The Northern Wing of The Yes Campaign. September 26, 2009
Posted by Garibaldy in Lisbon Treaty.trackback
Over at Sluggerotoole, Conall Mc Devitt of OConall Street has linked a letter he and other “prominent business, academic and NGO figures” signed in today’s Irish Times advocating a ‘Yes’ vote. I have to say that the letter made me quite angry. But not as angry as Mark McGregor, who has kindly agreed to allow me to use his comment on the Sluggertoole thread as a guestpost here.
The bit that interests me is the hypocracy that will see this lauded by the YES side who have been treating the UKIP intervention as a stick to beat the NO side with.
As Gari notes it is also based on lies and not just the one he notes:
Our common membership of the European Union since 1973 has been crucial to the achievement of reconciliation and political stability in Northern Ireland, to the development of North-South relations, and to successful co-operation between the Republic and the United Kingdom
All that, to the level it exists, is due to negotiations and secret agreements between the PRM, the British and the Irish put in train in secret in the mid 80s. Europe had no part in any of it. The key and main factor of it was the Adams camp delivering a defeated republican movement into a partitionist settlement.
Continued membership at the heart of the European Union will help us, North and South, to grow together and to face in partnership the huge economic, social and environmental challenges of the years ahead. This is enabled by our common membership of the European Union and enhanced by the new possibilities offered by the Lisbon Treaty.
False. Lisbon does not in any way address problems and disparity in all-Ireland economics and does not address the differences including currency and banking systems. It has nothing that promotes more partnership, not a single thing.
A second No would bring Ireland’s continued membership of the Union into unknown territory.
That is just a pure lie based on scaremongering. Those advancing it should be ashamed.
It risks unsettling and destabilising our common membership of the European Union which has been so helpful to us in the past and so necessary to us in the future.
More utter ballix. Those involved are yet again lying.
We are committed to a future of positively developing relations within Northern Ireland, between North and South and between Ireland and the United Kingdom. We are convinced that a Yes vote is the best way to underpin and secure that future
Gibberish. This treaty has nothing to do with North South relationships.
A bigger pile of steaming horse manure I have yet to read on Lisbon. It addresses not a single issue involved and makes up issues that have no bearing as reasons to support it.
Those involved mainly benefit from EU funding – perhaps this is the reason they’d invent such a vacuous argument for endorsement.
Shame on the lot of them. Bloody bullshitters.
So there.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
At least three former members of your movement on that list Garibaldy.
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Yes, I’m well aware of that Wig, that they are ex-members of The WP or the Republican Clubs. Hence my comment at Slugger that I was slightly surprised at some of the names on the list. Although not at least one of the ex-members. There are so many ex-members in so many different places, taking so many political positions that maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
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I’m surprised by some ex-Officials who are now SDLP members.
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I suppose it reflects two or three things. One is a move towards the centre. Another is that they had a self-image as nationalists, and sometimes as Catholics, and think the SDLP is suitably non-sectarian. And on other occasions it can reflect a conscious choice to enable a career being possible.
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On the SDLP/Officials thing – I was chatting to a guy from Newry recently who said a lot of stickies had drifted off to the SDLP a relatively short amount of time after the ceasefire.
Not sure how accurate that is.
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it used to be said that the biggest political party in Britain was “ex CPGB” .
It is amazing the amount of ex sticks who turn up in the most unlikely places. An antipathy to SF characterises most of them. The strange thing is not how many but how few of them ended up in the SDLP.
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Now the biggest party in Britain is “ex SWP”.
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Actually I asked because the party was very antagonistic to the SDLP in it’s heyday, occasionally almost as much as to the Provies. So I’m surprised when ex-members do turn up as SDLP press officers, lord mayor of Belfast etc.
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Very good point pangur bán, but I guess given the nature of the SDLP that was always going to be an option of last resort (well, bar SF).
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On the other hand Mick Hucknall’s wig, the answer as to why those that did go to the SDLP did, well, one thing about the WP was an incredible streak of pragmatism on many day to day issues and a sense of ‘get things done’. I’d bet that if one followed that mindset through one could wind up in lots of different locations, but… the SDLP might be an obvious destination (at least up until the inexorable rise of SF – and even after for those wanting to get into civil/political society but not join SF).
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It isn’t as offensive as that open letter of unionist academics supporting Israel’s assault on Gaza. Wherein I noticed the signatures of Lord and Lady Bew.
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That slipped past me SS. Can you remember where it was or do you have a link? Hardly surprising though given his patronage of the Jackson Society. I noticed too on the tv news when NI were playing Israel that the friends of Israel team that played NI supporters had a lord playing for them. I wonder who that was.
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I fancy it may have been an ad rather than on the letters page, but I’ll see if I can get a reference. There was a caustic discussion of it in the IPR at the time. Don’t remember the details, but it was a real rogues’ gallery of signatories.
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Cheers SS. IPR is not top of my reading list though it is fun whenever I do read it.
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False, gibberish, horse manure etc. are fairly violent reactions to the statements. They are not about the wording of the Lisbon Treaty, but mainly about the framework of European integration and EU membership, conducive to economic and societal development as well as the lessening of tensions.
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has this site a moderation policy or doesnt’t it? Maybe the poster is spending too much time on P.ie.
Anyway regarding
“The bit that interests me is the hypocracy that will see this lauded by the YES side who have been treating the UKIP intervention as a stick to beat the NO side with.”
Can you explain how precisely the position of those signatories who are irish citizens resident in the UK differs from:
1 Gerry Adams who will be on RTE news at one today
2 the Northern based members of the regional executive of UNITE the union who made the decision to commit the union to a No position
3 Garibaldy himself?
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It does indeed have a moderation policy. But my interpretation of it mightn’t be the same as yours (I didn’t see anything wrong with the phrase political cretinism for example, as opposed to calling someone a cretin). There is no ban on accusing people of being dishonest about political matters, even if the language in this post is stronger than we would ordinarily use. There isn’t even really a ban on calling people bullshitters (although we’d prefer people wouldn’t). This post makes political arguments based on the detail of the letter. Had it simply said these people are all telling fibs then it wouldn’t have been posted. But it doesn’t.
To be honest, I don’t think you’ve understood the point that Mark is making in the bit you quote. He is not complaining that these people have voiced their concerns. He is not saying northerners should stay out of the debate. What he is saying is that people who have been complaining about outside interference against the Treaty will welcome this outside interference when it suits them.
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I think though that one problem of the Lisbon/EU debate beyond this forum is how quickly broad principles and approaches are pointed to immediately as examples of bad faith or lying on either side. I don’t actually see the original letter in quite the negative light Mark does. And I certainly wouldn’t take the very strong line he does that the individuals are ‘lying’. In a way this goes more to the nature of the EU, highly technical issues wrapped in often overly boosterist rhetoric that many people often instinctively cleave either for or agin.
For example, it seems to me that it’s not a lie to say that if Lisbon II is rejected that will bring us into previously unknown territory. Now, to then make a leap to say that that must of necessity mean that our relationship with the EU is destabilised is a bit of a reach. But… no more so than some of the posters I’ve seen this weekend from previously sensible formations on the NO side.
That people often don’t think very deeply about these issues on either (unlike posters and commentors here) side doesn’t mean their statements are lies, but are perhaps more misinformed or not entirely thought through.
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I do think WBS that some of the arguments put forward in the letter were disingenuous. I simply don’t believe that the people who signed the letter really believe that EU membership is under threat from a rejection. It’s been very noticeable that that argument, unlike last time, has been largely absent from the Yes campaign, and the noises about this coming from abroad have also stopped.
This is the sentence in the letter that probably most annoyed me
“Continued membership at the heart of the European Union will help us, North and South, to grow together and to face in partnership the huge economic, social and environmental challenges of the years ahead.”
This Treaty has absolutely nothing to do with the question of continued membership.
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Don’t get me wrong, you’re correct, I’m just suggesting that if one has nebulous notions as to why the EU is good then one will propose nebulous notions as to why not voting for Lisbon is bad.
BTW, interesting they didn’t use the argument that by voting No that left the door open for that remarkable democrat Cameron (there go my people I must give them a referendum on Lisbon) to hold his referendum which presumably would see the UK resile from Lisbon. But that would throw up so many interesting questions about the nature of democracy in the UK and more broadly that that would be a bit tricky!
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It certainly would be 🙂
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I apologise if my blunt language has annoyed some and I agree it isn’t appropriate for the tone of debate promoted on this site. It wasn’t written as a blog entry for her or anywhere else though – it was a comment that Gari decided to lift.
I was so forthright because the original letter pushed two of my buttons on political commentary – don’t do hypocrisy or bullshit.
If you right something, anything on any debate it should be grounded in both fact and integrity. This letter will be applauded by those that absolutely reject any external interference in the debate when it suits them and was not based on any real argument around the content of the treaty.
It was an appeal to the heart strings based on inaccuracy, actual falsehoods and peace processing nonsense.
If I had intended it or thought it would end up as a blog entry anywhere I would have tempered the language. The very real challenges to the honesty, integrity and relevance to the discussion on Lisbon from this letter remain valid despite the OTT language.
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Yes I should have pointed out more clearly that I asked Mark could I steal the comment from Slugger as it seemed to me to make succintly and clearly the points I would wanted to have made about the letter in a post written in response. So if there is any fault it is mine for being lazy 🙂
So apologies to Mark if I seemed in an earlier comment to be criticising him for his choice of language. I absolutely wasn’t. And as he says himself this was not intended to end up here. Partly his fault though for writing such quotable stuff 😉
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