What a swell party this… might be… More on the Libertas Dinner. November 13, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, European Union, Irish Politics.trackback
Well, the full list of names is in, Patricia McKenna herself admits that
“I would have very different views on quite a lot of issues [from Libertas], but everybody is entitled to their opinion. I would be on the left, Libertas wouldn’t be, but the one thing everybody has in common is that the people’s verdict on Lisbon should be respected and that there is a lack of accountability within the EU.”
One wonders what her rumoured prospective Euro election home, People B4 Profit feel about her hob-nobbing with the great and the good.
And I had to smile when she said:
“Clearly, there is an attempt by the political establishment to keep the Irish people in the dark about the fact that there are people out in Europe who agree with their rejection of the Lisbon Treaty,” she added.
Read the list of guests and you’ll see that she is dining with an alternative ‘political establishment’, one which is hard right in Irish terms and in some respects the cheerleaders or architects of our current economic dire straits.
There are those who take the anti-Lisbon line who are of the left. I may disagree with them on that issue, but I recognise their sincerity. But this crowd?
Really?
And I can’t help but feel that the Irish Times fascination with all this, right up to and including printing the names of all 100 or so guests, is because many of these people are but a shade away from the old PD economic liberal consensus. I mean, Constantin Gurdgiev, the ubiquitous Waghorne… a bunch of people from the Catholic right.
No wonder the Irish Times is in a tizzy. This is cognitive dissonance on an epic scale. But it is also, and I use the word purposefully, reactionary. This is reaction in our society writ large. Explicit wealth underwriting a campaign, and disparate groups from the social and economic right sniffing something new and invigorating are rushing to be part of it.
Above and beyond the issue of Lisbon itself, however that pans out (and who would argue that the events of the recent path make a second referendum very likely in the short to medium term?), this is – to my mind – a fairly disturbing development.
Because we’re looking at a very new sort of political manifestation in the Irish polity. Hitherto these groups were at best represented by the PD – although that party was constrained by coalition government and the necessity to engage with interests on the ground in a way which blunted their most egregious fantasies. Otherwise they had no political vehicle and tended to remain cloistered in their think-tanks and media outlets. And these are people who – to my mind – don’t want to put in the hard work on the ground developing a political formation but seek one that is, as it were ready made.
And the European electoral context is perfect for that because it simply doesn’t matter in the way that either the loudest cheerleaders for Brussels or their greatest detractors would propose. Whether, though, it is plausible that Libertas could have candidates elected at the next European elections is a different matter. I keep looking at the constituencies and I can’t see any serious opening for them.
There are other logical problems here. For example, while the Mouvement pour la France (MPF) of Philippe de Villiers may be willing to move in under an Libertas umbrella (although I’ll bet they run as Libertas/MPF) it seems much less likely that the highly euro-sceptic parties of the UK would do likewise, and that means attempting to develop Libertas from the ground up there and elsewhere. I genuinely wonder how that will work. Does it seem entirely likely that a pan-European ‘movement’ could take hold like this across the language, culture and political divides that already manifest in Europe? I’m dubious, not least because we’ve seen how the already existing political movements, social and Christian democracy have not operated in that way. The central paradox of the EU, the national set within the supra-national, is evident once more.
Of course all this supposes that Ganley et al are in this for the long-haul. Again I wonder.
A strange line up all the same. It has a strong tinge of the Alice Glenns about it to my mind.
A bit more upmarket, mind… but yes, something of that. And real live aristocrats! And dancing and a live concert…
Quite so WbS. But to repeat a question I asked on the earlier thread, can anyone tell me exactly who is the Gerard Lawless listed among the aristos, Catholic ultras and old time Stalinists turned patriotic euro-sceptics at the dinner. I mean it could not be the old Trotskyist firebrand Gerry Lawless could it?
The last I heard of Gerry Lawless,(the IWG guy) he was in hospital for treatment. I don’t know if it’s the same person.
It has a strong tinge of the Alice Glenns about it to my mind.
Think Heritage Foundation – where Bible-bashing (or, in this case, rosary-rattling) meets Milton Friedman with a bit of General Jack D. Ripper thrown in for seasoning.
Quite so WbS. But to repeat a question I asked on the earlier thread, can anyone tell me exactly who is the Gerard Lawless listed among the aristos, Catholic ultras and old time Stalinists turned patriotic euro-sceptics at the dinner.
Gerard Lawless is a reasonably common name combination – at least among Lawlesses. (As an example – and I’m not suggesting that this is who the Libertas-lunching Gerard Lawless is)
Can we conclude at this point that Ganley is an agent of the Cousins – the ones who hang out at Langley, I mean?
Or should I defer my plans to invest in tinfoil hats?
And if Washington would really rather not see an EU that goes further down the road to being a political (and implicitly military) superpower, as well as an economic power, what does that say about where the EU is going?
Excellent post. Better than my bungled attempts so far to post on Libertas.
If we don’t all keep making the effort though…
Just coming across these two posts today – proof of your ambitions in a ’social columnist’ direction, WBS ? Careful – reflect on what it did to Terry Keane :-> … All smells a bit like the old Dublin Castle balls we hear about.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde – a veritable line-up of the ‘unbearable’ – were there foxmeat batterburgers on the menu perchance ?
Also thanks for ‘learning me’ that the excrutiatingly unbearable De Villiers is in bed with Libertas. I had looked around the French political scene to see what kind of cranks would be candidates for a Ganley Fanclub, and I think he was the second name to spring to mind.
Sweet Jesus! – just thinking about his condescending voice in interview in that horrible pinched accent of his makes me want to retch. Watch out – Ireland to become Europe’s Vendée
Thanks for posting this, WbS. The dinner was certainly a motley collection of Catholic-ultras, faux-patriots and PD neo-liberals in search of a new home. They represent one of two things, either a collection of unelectables and cranks or a sinister new development in European politics. I’m undecided as to which of these possibilities it is at this stage and agree with you that the electoral arithmetic, whether in Ireland or across Europe, is not very hopeful for them …. as yet!
By way of contrast members of the Irish Labour Party and the French Parti Socialiste resident in Dublin established a section of the Party of European Socialists in June called: PES Activists Dublin. We held a private meeting with Margot Wallström yesterday (Friday) about Ireland’s current position in Europe and how matters might play out in the coming months. My point is that It’s not only Libertas that is organising, and if their appearance presages a more polarised, Left-Right public discourse on Europe then, frankly, I’m all for it!
Regards … Desmond.
Left-right discourse on Europe? That is nonsensical, when right across Europe the debate on further integration is not a left-right debate, but a debate essentially about sovereignty.
And any details of what future she predicted for Ireland in the coming months?
Hi Garibaldy. Thanks for your comment. The debate on Europe is not only about “sovereignty” or “integration”. With the crisis in financial capitalism and the fears that people have for their economic security the recent debate about Europe has clearly been about much more. Witness recent comparisons being drawn between Ireland’s exposure given that we are inside the Eurozone and those of the people inhabiting another cold, wet rock in the middle of the Atlantic.
For those of us on the pro-European Left who are working to return Ireland to a central role in the EU the effort must be to move the discourse away from largely pointless debates about sovereignty (e.g. concern for us losing the ability to appoint another Charlie McCreevy to the commission) and onto issues that really matter to peole, economic security, equality, climate change – just to name three.
Hi Desmond,
Surely neutrality does matter to people? As, it seems, does sovereignty. Otherwise it’s hard to explain the upward numbers of No voters in European referenda since what, 1992? The attitude that these issues are pointless – for example, the argument that Ireland has never really been neutral means that we shouldn’t worry about it – has been one of the factors in alienating people on this issue from the Dáil parties.
I do wonder about the idea of Ireland being at the centre of the EU. It remains very much a big power club with smaller countries tacked on and tolerated. As we saw in the reaction to the No vote, and the ways in which the big powers have been able to ignore the fiscal aspects of the Eurozone when it has suited them.
P.S. No word from that meeting? I am genuinely interested in what she might have had to say.
Garibaldy, as regards the EU being a big power club, precisely the same argument for precisely the same reasons could be made against the UN, indeed that body is worse because of the structure of the Security Council. But quite reasonably people accept that there are ways of constraining larger power interests at least some of the time. With the EU which is so consensus drive it’s often painful to watch that’s a much lesser issue. And the scope for smaller nations to act together against larger ones is greater still – not least because the larger powers have quite divergent agendas from each other. In any case, I can’t genuinely see how there couldn’t be in any given political structure precisely this sort of tension between nation size and influence however progressive, so I see it as a bit of a red herring in these debates.
It isn’t a red herring where the realm of policy decided at a European level is expanding. The UN can certainly be criticised, but it is a different type of organisation than the EU, so I’m not sure that comparison is exactly spot on. There are clearly tensions of interest, and inevitably so as you say. But I don’t see that as a reason for surrendering more power rather than less. The question is relevant when the idea of the Irish state being at the centre of the EU is raised I think.
I wonder about that. The UN operates as a big power club, only rarely as with Iraq going against large state interests in a serious fashion, and only very very rarely sanctioning them. And on a lower level it is hugely intrusive into national sovereignty issues. Only recently we’ve seen organs of the UN rightly criticising the Irish state in terms which were it the EU there would be uproar.
As regards the EU, it’s expanding, sort of… whether to the degree we saw proposed during the Lisbon referendum is a different issue.
To be honest I think that a complex international structure is going to inevitably lead to diminuitions of national sovereignty across many different axes – we’ve seen perfect examples of how transnational capital issues bring us low despite being halfway around the world. The point is representation and although highly critical of many aspects of the EU I think they’ve done as well as they could in a context where national sovereignty must take primacy.
But as socialists surely we believe that a pooling of sovereignty is not merely a good thing in itself but also necessary to face the globalised problems of the moment and the future?
Well the UN doesn’t make internal laws for countries the way the EU does (both good and bad), and can say what it wants partly because it is toothless on that front basically.
I certainly believe in international cooperation, especially in a progressive way. The extent to which that requires the surrendering of freedom of action is open to big questions. To take an obvious alternative model, has the cooperation between progressive governments in Latin America required any pooling of sovereignty?
Well South America is already well down the path towards its own version of the EU which brings together Mercosur and the Andean Community. The name was officially instituted at a meeting in Venezuela. I notice also that Venezuela is playing a strong part in bringing this to fruition including agreeing to the siting of the central bank in Caracas.
Missed that WBS, so thanks for that. I’d need to see the details as to whether that means pooled soveriegnty, but a central bank may well be a good idea for those states. I do think that cooperation between progressive governments is of a different order than an EU foreign and military policy. With such an entity would Irish troops have ended up in Afghanistan? It strikes me as very possible – most of the EU countries have troops there.
Still, one can’t unequivocally say that South American govt’s are entirely progressive. There are one or two not progressive at all states there, yet Chavez seems comfortable with something essentially identical to the EU. It would be interesting to know his rationale.
Aren’t there some Irish troops in Afghanistan under UN mandate?
not engaging in combat with nato though, which may well have been the case had Lisbon been enacted before that. I hope I didn’t seem to be saying all south American governments were progressive.
Nah, I didn’t read it that way.
Hmmm… combat with NATO… again, triple lock, public antagonism. I think darfur is as far as it goes in that respect.