Let the mud slinging begin, who's fault is it that the YES side lost?

PH01

Now that the Treaty has been defeated, at who's door can we lay the blame for the Yes side losing the referendum.

I'll get the ball rolling with...

1. Those personalised Yes Posters:
I reckon the Yes side got it so wrong with those personalised poster. OK, if they kept them to 10% to 20% it would have been alright, but 80% of the Yes posters were some politician looking for re-election next year in the European or local elections. The NO side seemed more focused on message rather than personal advancement.

Zube

Spoiled gobsh!ites who have no clue how good they have it and how much of it they owe to the EU.

mikemac

Not so.
Sinn Fein were the party opposing it and they had plenty of posters with pictures of their politicians too.

They were no different in design to the posters used by FF/LAB/FG

dresden8

Zube wrote: »

Spoiled gobsh!ites who have no clue how good they have it and how much of it they owe to the EU.

You mean we're bought and paid for.

sink

Largely it was the tribunals and the corruption and questionable financial positions of our former leader. It had two effect the first one was it caused a delay in the Yes camp getting under way giving the No camp a running start and the yes camp having to play catch up. Second people lost faith in politicians and did not trust them, amazing they turned to Declan Ganley for guidance and all he spouted was lies. In my opinion it was all down to the tribunals.

seamus

2. Libertas
Unaccountable mud-slinging with blatant lies and misinformation. Complete unwillingness to be transparent and honest.

ShooterSF

Again I loathe this post-vote ignorance as if it was the treaty's divine right to be passed only the yes people messed up. Can you take your f'n blinkers off please.

CrowdedHouse

sink wrote: »

Largely it was the tribunals and the corruption and questionable financial positions of our former leader.

+1 Without a doubt

TelePaul

IMO, Sinn Féin took advantage of the insecurities of those of a certain demographic make-up. For their part, the 'Yes' side seemed incapable of explaining the treaty in terms acceptable to a large number of voters, giving rise to the ridiculous "If you don't know, vote no" mentality.

It's a sorry day for Ireland and a sorry day for Europe. We've really shot outselves in the foot on this one.

Sleepy

Most (though certainly not all) no voters seem to be voting that way due to the lies spread by Libertas...

Sinn Fein probably deserve some of the 'blame' for their pushing of the farcical notion that a 'better deal' can be negotiated if we reject this one.

drunkmonkey

Zube wrote: »

Spoiled gobsh!ites who have no clue how good they have it and how much of it they owe to the EU.

Turn the other cheek and we'll slap that as well..

Loser!!

seamus

ShooterSF wrote: »

Again I loathe this post-vote ignorance as if it was the treaty's divine right to be passed only the yes people messed up. Can you take your f'n blinkers off please.

Anything can be passed, so long as you make a good enough effort to convince people.

So if the vote doesn't go your way, it's an indicator that you didn't make a big enough effort to convince people (or your opponent made a better effort). It's not an indicator that the right decision was made.

Without a crystal ball, there's no such thing as the "right choice", only the choice that you can convince people to make.

force eleven

Personally I blame Jim Corr.....

BlitzKrieg

1.)the government is at fault.

The lisbon treaty was an international treaty between 27 states, hence it was required to leave the vast majority of its policies in vague terms to allow each state to individually approach them on their own terms. The government failed to outline its approach to these issues in the lisbon treaty.

Most prominant being what role they wanted in the areas of security and defence.

We should not and can not rely on the EU to tell us what our place in the treaty is, we should have done that and the government failed to do so.

Also applies to peoples unwarranted fears over abortion and corporate tax, a clear confirmation that the government will veto any attempt to bring them in would have killed those lies being spread by certain groups.

2. Misinformation from certain *no* groups.

In all honesty I had no issue with the Sinn Fein campaign or with a number of independent and international campaigners.

But the Libertas campaign and a number of other groups, poured into the campaign with points that were not only fearmongering but outright lies.

Its one thing to debate what could happen or how a treaty could be abused, but outright lies with no ground in reality should have no place in a referndum and no matter how many times they were debunked here or on television or in the newspapers they kept coming back.

A line should have been drawn at some point. It wasnt that is the fault of eeveryone involved in this campaign both Yes and No.


Those are the 2 points I think caused the end result.

As you can see I felt there was a fault on both sides, so any pathetic mudslinging will be simply ignored.

snickerpuss

The government for not countering all the "There'll be conscription / abortion / euthanasia" / "We won't be allowed to make our own laws / taxes"

vandermeyde

TelePaul wrote: »

It's a sorry day for Ireland and a sorry day for Europe. We've really shot outselves in the foot on this one.

I voted yes and whilst it's disappointing to be on the losing side I don't think its a sorry day at all for this country.

Living in a democratic country and having the opportunity to vote is not something to be sorry about.

If any other country/institution has a problem with the democratic will of the Irish people, fcuk them.

red_ice

Zube wrote: »

Spoiled gobsh!ites who have no clue how good they have it and how much of it they owe to the EU.

You're the gobsh!te for thinking that everyone should do what you want. Idiot.

ShooterSF wrote: »

Again I loathe this post-vote ignorance as if it was the treaty's divine right to be passed only the yes people messed up. Can you take your f'n blinkers off please.

+1

Spook_ie

TelePaul wrote: »

IMO, Sinn Féin took advantage of the insecurities of those of a certain demographic make-up. For their part, the 'Yes' side seemed incapable of explaining the treaty in terms acceptable to a large number of voters, giving rise to the ridiculous "If you don't know, vote no" mentality.

It's a sorry day for Ireland and a sorry day for Europe. We've really shot outselves in the foot on this one.

How can you say that it's a ridiculous notion, the referendum commission itself said that a no vote means things stay the same, until such a time as people understand the ins and outs of the treaty the only sensible vote was a no vote if you didn't know, or would you prefer it that people who didn't understand the treaty were disenfranchised of their voting rights....Democracy pah!

Zube

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Loser!!

I voted for Nice 1 and lost, I voted for divorce in 1986 and lost, I voted against that idiotic abortion amendment in 1983 and lost.

I'm used to it.

TelePaul

Spook_ie wrote: »

How can you say that it's a ridiculous notion, the referendum commission itself said that a no vote means things stay the same, until such a time as people understand the ins and outs of the treaty the only sensible vote was a no vote if you didn't know, or would you prefer it that people who didn't understand the treaty were disenfranchised of their voting rights....Democracy pah!

Living in a democracy incurrs responsibilities as well as rights. Yes, you have the right to vote, but you have a responsibility to educate yourself to the utmost. The Lisbon treaty certainly wasn't the most accessible piece of legislation to come to terms with, but it was by no means impossible to comprehend.

That's why I can say it's a ridiculous notion.

TelePaul

vandermeyde wrote: »

I voted yes and whilst it's disappointing to be on the losing side I don't think its a sorry day at all for this country.

Living in a democratic country and having the opportunity to vote is not something to be sorry about.

If any other country/institution has a problem with the democratic will of the Irish people, fcuk them.

I have no problem with democracy, but I do think that there will come a day where our decision to reject the E.U's proposals will cost us. That's all.

mcquaid2007

maybe now they'll sit up and take notice.....if u treat ur own people like sh*t what do u expect

themont85

mcquaid2007 wrote: »

maybe now they'll sit up and take notice.....if u treat ur own people like sh*t what do u expect

Ye cos thats got lods to do with this treaty if your talking about our Govt. If your on about Europe ye they should sit up and take notice-Forcing our country to have proper Equality Legeslation, CAP, the SEM, Leader plus, EU Structural Funds, ye they should really cop on its given us something:rolleyes:

Spook_ie

TelePaul wrote: »

Living in a democracy incurrs responsibilities as well as rights. Yes, you have the right to vote, but you have a responsibility to educate yourself to the utmost. The Lisbon treaty certainly wasn't the most accessible piece of legislation to come to terms with, but it was by no means impossible to comprehend.

That's why I can say it's a ridiculous notion.

Not so, the job of educating the voting populace was and always will be the job of the referendum commission and political leaders, the referendum commission failed miserably to produce a document that explained in clear and unambiguous terms the YES/NO arguments and the political leadership were conspicuous in their inability to educate people and answer critisms from the No camp.

Given the fact that Brian Cohen hadn't bothered his arse to read the full treaty why on earth would you expect the voters to do so..

seamus

Spook_ie wrote: »

Not so, the job of educating the voting populace was and always will be the job of the referendum commission and political leaders, the referendum commission failed miserably to produce a document that explained in clear and unambiguous terms the YES/NO arguments and the political leadership were conspicuous in their inability to educate people and answer critisms from the No camp.

Just to be clear, the job of the referendum commission is not to set out the two arguments and weigh them against each other. That's the voters' job. Refcom's job is to set out the meaning of and impact of the referendum in clear and unbiased terms. The arguments on either side are irrelevant to refcom.

Refcom did its job perfectly but unfortunately refcom themselves were given far too little time in which to produce it.

SkepticOne

PH01 wrote: »

1. Those personalised Yes Posters:
I reckon the Yes side got it so wrong with those personalised poster. OK, if they kept them to 10% to 20% it would have been alright, but 80% of the Yes posters were some politician looking for re-election next year in the European or local elections. The NO side seemed more focused on message rather than personal advancement.

Have to agree with that one. Either there was arrogance on the part of the TD in the picture in assuming that because they were on the poster people would vote "Yes" (in fact when people vote for a TD they are in a lot of cases voting for the best of a bad lot) or else they did not care about the treaty as such and just wanted to get their picture on posters.

2. Patronising attitude of some of the Yes supporters.

There seems to be some among the Yes supporters that don't simply argue their case but in addition, seek to define the very parameters for the debate. Anyone going outside those narrow parameters does not understand the issues. There is also the view that if you don't fully feel you understand the issues you should not vote at all.

TelePaul

Spook_ie wrote: »

Not so, the job of educating the voting populace was and always will be the job of the referendum commission and political leaders, the referendum commission failed miserably to produce a document that explained in clear and unambiguous terms the YES/NO arguments and the political leadership were conspicuous in their inability to educate people and answer critisms from the No camp.

Sorry, but that's incorrect. The job of the referendum commission is not to produce clear Yes/No arguments. It produces the facts, and relies on the voters to familiarise themselves with such and then vote accordingly.

In any and all debates I watched between the Yes and No camps, I found that the political leadership and their representatives were more than capable of answering the oppositions criticisms by dismissing them, for the most part, as erroneous.

TelePaul

seamus wrote: »

Just to be clear, the job of the referendum commission is not to set out the two arguments and weigh them against each other. That's the voters' job. Refcom's job is to set out the meaning of and impact of the referendum in clear and unbiased terms. The arguments on either side are irrelevant to refcom.

Refcom did its job perfectly but unfortunately refcom themselves were given far too little time in which to produce it.

What he said.

nesf

1) I think the Ahern situation hamstrung the Government to a large extent. The Lisbon campaign couldn't start so long as Ahern was in office, it would risk making it into a referendum about Ahern's rapidly diminishing credibility.

2) It was naturally a hard sell. The treaty is complicated, lacks a unifying theme that captures the public's interest. The nature of the document makes arguing for a Yes in a broad way rather difficult. Most of the good reforms that I saw were far too technical to fit into a slogan. The idea that the Government could inform everyone on the entirety of the treaty is naive, it's not a document that you can explain fully while holding the interest of the average person.

3) It was an easy treaty to campaign for a No against. It's very easy to lie and misrepresent the truth when the man on the street has no real idea what's in the treaty. Whenever an argument was shown to be false, it continued to be up on sign posts. It makes no difference if the politically informed people know something is untrue if groups continue to lie to the general public.

vandermeyde

nesf wrote: »

2) It was naturally a hard sell. The treaty is complicated, lacks a unifying theme that captures the public's interest. The nature of the document makes arguing for a Yes in a broad way rather difficult. Most of the good reforms that I saw were far too technical to fit into a slogan. The idea that the Government could inform everyone on the entirety of the treaty is naive, it's not a document that you can explain fully while holding the interest of the average person.

This is the key argument I think, it's an unwieldly largely technical document that can't be sold via short sound-bites or slogans. Against this the counter-slogan "If you don't know, vote no" became a very powerful one.

The accusations of distortion and mistruths against the No campaign is counter-balanced by the arrogance of the Yes side.

Add in a healthy dose of good old Irish rebelliousness and it was always going to be up against it

nesf

vandermeyde wrote: »

The accusations of distortion and mistruths against the No campaign is counter-balanced by the arrogance of the Yes side.

I completely agree. It's very hard to dismiss No points and argue that because you understand it and agree with the treaty other's should vote Yes, without coming across as arrogant.

Fortunately I came to terms with me being an arrogant bastard a long time ago, so I'm not overly bothered about it.

Silent Rain

I believe that in general the Yes campaign was a shambles.
If they had concentrated on stating the benefits of the Treaty and explaining
why most of what the No campaign was saying was scaremongering they would have won. I know that there were too many varying points to focus on one, but an attempt could have been made to at least highlight a few.

Instead most of their statements went along the following themes:
Vote Yes -- Or it will be terrible
Vote Yes -- If you vote No It'll be a disaster
Vote Yes -- Trust us, we know what's best
Vote Yes -- I haven’t read the treaty myself, but I've been told we should
Vote Yes -- Or it'll be embarrassing
Vote Yes -- Sure the No party are all Crackpots

The blame for the failure of the Yes Campaign rests squarely on the shoulders of the
government. I'd be much more worried about their obvious incompetence than any effects
of the Treaty not being passed.

vandermeyde

nesf wrote: »

Fortunately I came to terms with me being an arrogant bastard a long time ago, so I'm not overly bothered about it.

It gets lonely up on these pedestals sometimes

FrankGrimes

For the Yes campaign to come out with the references to the implications of voting No was a BIG mistake and always likely to get an almost childish reaction of 'don't be threatening me, I'll show you' from certain portions of the electorate, some of whom probably had no idea of the actual meaning of the treaty but will just react that way if they feel pressured (e.g. gf just told me she heard on radio some part of Cork had a 65% No vote - doesn't surprise me one bit).

Terrible approach. Yes campaign should have just focused on defining a simplified way of articulating what this was all about and should just have re-iterated ad infinitum 'it only means this......it does not mean XXX, or YYY'. Every time Libertas came out with one of their misleading comments, the Yes campaign should have been simply repeated to death 'the treaty has nothing to do with that', 'that is simply untrue' etc. That way a higher proportion of the 90% of voters that backed them at the last general election would have heard that message and blindly trusted them as a certain portion always do. But the Yes campaign kind of stepped away from the actual debate and focused on trying to incentivise a Yes by highlighting the negative consequences of a No.

The Bertie saga was another big factor in undermining trust in the government and delaying the Yes campaign, but Michael Martin has to take a lot of the blame here.

But in my opinion, the bottom line is that a large portion of the electorate failed to educate themselves on what this was all about and a large portion of that same group seem to be of a very narrow-minded and insular mentality. The majority of people posting on discussion forums such as this, in my opinion, seem to be of a reasonable level of intelligence, so it's no coincidence that all the best No arguments I have seen have been on such forums.

I did not hear a single intelligent or informed argument for a No vote in my daily life outside of discussion forums (again, in my personal opinion). Every time a friend/colleague/barman/taxi driver/people I overhear in pubs said they why they were voting No it was for something that had no grounding in reality (e.g. "I'm not letting them pricks in Brussels bring in abortion here", points on losing a Commissioner that when questioned revealed a lack of basic understanding of what a Commissioner should do etc, "I mean, the EU has worked out well for us till now, but now they want too much back so feck that", "I don't want the EU setting our tax rates, they'll go through the roof").

I believe a very significant portion of No voters were either extremely misinformed or mislead about the meaning of this referendum and I feel that is the main reason for what I see as a highly regrettable and foolish No vote.

deisekid

Firstly I'd say the the majority of the people have spoken and I am not questioning the decision by the people to reject the Lisbon Treaty.

In terms of who is to blame for the Referendum not being passed, I would point the finger at the Yes side. Not one representative came to my door canvassing for a Yes vote nor did I seem them canvassing elsewhere. The No campaign ran a much more vocal and public campaign than the Yes side, who spent most of their time clapping Bertie on the back rather than getting out on the road a few months back.

The days of politicians telling us to vote Yes because we should trust them are long since over and probably will never return again. People are far more educated and far more suspicious than before but the political parties don't seem to have copped on to that.

The No campaign could pretty much say what they wanted about the Treaty and expect to get away with it so the Yes side set about putting out the fires started by the No side. Instead they should have said "Look, this is the way things operate at the moment and if this Treaty is passed this is the way that things will be done from now on".

I think alot of people wanted to be able to vote yes but either didn't bother voting at all as they didn't know what the Treaty entailed or they voted No to punish the Yes side for their ineptitude.

Tazdedub

The blame for the No result lies firmly at the feet of those supporting a yes vote both at home and abroad.

To list just a few things that I disliked about the Yes campaign,

1. Cowen buying the farmers votes.
2. French ministers coming out with bullying unhelpful statements
3. Cowen threatening every member of the FF party with expulsion if they went against him.
4. Those posters with the politicians faces on them. Haven't the politicians realised that some of the electorate do not trust a word that comes out of their mouths especially after what was promised after the last election.
5. Mr Ahearn and he won it on the horses.

I reckon if the Yes campaign had of been a faceless campaign, then the yes side would have won.

CrowdedHouse

deisekid wrote: »

In terms of who is to blame for the Referendum not being passed, I would point the finger at the Yes side. Not one representative came to my door canvassing for a Yes vote nor did I seem them canvassing elsewhere.

Same with me,both at home North Tipp and spent time in Galway West too.
All leaflet-in-letterbox-and-run.

PH01

OK this is typical deflection and I'm a bit surprised that it hasn't come up yet (but look out for it in the meeja in the next couple of days)...

Where were FG, Labour, and the Greens in the YES campaign?! No where! All the work seemed to be done by Fianna Fail (and it is likely why it was lost).

BlitzKrieg

Where were FG, Labour, and the Greens in the YES campaign?! No where! All the work seemed to be done by Fianna Fail (and it is likely why it was lost).

I remember a brief advert in the metro the day before the referndum by FG, I think Labour had a 2 day spread in another paper.

And I saw Kenny was around a bit debating.

nesf

PH01 wrote: »

Where were FG, Labour, and the Greens in the YES campaign?! No where! All the work seemed to be done by Fianna Fail (and it is likely why it was lost).

I saw a fair bit of FG stuff around the place. Hardly any Labour stuff, and practically nothing from the Greens.

dead air

As a Yes voter, I am both disappointed and unsurprised. Here are my thoughts as to why the Referendum was lost:


* No campaign (principally Libertas and Sinn Fein) were very well organised and concerted an effective campaign.

* Unconvincing Yes campaign, started too late to counter No side claims.

* Yes campaign has no obvious youth wings campaigning.

* It's very hard to glam up the advantages of this treaty. But it is incredibly easy to scaremonger on the supposed evils.

* No campaigners were scaremongers and bullies. I saw some posters calling for people to organise for a change in the social order. Were they looking for another Rising? Others shouting "People died for your freedom! Vote No!", Yes, people died for my freedom to vote as I wish. Another pamphlet I read called for a No vote because the 6 counties in NI are occupied by the British. Why? These are not relevant issues. We have guarantees on our neutrality and corporation tax, yet these were still given as reasons to vote no. Joe Higgins going on about privatisation in health and education that we already have in existence.

* British tabloid newspapers publishing in Ireland with sensationalist "Frog Off" headlines.

* People who voted no because they didn't know what they were voting on. Sinn Fein capitalised on this.


I'm happy my Yes vote in Dublin North made a difference.

LoLth

I personally think the entire campaign on both sides was a confusing joke. if there is any justice the EU will create a commission to investigate how member states represent EU decisions to their populations and put standards and requirements in place, along with disciplinary actions for political parties that fail to mee tthe requirements. both sides of the campaign we've just seen should be severely slapped for grossly and deliberately misrepresenting the Lisbon Treaty and using it as a spring board for what I can only deem their own political agendas and platforms.

We were asked a yes or no question on a complicated and important issue and instead of helping the public understand, in plain English (and translated to Irish) the exact matters under consideration, the political parties in ireland deliberately muddied the issue with scare tactics and outright lies (both sides!) , misinformation and a complete disregard for information accessibility.

"its simple. if you want to make a change to the rules set out in the old treaty , page 5 paragraph 1 , you vote yes"

reader takes the time to go look for the details of Old Treaty.....

old treaty , page 5 , paragraph:
"Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah tax blah blah blah"

all relevant information should have been made available , in simple language in a single publication inlcuding any and all excerpts from relevant and referenced documents and laws etc. IMHO our political representatives seriously failed their constituents in this matter.

/rant

ps. this post is not a statement of fact. its my opinion.

Call Me Jimmy

LoLth wrote: »

I personally think the entire campaign on both sides was a confusing joke. if there is any justice the EU will create a commission to investigate how member states represent EU decisions to their populations and put standards and requirements in place.

I don't know, some people won't accept that because they'll say that that commission is biased.

edited: was slightly harsh

BlitzKrieg

if there is any justice the EU will create a commission to investigate how member states represent EU decisions to their populations and put standards and requirements in place, along with disciplinary actions for political parties that fail to mee tthe requirements.

Personnally I would think it would set a bad policy to have the EU directly dictate requirements to our local parties or investigate them purely for referendums.

We are a country ourselves we should be able to run our own affairs.

Even if at the moment it looks like we cant.

DJDC

I completely agree. It's very hard to dismiss No points and argue that because you understand it and agree with the treaty other's should vote Yes, without coming across as arrogant.

Fortunately I came to terms with me being an arrogant bastard a long time ago, so I'm not overly bothered about it.

Look at some of the areas that voted YES:
Dublin South East
Dublin South.
Dun Laoghaire

All predominantly middle class areas. I am sure this class divide was replicated right across the country highlighting the increasing divergence between those who have benefited in the last 20 years and those who have not. I would really like to see a break down of the results to some categories like educational attainment, income status etc to see the magnitude of this divide. I would imagine, people in low income jobs or recieving social welfare payments would have voted overwhelmingly in favour of rejecting the treaty.

nesf

DJDC wrote: »

Look at some of the areas that voted YES:
Dublin South East
Dublin South.
Dun Laoghaire

All predominantly middle class areas. I am sure this class divide was replicated right across the country highlighting the increasing divergence between those who have benefited in the last 20 years and those who have not. I would really like to see a break down of the results to some categories like educational attainment, income status etc to see the magnitude of this divide. I would imagine, people in low income jobs or recieving social welfare payments would have voted overwhelmingly in favour of rejecting the treaty.

Versus Dublin North Central, Dublin North and Clare? None known as overwhelmingly Middle Class Bastions, versus say Dun Laoghaire. There was a class divide, and there generally is in these things but I think it's an oversimplification to apply that as a rule here. The Treaty lost in plenty of the more "middle class" constituencies in the rest of the country, Cork South Central for instance 55/45 against and there's plenty more of it around the place. The vote was tighter in Cork North West which is far, far less prosperous than Cork South Central. There was a lot of people crossing the party line on this one I think which is an interesting message for the main parties. The days of not having to campaign hard outside of General Elections might be over.

Phototoxin

there are people in Ireland who live outside of dublin ya know.