projects when the overwhelming majority of them agree on a course of action and have that validated in their parliaments. It’s not always just down to ‘governing classes’. Sometimes there is a genuine enthusiasm for these things. Those democratic rights have to be weighed against Irish national democratic rights and the context of the vote which is that if it doesn’t pass in one it has to be reworked or dispensed with.
Incidentally, whatever about the CPSA, I’ve been in enough organisations where persistence across a period of time has paid off to know that your blanket assertion that you may be right about the CPSA but you’re off target if you apply that experience to the world.
As for avoiding votes. This contention really interests me. The one place I think that is unquestionably correct is the UK for local cultural reasons – reasons which have informed an attitude one sees throughout their lefts. But that political decision is down to successive UK governments of various stripes. Other states inside the EU would – to judge from Eurobarometer and other polling – tend to fairly solidly support the EU project. So your blanket injunction there strikes me as incorrect and the characterisation of it not being a ‘democratic’ project is interesting if only because the current mix of intergovernmental and integrationist elements has to juggle democracy in order not to swamp national rights. Of course it’s not fully ‘democratic’, to paraphrase you, ‘no project is’ at all anywhere and to expect it to be or to demand it to be is quixotic. But it’s a damn sight better than any other project of its kind that we’ve seen previously and in its flexibility has allowed nation states to retain, and in some instances – and here I’m thinking of the RoI in particular – expand their national identity.
Phil, if it were then we probably would be having precisely this sort of debate, if not on the substance then on the detail. To suggest otherwise is to suggest there is only one ‘right’ direction or attitude to Europe, the one under the Exit sign. In other words Lisbon would be subject to consultation, submission, consideration, reworking, etc.
We’re starting to talk past each other, and this is a particularly glaring example. Let me define my terms. I was responding to you saying that:
in future democratic systems we hope to have recall of representatives, presumably rolling consultation with electorates on the issues of the day, etc, etc. This, the Treaty, is precisely the sort of issue which is amenable to such consultation and amendment.
When I said “this sort of debate” I meant “debate about the democratic legitimacy of the process”, and more specifically debate about irreversible constitutional changes, referendums which one side of the argument but not the other has the power to resubmit repeatedly, and top-down managerialist projects which take neither their mandate nor their content from below. Under conditions of greatly improved democracy – delegates subject to recall, rolling consultation, etc, etc, – none of this would apply. Under those conditions, yes, Lisbon would be subject to endless revision – in other words we’d be free to talk about the content of the treaty, which would be a completely different discussion.
inside Lisbon is an explicit secession process – as distinct from the implicit one we now have
That’s the ultimate Yes-but vote – you can even vote Yes-but-No… I have to confess, the constitution-writing political hack part of me thinks that makes perfect sense, but there’s a hard stare and a sharp intake of breath coming from my peasant half.
Ejh said “it’s a democratic principle that if votes mean something then they mean something for a substantial period. The whole idea is to avoid the situation where if people vote one way on an issue they will simply be re-balloted until they change their mind”
But they won’t simply be re-balloted. That’s the point and this brings us back to very near where we started. First there will be a change of context. The Irish governing elite, in particular the governing parties, obviously have a very strong view that endorsing Lisbon is in our interest and that there are considerable risks if we don’t, especially if we are the only outlier against a reform process endorsed in 26 other states. In the context of what WBS has said, in terms of many elements of the No camp claiming re-negoriation would be easy and anticipating a revote, and perhaps in the context of the political reality of the positions of the other states, we would be voting for a different proposition. That plus the fact that there may be changes, such as a commissioner, and perhaps other tighter clarifications of sensitive issues. So it’s not a simple re-vote.
But more important, it’s not like they will keep on re-balloting. If Lisbon were to be run again and again defeated, there is no way the Irish government could try a third time. In fact, it might even represent a huge challenge to their very survival. If it were re-run and defeated again, the political energy for it in Ireland is grounded and we halt. (In fact I consider this a not unlikely scenario)
So the scenario whereby we are in for a whole series of re-votes until we give the right answer is not going to happen.
Of course it is obvious from my arguments so far that I’m not in awe of direct democracy the way Ejh and Phil are. You don’t need polls to tell you that any people (Yes and No voters) found the Treaty difficult to digest, but also found it hard to make any calculation of what consequences it might have if passed. (There was an inconsistency here too between what No campaigners said before and after the vote – before ‘ the treaty is unreadable and incomprehensible’ and after – ‘don’t dare say people didn’t understand it’) But personally I believe there was difficulty for the ordinary man in calculating what it meant (some polls back that up and interestingly for the Dutch No there were also suggestions of not understanding/not enough information). So I’m arguing, as before, that this is an issue best addressed by representative democracy But there, we have to agree to disagree (and I have to acknowledge that for the moment we are certainly bound to referendum for Lisbon because of political issues, and bound to referenda on other possible Eu treaties because of precedent and Crotty)
I know I’m in for a hammering in saying this, but it’s what I passionately believe. The equation of democratic legitimacy balances in favour of the Yes camp. Our political elite who have to deal with the EU institutions, they were overwhelmingly in favour, our business leaders who have to work their way through regulations and weigh economic and tax issues very closely were in favour, many of our unions were in favour. The representatives in all these cases have sound democratic legitimacy springing from different sources. On the other hand, many of the No leaders did not. Like Patrica McKenna and Joe Higgins and Declan Ganley and Gerry Adams – none of whom have a democratic mandate in the republic. Had all of these No people a right to campaign – absolutely. But the No campaigners did not have anything like the mandate of the Yes campaigners.
Finally on the issue that this is not a crisis. It’s not a crisis in the sense of a catastrophic breakdown. I called it a quandary. But Ejh says if it’s a crisis, it’s a crisis for the governing classes. True. This was never going to be a crisis for ordinary people – there weren’t going to be bread shortages. But those charged with protecting and enhancing our interests at a political level, and that includes making the most of our EU membership, have found themselves in a very difficult position. And government ministers will say in private that, whatever the arguments about the content of the treaty, they now have a serious political headache that is going to consume considerable political energy in the coming year(s). So in terms of governing the country – the rejection of Lisbon is a real not an imagined dilemma.
Wrt comment#24 by WBS above and some of #27 and #33. Wbs you seem to think a rehashed referendum will actually be very different to Lisbon? From this juncture it is highly unlikely to be significantly different as far as I can see. That’s not consensus. That’s not listening to the ‘minority’ and taking on board their views. (The minority being the one allowed a vote on these constitutional changes -something which is recognised as being a base level democratic requirement for such changes,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum )
This uncomfortable reality -that the very same referendum will quickly be put before the people who vote against it,- negates your point.
That’s what some on the NO side here meant when they said the *opportunity* to renegotiate+. An opportunity which, unfortunately, the government made clear they would not partake in, -right after the ‘wrong’ result was declared.
+
In fact some No sections even had posters saying to vote no to Lisbon and then to make sure they Vote no to Lisbon markII!
Phil, I think that’s a little contradictory. It is entirely reasonable to critique the structures of the EU as they are now, although the criticisms are somewhat over-egged (I went away last night and thought about your use of the term ‘paternal’? Really? If accurate one could then apply that pretty much to any structures of authority from the UN downwards). But if proposals are suggested that will address those issues and ease the process of departure from the structures I think that it is counterintuitive to complain that somehow the EU is not seeking to address those issues. It may, as with Lisbon, have failed, but not for once for want of trying. And while the proposals may be limited they do exist and they do indicate a wish to move somewhat away from previous structures. But that said the great tension between state sovereignty, intergovernmentalism and integration hems in movement on all fronts.
As regards your bugbear of incrementalism, I just don’t see how individual nation states seeking to retain sovereignty and yet deepen cooperation can operate very differently from the current structures. And while I’d like much more democratic purchase on those structures I recognise (not being a federalist) that at the end of the day there are overlapping areas of democracy from the individual vote of each state, to the vote of electorates. That makes for a pretty contradictory project and sometimes an unlovable one. It also makes for a slow moving one.
Look, we clearly take very different views on these matters. I can’t see how going back to the people is unreasonable or undemocratic particularly in the context of a Treaty. Quite the opposite. But as Tomaltach notes, that’s not something that can be done time and again. To go back they have to have something substantively different from Lisbon otherwise they lose. All the current polling data indicates this. Already we hear from EU memberstates that this will not be resolved before mid 2009 and probably later. I’d be surprised if anything was put before another 18 months. And if it’s lost then, well, it’s lost. But I think any state would be remiss if – as this one does – it believes that this is an issue of the highest national strategic interest (and even the msot cursory review of the literature on Ireland and the EEC/EC/EU will demonstrate that the RoI made such a strategic decision long ago, not least to slip out from under the shadow of the UK) that it doesn’t go back to try to fashion something that is acceptable… And the bottom line is that within the Constitutional framework of this independent Republic that is entirely correct and legitimate, whatever about the EU, our viewpoints on the EU or other…
Pax, until we see the details on the table I don’t think it is possible to make a judgement on what shape or form any future proposals will take. And that means that to say outright that ‘they’re not listening to the ‘minority’ (your words, not mine) and taking on board these views’ is simply an assertion, nothing more. You cannot say for sure that is the case. And that also means that your blanket statement that the ’same referendum will quickly be put before the people’ is yet again just that – an assertion. At the very least it would be reasonable to give the government time to formulate a response before pre-judging it.
Can I just take consider one small point of what you said Tomaltach, while it is true this is not a crisis as such at this moment, it certainly has the potential to become a crisis and one which will involve ordinary people. One of the greatest benefit of Irish membership of the EU has been a broad stability in macro-economic terms across the past decade and a half despite a remarkable boom and relatively comfortable fording of the mildish recession in the early 00s, and before that pump priming in terms of investment from EU structural funds (and support for the farming sector). Anything that upsets that in the medium term has direct impacts on ordinary people. And that’s not just a political headache for our political classes but a very real headache for people already struggling to make ends meet. Sure, we could treat this all as an experiment in tweaking the tail of the tiger, as ejh suggests, but from where I stand knowing how tough it is for people getting by already and seeing an economy sliding into recession that’s not an experiment I particularly relish engaging in…
WBS, about your point on the severity of the Lisbon dilemma for Ireland. I totally agree – this is a political quandary now and as yet has no bearing on prosperity and progress. But unless we find a way to resolve it with our EU partners, this will have an impact on everyday life. By the time the effects have worked themselves out that far, if indeed it does pan out in such a negative way, it will be too late to talk about Lisbon!
Yet, while I see very considerable negatives in the scenario where we cannot resolve the reform issue with the other EU states, I’m reluctant to dwell too much on possible negative outcomes because there is as yet too much uncertainty and if one draws up a personal assessment of possible risks, one is accused of being alarmist.
If those were the issues the Danes found objectionable and they were amended one might reasonably wonder what the problem is.
Well, they voted against Maastricht – and then people decided that they weren’t really against it. I think there are problems with this approach. (One may as well say “so you voted against the Tories? Well, we’ll give you a Tory government, but with slightly different policies, since we’re sure that was your real objection.) And needless to say, had the vote gone narrowly in favour of Maastricht, there would have been no saying “well, they didn’t really want Maastricht, they just liked certain of the provisions”.
I think this business of interpreting the meaning of democratic votes is – to put it kindly – fraught with difficulty.
our business leaders who have to work their way through regulations and weigh economic and tax issues very closely were in favour, many of our unions were in favour. The representatives in all these cases have sound democratic legitimacy springing from different sources. On the other hand, many of the No leaders did not. Like Patrica McKenna and Joe Higgins and Declan Ganley and Gerry Adams – none of whom have a democratic mandate in the republic. Had all of these No people a right to campaign – absolutely. But the No campaigners did not have anything like the mandate of the Yes campaigners.
And this tends to explain why: because people start twisting things to suit themselves and inventing things like “sound democratic legitimacy” – which remarkably includes “business leaders” (and what a phrase that is) whose source of democratic legitmacy escapes me. It is really hard to address this way of proceeding without using strong language. It is cant.
…would be fair enough if you didn’t actually continue…
Oh, as for this – is it really so hard to distinguish the suggestion that there does not have to be another referendum, from the concept that there must not be one?
ejh,
You find it remarkable that I credit business leaders with having a form of democratic legitimacy. I don’t find it remarkable at all. I’m thinking of the notion of participatory democracy where contituents who have common interests or a common set of problems group together to engage in the political system in a variety of ways. This is a broader concept of democracy than the more restrictive notion of all citizens directly electing political leaders. Not only is it broader, but it is also a truer reflection of the reality of our political system. The elected chair of a residents association has a certain mandate and a certain democratic legitimacy. Workplace democracy is also a variation of the theme. And so too is social partnership, where the vast bulk of the participants bring their power to bear on shaping significant policy choices without having been elected from the general population. That doesn’t mean they don’t have democratic credentials and certainly there is a very broad acceptance that the social partnership process is a legitimate way to shape political outcomes. Perhaps this view of democracy is not pristine, but that doesn’t mean it is illegitimate and it has the merit of being workable in real life.
I tend to think democratic legitimacy derives from having been elected by somebody. I think this is really quite important in democracy. However, inventing a form of democratic legitimacy which is non-existent but which suits is par for the course here. Again, it is cant.
If being elected is central to your concept of democracy you mustn’t have much time for the outpourings of McKenna, Higgins, and Ganley in relation to Lisbon. It think it is your argument, not mine, which lacks consistency.
Frankly I think you and others on the No side are running out of ideas when you resort to the rather unimaginative tactic of dismissing our arguments because they “suit“. What does that mean? How do you test that? Where have we taken other positions for other purposes?
Take the argument on its merits.
It is hard to take an argument simply on its merits when it is being created, and deployed, in order to suit. At every point it involves diminishing the rality of a vote that went the way you do not like, in order to accommodate the requirements of powerful individuals and lobbies whose views on the matter coincide with your own. You’re consistent in that, for sure.
When democratic principles are being bent, it is surely reasonable to comment on the reasons why they are being bent, rather than simply discuss the merits of bending them. You were quite happy to declare your own agenda above: why then should I pretend it doesn’t exist?
But, to put the argument on its merits:
If a vote is held and lost then (as I have said above) it does not make the blindest bit of difference whether the entirety of business and politics wished it to go the other way. This is because the number of people who wished it to fail exceeded the number of people who wished it to pass. Attempts to refine or to obscure this are not more sophisticated versions of democracy: they are negations of it.
(Incidentally, it is curious that neither the Dutch not the French, having opposed the Constitution in referenda, got a vote on the Treaty. How very sophisticated.)
If a vote is held and lost then it does not make the blindest bit of difference whether the entirety of business and politics wished it to go the other way.. Oh but it does and it will.
If the French and the Dutch feel they have a problem with the democratic instruments they use to conduct their international relations then that is something they need to examine and fix to their own liking. Some people would lecture them on how it should be done, but I’m not going there.
Oh but it does and it will.
And that’s the cynicism…
If the French and the Dutch feel they have a problem with the democratic instruments they use to conduct their international relations then that is something they need to examine and fix to their own liking.
…and this, the evasion.
[...] sort of thrashing around the issue in an interesting but not necessary conclusive manner here, but come the day come the news in the Irish Independent that: Our top EU post saved in new plan [...]
Sorry ejh, my confusion – a danger of writing at 5 in the morning – and that’s a fair point, as regards the elision of those two blocks of text, although if I may I’d argue that you appeared immune to the point that one way or another as Vincent Browne put it there had to be a referendum either under Nice or for Lisbon to rectify the Commissioner problem.
As regards Maastricht and your Tory government comparison. We’re not talking about the selection of executive authority in a state. We’re talking about a Treaty. The distinctions between the two are clear. The point is that a Treaty is malleable in a way that other political issues are not. [Incidentally, you haven't really told me what you think about the situation under PRSTV where I can vote for - say, picking three parties at complete random - SF, GP and ILP and wind up with only one in a government quite against my intentions. I don't even have the consolation that you do/did in the UK that FPTP means there is clarity between majority and minority. To me that suggests that democracy and democratic outcomes are perhaps are a little bit more contingent than some think and that the procedures by which we arrive at 'democratic' outcomes can be complex?]
As for interpreting the ‘meaning’ of democratic votes. You’re absolutely correct, but when campaigns are run explicitly on the idea of renegotiation and deal making it strikes me once more that that is a ‘reasonable expectation’ in the mind of voters and to be frank, every significant body on the No side the moment the results came in tasked the Irish government with precisely that.
WRT those involved in the campaigns on both sides, well I tend to see them all as equally valid. Certainly, while I have no love for IBEC or employers groups in general they are representative of some elements in our society. You pays your money you takes your choice. But to suggest implicitly that somehow (many?) of those on the Yes side lacked democratic legitimacy is – I fear – a step too far. Unappointed, unelected bodies proliferated on both sides. Not a problem to me. A thousand flowers, wasn’t that what the Chairman said.
As regards the French and Dutch, well, not entirely sophisticated, or indeed surprising when you consider that the Danes, hardly known politically for their extreme Europhilia, put the Treaty to independent constitutional test and determined that by their lights it did not represent any threat to their status quo. If not for them, why for anyone else, and remember they were going to have a referendum on the opt-outs if Lisbon was passed, so hardly something they’d mess around with.
And funnily enough it’s not that I disagree in principle with your point, just that in the abstract I completely agree and then in the concrete I think – wait up… Not least because it remains detached from the actuality of a campaign where the No side centered their debate in the idea of renegotiation, of what is permissible under the Irish Constitution, of the right (indeed the necessity) of testing the public will on a matter of national importance, or the necessity of any state by its own lights to consider its own response to what it determines as matters of strategic national interest and finally of the simple fact that only two outcomes would be demonstrably undemocratic – one to rerun the same referendum unchanged and the other to ignore the referendum result this time and ratify Lisbon. I wouldn’t countenance either.
But to suggest implicitly that somehow (many?) of those on the Yes side lacked democratic legitimacy is – I fear – a step too far.
Ah – it wasn’t I who brought up the question of “democratic legitimacy”. My sole point was that nobody aqcuires any democratic legitimacy by being powerful in busines – I think it’s an abuse both of language and of the democratic process to say so.
Government may well consult business interests, because business has a lot of wealth and power, and because it may be considere to possess some economic judgement and expertise. But those are questions of governance, not of democratic legitimacy.
I cannot for the life of me see what the Danes have to do with the failure of the Dutch and French to hold referenda. It’s a really convoluted argument and to be honest, we’re hearing too many of them. The fact is that both France and the Netherlands rejected the Constitution in refenda and yet find themselves with Lisbon. That smells. In each country a referendum was plainly possible, in each case it was avoided: if it wasn’t necessary for Lisbon it’s really hard to see why it was necessary for Nice. Everybody can see what is going on when this happens. Everybody that doesn’t choose not to.
But if you think you can tell the public of either country “the Danes thought it was all right so you don’t need to vote on it” then I would invite you to try – and perhaps as an exercise to devise a political system based on the principle of “inference from other countries’ votes”. It would be a unique experiment in political economy.
I agree with you, the arguments are convoluted. And of course I’m not suggesting for a moment that Denmark should dictate others views. But that argument sort of works both ways… (and yes, I know that it’s a one in all in situation, but still)
I still can’t help but feel though that your response can shade close to what you suggest is the motivation of others, that implicitly your sense of the EU and its workings forces you to choose the most specific response to the Irish referendum and after when convoluted or not the situation in Ireland is a little different (not in principle) due to the logic of the campaigns, the constitution etc. I’m not suggesting you’re wrong for a moment, and I’m not wedded to the Atlantic mists theory either, but imposing templates can be tricky.
So it can, but it’s remarkable how, in practice, that trickiness is resolved by selcting the the option most favourable to the EU.