Lisbon 2 polling data… and some unsupportable contentions from the Irish Times.

I’m still intending to get back to the polls from the weekend, but it is worth briefly considering the result of the Lisbon II Referendum poll published yesterday in the Irish Times. This, as noted by Stephen Collins,

…confirms a trend that has been developing for the past six months. There is now solid support for the Lisbon Treaty holding up as the recession bites ever deeper.

And while I instinctively balk at such mechanistic cause and effect analyses it is hard to see any other event influencing the shift in sentiment so rapidly and so completely in the time since Lisbon I.

Because the results from the poll are fairly conclusive in terms of reflecting that shift…

There has been another increase in support for the Yes side and a small decrease in the No vote over the past two weeks. This would have given the Yes side a comfortable 66 per cent to 34 per cent margin of victory if the referendum had been held last week.

Now why would Collins mention ‘last week’? Well, he is reflecting too, reflecting a sentiment of some within Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael who argued for the referendum to have been held prior to the European Elections or at the elections.

And his next sentence supports that…

Such a margin of victory would have represented a more comfortable victory for the Yes side than the second Nice referendum in 2002, when 63 per cent voted Yes and 37 per cent voted No.

Indeed he becomes entirely explicit as he continues:

The decisive shift in public opinion, which has been clear for some time, raises questions about the failure of the Government and the main Opposition parties to put the issue to the people before the European election.

The problem now is how a badly demoralised Government will be able to wage an effective campaign in the autumn, on an issue that is so vital to Ireland’s national interest, if it suffers the kind of electoral disaster next Friday that now appears unavoidable.

To be honest I think that’s a rather self-serving, indeed alarmist, conclusion. Friday’s outcome has been largely a foregone conclusion for quite some time now, perhaps even as far back as the turn of the year. Whether Collins seriously believes that in the time between then and now it was possible for an alternative government to be formed, or whether it was either viable or necessary (in a political sense) is an interesting question, but I’d hope he doesn’t.

Moreover, and I know I’m reiterating this with tedious frequency, on June 6th the Local and European elections will matter much much less than they today. Next stop the Budget and that appears to be comfortably far away in the late Autumn. Unless Fianna Fáíl is forced to introduce yet further measures in the interim. If that were so, and it’s hard from examining the sentiment in the business press to believe that that is true, then all bets are off. For all of us.

And I’m not so sure that we can extrapolate such – for him – comfortable conclusions from the information at hand. For two basic problems spike such essential complacency. Firstly were a referendum held last week we could expect the context to be markedly different to that which we have experienced on all matters European in the last month or so. Everyone who campaigned for a No last time has been at pains to express themselves as pro-EU. None of the divisiveness, and incidentally I’m not arguing against differentiation here just noting the nature of referendum campaigns, that we saw at the last poll was expressed. I’m hardly the first to see that for European elections neither Lisbon nor European matters in general have troubled the mind of the Irish electorate overmuch. And indeed given the severity of our situation, why would they?

Secondly we have yet to see the final shape of whatever proposals are brought before the Irish people by the Government. Sure, we know the broad outline of the – no doubt – copper fastened, iron-clad and binding agreements that will tamp down the more egregiously unpopular elements of Lisbon as seen by parts of the public. But we have – as yet – no idea whatsoever as to whether these proposals will fly with said public.

That said, I’d almost certain from looking at the figures that short of a miraculous economic recovery in the Autumn or something entirely unknowable intervening those polling figures are unlikely to shift in the opposite direction any time soon.

Collins articulates one of the fears of the great and the good that:

There will be some comfort for the Yes campaign if Declan Ganley and Libertas fail to make a significant breakthrough in the European election campaign as The Irish Times poll indicates will happen.

Ganley has said he will not have a leadership role in the next referendum if he fails to get elected to the European Parliament and that will remove at least one thorn from the side of the Yes campaign.

But let’s not completely overstate the influence of Libertas. Sure, Ganley is a focal point for a very certain view, a view that – as you’ll have noticed – has exercised us no end at the CLR as it has come into sharp focus during this campaign. But he too has his problems, not least the dismally contradictory nature of Libertas in policy terms. Ganley in Brussels might well be a thorn in the side of a Yes campaign, but a Yes campaign worth its salt would be well able to manage that contradiction and if it were half-way efficient turn it around.

And it’s also hard to entirely buy into Collins thesis that…

If the autumn referendum somehow turns into another disaster and the No side win again then Brian Cowen, Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore will all be equally responsible for the failure of political nerve that prevented them from getting the referendum campaign over with in the first half of the year.

The clarification of the Lisbon Treaty to allow all countries retain an EU commissioner, along with the legal guarantees on specific Irish concerns such as neutrality, taxation and abortion will be agreed at an EU summit in Brussels in a few weeks.

They could just as easily have been agreed at the March Council and the referendum would now be out of the way.

That’s a fancy piece of political amnesia, for whatever the rights and wrongs of bringing Lisbon forward again it would be a brave person who would argue that to do so in under a year (if ever) was entirely legitimate. Indeed I’d make a counter argument that in bringing it forward at around the eighteen month mark is just about at the outer limit of the acceptable, even for someone like myself who considers it valid to re-run a referendum in light of the profoundly difficult economic circumstances that have enveloped this country and if changes on a range of axis have been made in terms of the relationship between this state and the EU and the Treaty.

And again, remember, we have still to see those ‘changes’. If they were truly minimalist that would certainly impact upon my thinking. So what of others?

But it’s also political amnesia because until the present campaign where the rather threadbare nature of the Libertas brand as an effective political force has become evident (whatever the outcome in North West), there was no certainty that this would be true in its absence. One could even argue that the fillip of a second referendum campaign would have made them more formidable given its concentration on a single issue where the European campaign has due to its much more nebulous nature (and the vagaries of multi-seat constituencies) left them adrift.

Of course it could be that Collins is ruing this situation because he harbours a hope that Fianna Fáil may be on the point of packing up their bags for a stint in opposition as suggested by that hardy perennial amongst Irish political contrarians (premature liberal in Fianna Fáil – how are you), and another politico who appears never to have seen a microphone he didn’t like, Dr. Jim McDaid.

But I cannot stress it enough. Those in power wish to stay in power because they look at the numbers, study the timelines and do the math. There are up to three years left before the next Election has to be held. That’s three years in which the situation could come good, or at least better. From where we all stand that may seem like crazed optimism in the face of adversity. But a basic truth is that at some point in the future the situation will improve. Whether that will assist the Government is very much an open question. They, most certainly, are about to see things get worse before there is any hint or hope of them getting better.

The irony is that as Ireland becomes increasingly troubled both economically and political the apparent popularity of the EU rises. Whereas in a time of relative plenty and economic stability it dips. There’s something in that which bears closer analysis which might be far from comforting to the pro-EU viewpoint.