The following is an unashamedly disgusted and completely personal assessment of the major political parties in this country in allowing a small group of extremist views, with probable foreign backing, to pervert the debate in this country over the Lisbon Treaty referendum without the kind of robust and confident rebuttal that should have exposed these arguments for what they were - deliberately misleading, borderline racist, and promoted by people who were given a significant amount of airtime without the degree of public scrutiny that should come with such a profile.
For example, as was validly pointed out on That’s Ireland, many of the “no” posters were illegally published. Why were they not (promptly) removed? Moreover, the backgrounds of the people promoting these views were proving quite mysterious. Indeed, I remember one letter to the Irish Times, in particular, which asked why it was so hard to find out who was behind the Coir campaign. The first I learned of who they were came from Bock The Robber, who outted them here. He, then, followed this revelation up with a similar expose on Libertas (although I had seen that one beforehand in the mainstream press).
However, when it came to how the main political parties of this country dealt with this weaselly sophistry, we got a response composed of bombast, bluster, and banality. Just brilliant! Great to see how the time spent in the UCD and Trinity College debating chambers was not wasted on them.
What is more, I was initially under the mistaken impression that there was a general election being held in conjunction with the referendum. Not only were the politicians squabbling amongst each other, instead of presenting a unified front on a subject that they claimed to agree on, but the posters that went up seemed to be more interested in promoting name and face recognition of their local representatives rather than saying why people should vote in favour of the treaty. Shameful. By the way, please do not give me any guff about the posters acting as a form of personal endorsement, as I will not have it for a moment!
If you will indulge me, I would also like to give a quick overview of my perception of what the main political proponents of the Treaty have got up to in recent weeks.
Fianna Fail
My abiding memory will be of Brian “The Jowl” Cowen photographed each day in whatever unflattering pose that the photographer could capture him in. How surrounding himself with a bevy of smarmy-faced, yellow T-shirted college kids was meant to win votes is beyond me. There was then the ever-ludicrous Charlie “Spud-In-His-Mouth” McCreevy making a virtue out of ignorance in boasting openly about how he has never read the Treaty. Great to see my tax euros at work - it always is. Other lowlights included some minister or other photographed canvassing in what suspiciously looked like an empty cattle mart, while this clown of a sitting TD made sure that he stole all of the headlines last week.
Fine Gael
Did the ghost of Alan Dukes come whispering to Enda “Anaemic” Kenny before this campaign? Despite asking the electorate to keep Ireland at the heart of Europe, old Enda’s ticker simply has not been in this fight. Into the vacuum that he created, though, swept the party’s spokeswoman on European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton, who has done her future political ambitions no harm at all really.
Labour
In one sense, this has been a great campaign for Labour, as they cosied up nicely to Fianna Fail. The days of that mean old Pat Rabbitte keeping them out of public office will soon seem like a distant memory! Perhaps the reason why Enda was so conspicuous by his absence was that he was searching for a tent to go sulk in? Fortunately, for me, at least, Eamon Gilmore’s still less-than-stellar performance has ensured that my current meditation technique remain unaffected. Whenever I need to empty my mind, I simply think of him.
The Green Party
it is unfair of people to continuously make jokes about how the Greens wear sandals. It is pretty obvious to me that flip-flops are their footwear of choice these days. Could this party actually become any more ridiculous? Sadly, if anyone can, they can.
Progressive Democrats
Honestly, now, who really cares what they got up to?
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Disclosure: Please read this blog entry for my personal opinion on which way to vote on the Lisbon Treaty.
Filed under: Humour, Politics, Rants | Tagged: Bertie Ahern, Lisbon Treaty, Brian Cowen, Eamon Gilmore, Enda Kenny
actually, the Green Party don’t support the treaty. Or rather, somewhat less than 66% of their members do, so no official ‘flip-flop’ as you call it on their previous opposition to EU treaties. Hence no posters from them…
The ‘That’s Ireland’ post you reference states that the No posters are *almost* illegal, since they have the requisite details in the smallest possible writing. However, I have personally walked past posters which I have tried in vain to find writing on. I wonder would I have been within my rights to have torn them down myself?
I guess one reason why they aren’t taken down - other than municipal incompetence, to be cynical like you - is that it could backfire and give publicity to the groups for ‘censorship’ of their trite, senseless views.
also, the comments on that post are hilarious. The No volunteer with stereotypical Caps Lock writing style! (and at least one factual inaccuracy + couple of other disingenous statements). And the Catholic guy…
To be honest, it is exactly those “technical” aspects of the Greens approach to decision-making that I am hammering away at here! How can you call yourselves leaders, when you dither on everything? Seeking a strong public consensus from your party members is a noble aspiration, for sure, but the Greens just do not seem to have a common enough agenda between themselves outside of the environment to make this work. As a result, they just seem ridiculous and indecisive, despite 60-odd percent of them being in favour of this treaty.
As for the posters, I was walking home the first day that they went up and saw several without any organisation named on them. The next day, I saw Michael Nugent’s post regarding their illegality, which is exactly what I thought that the legal position was on this.
The fact that they will not take them down is certainly out of fear of being seen to clamp down on debate. However, while I believe completely in free speech, I also believe in accountability. What we have here are people distorting the debate and being allowed to hide under their rocks at the same time. Unacceptable.
It is shocking that there was no attempt whatsoever to educate people what the treaty was about but you know what would have been worse that the treaty defeat? The treaty winning and the smug self-satisfaction of Fianna Fail thinking they had done a wonderful job altogether.
I was in favour of the treaty but I was also in favour of the electorate giving the political establishment a caning for treating them with utter contempt.
I know where you are coming from with that Gaiusc. However, my own view was that pro-treaty voters with a strong distaste for the current government needed to rise above the latter on this occassion!