Which way will you vote (if at all)

johnnyq · 11-06-2008 1:29am

nesf wrote: »

Hopefully this will follow the trend of the boards polls before the last general election, you know the ones that had FF losing by a landslide....

Maybe this boards.ie poll which has only a narrow lead for the NO side, is totally out of sync and the gap is actually much larger?

I hope the boards.ie poll inaccuracies continue into the future :P

Rb · 11-06-2008 2:28am

nesf wrote: »

Hopefully this will follow the trend of the boards polls before the last general election, you know the ones that had FF losing by a landslide....

Hard to say really. I'd imagine it'll come down to the elderly, as per usual.

That said, there's also quite a lot of republicans who aren't on Boards both in Dublin and elsewhere throughout the country who will certainly be voting no. The overwhelming majority of college students I've talked to will be voting no. In fact, I've yet to meet anyone who have admitted to intending to vote yes publicly.

Have also heard that there's parts of Fine Gael who'll vote No purely to make Fine Fail look shít in the eyes of the EU.

On reflection, I'd actually be more surprised if a Yes did come through.

thebaldsoprano · 11-06-2008 2:31am

oscarBravo wrote: »

This is completely and utterly untrue.

The amendment is absolutely crystal clear on what it allows Ireland to ratify. The text of the treaty is written down in black and white. The effect of the treaty on the other treaties is widely available, and has been for some time.

Seriously, of all the things to argue about, the ones that are actually written down in English are not among them.

Hmmm, looks like I didn't make myself clear enough, I'll try and clarify...

"Currently if the politicians (them) want to change it they have to ask the electorate (us) to do so."

If the politicians want to change the constitution they have to ask the electorate by means of a referendum.
This alone invalidates the first point of your reply, but I'll continue for the sake of clarity.
The paragraph in the amendment I was referring to is as follows:

No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts
done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by the
obligations of membership of the European Union referred to in
subsection 10 of this section, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or
measures adopted by the said European Union or by institutions
thereof, or by bodies competent under the treaties referred to in
this section, from having the force of law in the State.

Now, I'll take your point about this quote and I should've said something like:

"they will be able to override it without asking us."

On your second point, that depends if you regard;

"acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by the obligations of membership of the European Union referred to in subsection 10 of this section, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the said European Union or by institutions thereof, or by bodies competent under the treaties referred to in this section"

as crystal clear.

Looks more like a murky pond to me.

Also on your second point I don't think anyone was disputing the availability of the Treaty text in black and white, or any other colours for that matter, just that it isn't at all understandable.

Is it really asking too much for a government using our money to produce something readable?

Here's an example of the Treaty from page 157:

255) In Article 266, third paragraph, the words "at the request of the Commission" shall be replaced by "on a proposal from the Commission" and the words "in accordance with a special legislative procedure" shall be inserted after "unanimously" and the words "Articles 4, 11, and 12 and Article 18(5) of" shall be deleted.
256) In Article 267(b), the word "progressive" shall be deleted and the words "or functioning" shall be inserted after "establishment".

From an ordinary voter's perspective, I think voting in this gobledegook would be pretty much the equivalent of voting in Michael Jackson for our next Taoiseach. Yes we could get some expert psychiatrists to give us some idea what we may be letting ourselves in for but I'd rather keep things as simple as possible.

With regards to sink's post, this kind of recycled propaganda is exactly what I was hoping to avoid by coming here, there's more than enough of that going around in the press and on the radio already...

Anyways, to anyone reading this please don't take my or anyone else here's word for any of this, do some digging and make up your own mind.
Again, both the Constitutional Amendment and the Lisbon Treaty text are available on the Referendum Commission's site.

nesf · 11-06-2008 2:34am

Rb wrote: »

Hard to say really. I'd imagine it'll come down to the elderly, as per usual.

It'll come down to turnout in a number of areas.

Rb wrote: »

In fact, I've yet to meet anyone who have admitted to intending to vote yes publicly.

I've found the opposite tbh. We move in quite different circles though I imagine, me being from bogland and all that.

AtomicHorror · 11-06-2008 2:35am

muttsnutts1 wrote: »

Remember referenda is VOX Populi, the voice of the people,Why give power to the rich man's club of politicians corrupt or otherwise.

Why indeed? These "rich men" were voted into power by the voice of the people. The Lisbon treaty will not remove them.

There are plenty of people here with solid and reasonable arguments for voting no. That's all well and good.

However, I see a whole lot of talk of voting no to spite the government. The government that nobody seems to really like, who nobody seems to have liked for many years now. Yet they were voted into back into power during the last general election. How many of those who would spitefully vote "no" to lisbon, voted FF back into power last year?

It's almost as if people were afraid to stand up for themselves back when it actually counted. When our votes would potentially have driven noticeable change right here in Ireland. Now here comes Lisbon, which either way is unlikely to have significant impact on our day to day lives, and suddenly the rebellious Irish are back out in force. They can take a risk-free shot at that government they were too afraid to vote out of power. Better the devil we know, I suppose.

If you're planning to vote no just to give The Man the finger, reconsider. For goodness sake have the stones to save the piss and vinegar for when it actually counts. Vote with your head.

Rb · 11-06-2008 2:45am

nesf wrote: »

It'll come down to turnout in a number of areas.

Very true

nesf wrote:

I've found the opposite tbh. We move in quite different circles though I imagine, me being from bogland and all that.

I'd mainly be speaking to college students, or those around the same age (18-24ish) but even those I worked with up until recently (some aged 50+) were aimed at a No.

IRLConor · 11-06-2008 2:53am

Rb wrote: »

The overwhelming majority of college students I've talked to will be voting no.

All but one of the college students I've talked to will be voting yes. The one that was voting no was doing so because of the loss of the commissioner but when I explained that it's going under Nice anyway he seemed to reconsider a little.

Rb wrote: »

In fact, I've yet to meet anyone who have admitted to intending to vote yes publicly.

I've met plenty. In fact, I haven't met anyone (bar the one student above) who was definitely on the no side. Everyone I've talked to about it has been either yes or undecided with a tendency towards yes.

Rb wrote: »

On reflection, I'd actually be more surprised if a Yes did come through.

TBH, I think it's going to be No, with a roughly 55%/45% split. I'll be very annoyed if it does turn out that way, since it will be largely the fault of the major parties failing to counter the lies spread by Libertas, COIR and the like.

There are plenty of good reasons to vote no, but those are rarely if ever mentioned by the big no campaigns. I think it has been the FUD-spreading that has attracted the swing voters.

Call Me Jimmy · 11-06-2008 3:01am

IRLConor wrote: »

There are plenty of good reasons to vote no, but those are rarely if ever mentioned by the big no campaigns. I think it has been the FUD-spreading that has attracted the swing voters.

This is something I've been thinking about tonight. It is obviously arguable that someone should vote no but almost every reason I have heard people giving for voting no is at best ill-informed and at worst downright stupid, in my experience anyway. Funnily enough nearly all the reasons are the exact slogans of the No campaign's sensationilistic nonsense.

AtomicHorror · 11-06-2008 3:01am

muttsnutts1 wrote: »

The threat by the French today gave me 100% resolve to VOTE NO for the sake of Democracy,

Debatable as to whether we could really call those comments a threat. Even if it were a threat, is that really a valid reason to vote no? If an employer warns that you may be sorry if you don't accept their offer of a pay rise, are you going to reject it because you don't want to be bullied? Or are you going to do the smarter thing and read the small print to see if you are possibly giving up something that really is of benefit to you?

What appear to be threats and bullying may in fact be an expression of some significant frustration at the idea that the Irish are about to sink a treaty that they had a significant role in negotiating over the course of seven years and through two different incarnations.

Rb · 11-06-2008 3:03am

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Debatable as to whether we could really call those comments a threat. Even if it were a threat, is that really a valid reason to vote no? If an employer warns that you may be sorry if you don't accept their offer of a pay rise, are you going to reject it because you don't want to be bullied? Or are you going to do the smarter thing and read the small print to see if you are possibly giving up something that really is of benefit to you?

What appear to be threats and bullying may in fact be an expression of some significant frustration at the idea that the Irish are about to sink a treaty that they had a significant role in negotiating over the course of seven years and through two different incarnations.

Somehow I very, very much doubt that.

Very, very much.

Dev 17 · 11-06-2008 3:04am

alexanderomahon wrote: »

Why should I agree to something I don't understand?
It is the salesman's job to convince me i need what is on offer. The problem with the yes campaign is that people don't want the EU to change because they are happy with how it is.

It's your responsibility to be informed. Rights always come with responsibilities, the right to vote is no different. If a person doesn't understand (Not saying you don't) they can look it up. Most people got pamphlets, if more information is needed they can use the internet or check their paper/radio/tv station. Quite simply, you will get no information that is of substance off campaign posters. You have to get the information yourself. Even if it takes and hour or two of your time. No excuse for laziness on issues like this.

To your second sentence, quite simply no. The EU is not fine the way it is currently. The EU is infamous for making slow decisions as it is.

AtomicHorror · 11-06-2008 3:06am

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

This is something I've been thinking about tonight. It is obviously arguable that someone should vote no but almost every reason I have heard people giving for voting no are at best ill-informed and at worst downright stupid, in my experience anyway. Funnily enough nearly all the reasons are the exact slogans of the No campaign's sensationilistic nonsense.

I know of one family who are in fact voting no because of 1916...

It it does not look good for the Yes campaign, they've handled this very badly indeed.

AtomicHorror · 11-06-2008 3:08am

Rb wrote: »

Somehow I very, very much doubt that.

Very, very much.

What do you doubt and why?

Call Me Jimmy · 11-06-2008 3:10am

Rb wrote: »

Somehow I very, very much doubt that.

Very, very much.

Well people talk about going back and getting a better deal, what they don't understand is that the rest of europe isn't going to just bend over because we seem to think we have the right to f**k them. If I was from another european country I'de be annoyed at ireland's cheekiness.
Just out of interest, do you think we should hold on for a better 'deal'?

Call Me Jimmy · 11-06-2008 3:13am

AtomicHorror wrote: »

I know of one family who are in fact voting no because of 1916...

It it does not look good for the Yes campaign, they've handled this very badly indeed.

"So why are you voting no?"

"because... 1916, people fought against the british don't you know!"

Sully · 11-06-2008 3:14am

nesf wrote: »

Hopefully this will follow the trend of the boards polls before the last general election, you know the ones that had FF losing by a landslide....

FF were doing very poorly in Boards Polls and other polls but they changed very close to the election and FF got in but not by a large majority IIRC. The boards polls represents a smaller group of people then the other surveys but normally ties in with the general trend of things.

sink · 11-06-2008 3:17am

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Well people talk about going back and getting a better deal, what they don't understand is that the rest of europe isn't going to just bend over because we seem to think we have the right to f**k them. If I was from another european country I'de be annoyed at ireland's cheekiness.
Just out of interest, do you think we should hold on for a better 'deal'?

There are quite a few Europeans who would be pee'd off if we do vote no. I don't think it is a particularly large percentage but I have regularly seen comments on international news sites that share this point of view. Here is one example of a Dutch citizens on the BBC news website.

snowkathy wrote:

157. At 11:32 pm on 10 Jun 2008, snowkathy wrote:

If the Irish vote no, the Irish government should take the decision to leave the EU and the Euro.

I hear a lot about "lost independence" and other supposed injustices in the comments arguing to vote for no. If the Irish/British/other people want to be independent, that is fine.

The whole point of the EU, much like in a marriage/partnership/community/nation, is to build something that transcends direct own interests because having the community has greater or more important benefits for each individual. It means making trade-offs. If the Irish/British think these benefits do not outweigh the costs, and put their own particular interests first, well do so, but do not stop the rest of us from moving ahead.

I also read a lot about how undemocratic the EU is. To be frank, I find it undemocratic that some 500,000 voters in Ireland (3m registered voters, 1/3 predicted to vote, half of them saying no) are potentially blocking a treaty that was agreed upon by governments democratically elected by more than 250,000,000 people!

If I would look after my own selfish interests, I would say, who cares about Ireland? As a Dutch tax payer (The Netherlands is one of the biggest net contributors to the union, while Ireland is by far one of the most generously paid net recipient per capita of the EU budget),
I do not see any significant direct benefit to me of having this country in the union. Please, get out of this marriage and move on. Be truly independent!

I got it off Mark Mardells blog European editor for BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/06/irish_pm_no_would_kill_lisbon.html

Rb · 11-06-2008 3:23am

AtomicHorror wrote: »

What do you doubt and why?

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Well people talk about going back and getting a better deal, what they don't understand is that the rest of europe isn't going to just bend over because we seem to think we have the right to f**k them. If I was from another european country I'de be annoyed at ireland's cheekiness.
Just out of interest, do you think we should hold on for a better 'deal'?

France and Germany have made threats about the reprocussions of a no vote from us previously, the President of the EU has made similar threats. France rejected the Constitution by a majority, it was re-drafted and the same people issuing threats to us decided to not let them vote this time around, fearing another No. I very much doubt that people who are capable of such undemocratic actions are making trying to frighten us into doing something for our own good.

It's shocking behaviour really, particularly since there seems to be so many mentions of "solidarity" in the treaty, yet other members are resorting to threatening us?

Regarding "waiting for a better deal", I'm not too sure as I can't really tell what'll happen if a no goes through.

Call Me Jimmy · 11-06-2008 3:29am

Those are my thoughts exaclty (the quote from the dutch person). All this talk of it being undemocratic that the rest of europe doesn't get a vote on this and that we should get everything our way or else why should we sign on the line that is dotted... ah it's just crazily narrow minded and short-sighted. Obviously being in this union is of benefit to us (not only in the past) but people seem to think we deserve more rights than any other country in the union.

Call Me Jimmy · 11-06-2008 3:32am

Which threats are you referring to? I can't remember what was said, do you mind linking to somewhere or writing the quotes?

AtomicHorror · 11-06-2008 3:38am

Rb wrote: »

France and Germany have made threats about the reprocussions of a no vote from us previously, the President of the EU has made similar threats. France rejected the Constitution by a majority, it was re-drafted and the same people issuing threats to us decided to not let them vote this time around, fearing another No. I very much doubt that people who are capable of such undemocratic actions are making trying to frighten us into doing something for our own good.

It's shocking behaviour really, particularly since there seems to be so many mentions of "solidarity" in the treaty, yet other members are resorting to threatening us?

Regarding "waiting for a better deal", I'm not too sure as I can't really tell what'll happen if a no goes through.

What you call threats, others would call warnings. Valid ones quite possibly. If Ireland becomes a regular hold-out state, then we really can't justify our membership of the EU. Nor can we in all fairness expect the rest of the EU to merrily bend to our will time and again because we insist on holding a referendum to decide what colour socks Cowen should wear on Tuesdays.

The "threats" I've seen state that Ireland will be the "first victims" of our No vote. This is simply because many of the elements of the treaty that were beneficial to us will now be open to re-negotiation (assuming the EU decides to allow round three) with no guarantee that we'll actually come out better this time around. It's a risk, a significant one. Hence the warnings.

Moriarty · 11-06-2008 4:11am

Sully wrote: »

FF were doing very poorly in Boards Polls and other polls but they changed very close to the election and FF got in but not by a large majority IIRC. The boards polls represents a smaller group of people then the other surveys but normally ties in with the general trend of things.

In anything politically related, they really don't. The exit poll which was run in the politics forum for the general election last year was pretty far from the actual results - and that was with a sizable number of votes. There's a far larger "fringe" element on boards than in the general population. I wouldn't rely on a political poll on boards as far as I can spit

We'll be closing the poll here once the polling stations close on Thursday and we can compare the results in good time, it'll certainly be interesting

Brockagh · 11-06-2008 9:11am

Sinead O'Connor, Jim Corr, Patricia McKenna, Mary Lou McDonald, yer man from Libertas and Eamon Dunphy - can all these lunatics be wrong? I think so.

VoidStarNull · 11-06-2008 9:55am

thebaldsoprano wrote: »

From an ordinary voter's perspective, I think voting in this gobledegook would be pretty much the equivalent of voting in Michael Jackson for our next Taoiseach. Yes we could get some expert psychiatrists to give us some idea what we may be letting ourselves in for but I'd rather keep things as simple as possible.

Legal documents are rarely intelligible to people who do not have a legal background. The same is true of either political or commercial agreements. For example if you work as a corporate executive, you will often be asked to sign commercial agreements that are not intelligible. Most corporate executives are not legally qualified, so they do not try to read and understand these documents themselves. They hire lawyers to examine them and explain their contents. In the case of Lisbon, the referendum commission and others have done this job for us.

Voting NO to Lisbon because you cannot follow all of the legal text would be equivalent to a corporate CEO refusing to sign any commercial agreements because he is not legally qualified.

Some on the NO side have tried to argue that the text is deliberately obfuscated so that people can't understand it. This is completely untrue. If you read the history of how the treaty was negotiated and drawn up (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Treaty) it becomes clear why it is a complex document, and that there was no "conspiracy" to make it unintelligible.

11-06-2008 10:01am

Sully wrote: »

FF were doing very poorly in Boards Polls and other polls but they changed very close to the election and FF got in but not by a large majority IIRC. The boards polls represents a smaller group of people then the other surveys but normally ties in with the general trend of things.

Actually thats not the case.

In my 7 years here,boards polls rarely if ever represented what happened in real life.
The one here on the politics board for instance at the last election right up to polling day would have given a large FG/Lab majority with SF being the biggest opposition party-bigger than FF.

You can draw your own conclusions as to how realistic that was.

The problem with boards polls is,you can be a member of boards aged 12 and vote in a poll here.
You can also vote often given that there are a lot of posters here with maybe several accounts.

bauderline · 11-06-2008 10:15am

VoidStarNull wrote: »

If you read the history of how the treaty was negotiated and drawn up (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Treaty) it becomes clear why it is a complex document, and that there was no "conspiracy" to make it unintelligible.

That makes it okay then does it ?

Do you at least agree that there is a fair degree of ambiguity in parts of the document that would not normally be found in legal documents ?

b.

VoidStarNull · 11-06-2008 10:15am

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Well people talk about going back and getting a better deal, what they don't understand is that the rest of europe isn't going to just bend over because we seem to think we have the right to f**k them. If I was from another european country I'de be annoyed at ireland's cheekiness.
Just out of interest, do you think we should hold on for a better 'deal'?

I personally think that a NO vote will weaken our position, rather than strengthen it. It will force our partners to consider the possibility that they may have to go ahead without us. Once that option is on the table, our negotiators will have to work hard to get it off again.

The other member states will be loath to re-enter a process that has no guarantee of an outcome one way or the other. After all, Ireland won concessions last time, got a very positive deal and - in a NO scenario - still fails to deliver. Our negotiators would have to convince everyone to trust that if more concessions are given they can deliver a YES vote. It just wouldn't be convincing to me.

VoidStarNull · 11-06-2008 10:18am

bauderline wrote: »

That makes it okay then does it ?

Do you at least agree that there is a fair degree of ambiguity in parts of the document that would not normally be found in legal documents ?

b.

No. I've seen plenty of ambiguity in legal documents. It happens when one team tries to insert a contentious clause and the other teams start working to water it down. You often end up with something that is fairly meaningless.

Most of the Lisbon treaty looks pretty clear to me, but then I'm not a legal expert.

[ I should add, it's also often the case that terms that look ambiguous to a lay person are not ambiguous to a lawyer, because words in a legal document often have much more narrowly-defined meanings than in general language ]

Mark200 · 11-06-2008 10:44am

Tomorrow will be my first time voting ever, since I just turned 18 recently. I'm a definite yes. The majority of those campaigning for a "no" vote are just against the EU in general and will always be a no to anything the EU proposes.

All the arguments that I've ever seen from the "no" side are just simply wrong and over exaggerated. They're all presuming that Ireland never uses their veto or even objects to anything and blindly accepts everything that is proposed.

oscarBravo · 11-06-2008 10:49am

thebaldsoprano wrote: »

No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts
done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by the
obligations of membership of the European Union referred to in
subsection 10 of this section, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or
measures adopted by the said European Union or by institutions
thereof, or by bodies competent under the treaties referred to in
this section, from having the force of law in the State.

Brilliant. Now go and find the corresponding section in the Constitution, prior to the proposed amendment, and tell me how it differs in substance.

Now, I'll take your point about this quote and I should've said something like:

"they will be able to override it without asking us."

That's a completely different thing.

The EU has primacy over national constitutions. That's true of all member states, and it has been true for us since 1973.

What you're carefully omitting is the principle of subsidiarity, whereby the Union will not legislate on things best left to the member states.On your second point, that depends if you regard;

"acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by the obligations of membership of the European Union referred to in subsection 10 of this section, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the said European Union or by institutions thereof, or by bodies competent under the treaties referred to in this section"

as crystal clear.

I do. It's in perfectly clear English (taken in context).

Looks more like a murky pond to me.

With respect, perhaps that reflects more on your comprehension skills than on the language used.

Also on your second point I don't think anyone was disputing the availability of the Treaty text in black and white, or any other colours for that matter, just that it isn't at all understandable.

Is it really asking too much for a government using our money to produce something readable?

Here's an example of the Treaty from page 157:

255) In Article 266, third paragraph, the words "at the request of the Commission" shall be replaced by "on a proposal from the Commission" and the words "in accordance with a special legislative procedure" shall be inserted after "unanimously" and the words "Articles 4, 11, and 12 and Article 18(5) of" shall be deleted.
256) In Article 267(b), the word "progressive" shall be deleted and the words "or functioning" shall be inserted after "establishment".

It's an amending treaty. If you want to know the effect of what you've quoted, you look up the relevant treaties and apply the changes.

Alternatively, you could read the consolidated version that has been published, showing the effect of the changes - all the hard work done for you.

Better yet, you could look up the wealth of information that's been published about the treaty by the Referendum Commission and other bodies.

From an ordinary voter's perspective, I think voting in this gobledegook would be pretty much the equivalent of voting in Michael Jackson for our next Taoiseach. Yes we could get some expert psychiatrists to give us some idea what we may be letting ourselves in for but I'd rather keep things as simple as possible.

Again, with all due respect, if you think a psychiatrist is the right person to interpret a legal document, you need to do a lot more research before you can cast an informed vote.

With regards to sink's post, this kind of recycled propaganda is exactly what I was hoping to avoid by coming here, there's more than enough of that going around in the press and on the radio already...

In other words, you can't refute anything he's said.

Which way will you vote (if at all)

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