Scofflaw, I'm curious about one thing: (RE: Irish Independence)

hatrickpatrick

Apologies for making a whole new thread for this but I didn't want to hijack the main discussion which is, in my view, at an interesting point. It would be a shame to detract from it.

I'm just curious - if it was 1916 (or indeed any time when Irish Independence was the subject of national debate) where would you have stood? Would you have wanted to break out of the UK and have an Irish parliament completely separate from Britain or would you have been happy to leave things the way they were?

(NOTE for mods: I'm not in any sense trying to offend anyone or stir things up in this thread, I'm just wondering where you stand on the issue of independence as a whole and not just to the EU, since your comments seem to indicate that you don't have any desire or attachment to the idea of the independent republic of Ireland.

I am NOT suggesting that the Lisbon treaty will impact this, but I'm curious to know where you would stand if there was a genuine attempt at unification of Ireland with other nations.)

Captain Furball

Your mentality is not in 1916 it's 2009.I would assume you'd want to gut every brit you'd see, but that's not the case these days.

ei.sdraob

with the benefit of hindsight?

P. Breathnach

Why not raise questions like this in PM?

hatrickpatrick

Because I, eh... Didn't think of that

Torakx

Captain Furball wrote: »

Your mentality is not in 1916 it's 2009.I would assume you'd want to gut every brit you'd see, but that's not the case these days.

well the one thing that is the same from 1916 is that we are suffering under a democracy
Rule by the people. and he who owns the peoples minds rules.
not that i have a better alternative but it leads to messy situations like ireland being in debt to the eu and forced to push the yes vote.

back when ireland was against the rule of the english things were much clearer. they could see the enemy alot clearer and focus on that. nowadays you dont see any hostile takeovers.because its very subtle.

i would love irish to have there independance back again but i fear its too late for that.is it possible for ireland to realistically pull out of the EU without serious repercussions?

nesf

I'm going to lock this until Scofflaw has a chance to decide whether he wants to respond publicly or via PM.

In future direct person questions of this nature towards us as PMs please.

Scofflaw

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Apologies for making a whole new thread for this but I didn't want to hijack the main discussion which is, in my view, at an interesting point. It would be a shame to detract from it.

I'm just curious - if it was 1916 (or indeed any time when Irish Independence was the subject of national debate) where would you have stood? Would you have wanted to break out of the UK and have an Irish parliament completely separate from Britain or would you have been happy to leave things the way they were?

(NOTE for mods: I'm not in any sense trying to offend anyone or stir things up in this thread, I'm just wondering where you stand on the issue of independence as a whole and not just to the EU, since your comments seem to indicate that you don't have any desire or attachment to the idea of the independent republic of Ireland.

I am NOT suggesting that the Lisbon treaty will impact this, but I'm curious to know where you would stand if there was a genuine attempt at unification of Ireland with other nations.)

I don't have any particular difficulty answering this one, in fact. I would be very strongly on the side of independence, just as I was when I lived n Scotland.

I presume you ask because you see there as being a conflict between independence and EU membership. Obviously, I don't, and my reasoning is extremely simple.

Nobody can sensibly claim that there is nothing that can usefully be done/decided at the pan-European level. Therefore, in this day and age, there's going to be some kind of pan-European organisation to do and decide those things at the European level. If that pan-European organisation is to succeed, it cannot be run on the basis of a national veto on everything - any international organisation that has been constituted on such a basis has failed, and quite quickly, after achieving little.

So, as it happens, there is a pan-European organisation - the EU. Should Ireland be a part of it? Yes - how on earth could we accept being left out of it? Are we not part of Europe? Do we have some kind of linkage to the world outside Europe that allows or requires us to stand aloof from decisions being made in Europe, for Europe? Is there an Irish Empire, or an Irish Commonwealth? Are we separate from the rest of the world, so that their decisions and ours are mutually unaffected?

We don't have to be part of something like the EU, but we'd be fools not to be if we can be - something borne out by the fact that every country in Europe is either part of the EU, aspiring to be part of the EU, or is as much part of the EU (via the EEA or EFTA) as they can manage. There is no alternative organisation, and there's no ignoring it.

So, for me, it's an open and shut question as to whether we want to be part of the EU, and it's a requirement of the EU's success that it not be run purely as an intergovernmental system with national vetoes on everything. That means that it's an open and shut question as to whether we pool sovereignty or not - we do.

Now, if there were a track record of Irish interests being ignored by the EU, of Irish wishes and preferences being overridden by the EU, then I'd push for Ireland to pull out, because that would be unacceptable. However, there isn't. In the 30 years or so I've been paying attention to such things, there's no evidence of it - the European level has made uniformly better decisions for Ireland's interests in that time than a succession of Irish governments. Even the charge that euro membership and low interest rates were the cause of our current difficulties doesn't wash - we could have done well out of it. Indeed, with a Singaporean-style push for Irish entrepreneurialism and support for Irish businesses (following the track we were on in the 90's), we could have done fabulously well out of it.

Certain particular segments of Irish society have not been pleased, of course. In particular, chunks of Irish rural society object strenuously to environmental legislation, while the hardline social conservatives object to anything and everything that makes society more open. I've no pity or sympathy for either of them - the environment doesn't protect itself against modern machines and chemicals, and the conservative society of Eighties Ireland which I experienced was riddled with hypocrisy and vice. It's a long time since anyone died behind a forestry wall giving birth secretly out of fear of the moral majority, as happened in Cavan when I was young, or had to set out for an AnCo course the other end of the country to give birth secretly, as happened to one of my aunts. At the same time, we still have our special hypocrisies, like going to the UK for abortions, which shows that while the EU has helped, it hasn't forced us.

So there, in not quite a nutshell, you have your answer. I would have unstintingly supported Irish independence - and would now, were it called into question - and then I would have supported EU entry. For me, the latter follows perfectly naturally from the former - first, we become independent, then we take our place at the table of European nations. As it is, we are independent, we are at the table, and it's been great.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Freeborn John

Scofflaw wrote: »

Nobody can sensibly claim that there is nothing that can usefully be done/decided at the pan-European level. Therefore, in this day and age, there's going to be some kind of pan-European organisation to do and decide those things at the European level.

There are actually almost no issues which are European issues. Issues are either national ones, or global ones. We need to move towards a global common market by reducing (via the WTO) tariffs yet further towards zero level (they are already at 0% for services which employs the most people these days). However if we are to retain democratic control over politics then we need to make as many decisions as possible within the democratic arena of the nation-state.

Every EU law is one that you cannot change via the democratic process and which remains binding in perpetuity on the state (and not merely the government that took part in creating it) no matter how you vote in the future. No change to it is possible without a proposal from the undemocratic Commision which believes its job description is 'ever closer union' and has only once in 50 years ever repealed an EU law (and that in the area of vegetable rules, which had become an embarrassment to it).

Scofflaw

Freeborn John wrote: »

There are actually almost no issues which are European issues. Issues are either national ones, or global ones. We need to move towards a global common market by reducing (via the WTO) tariffs yet further towards zero level (they are already at 0% for services which employs the most people these days). However if we are to retain democratic control over politics then we need to make as many decisions as possible within the democratic arena of the nation-state.

Every EU law is one that you cannot change via the democratic process and which remains binding in perpetuity on the state (and not merely the government that took part in creating it) no matter how you vote in the future. No change to it is possible without a proposal from the undemocratic Commision which believes its job description is 'ever closer union' and has only once in 50 years ever repealed an EU law (and that in the area of vegetable rules, which had become an embarrassment to it).

Freeborn John is, in fact, exactly the person I had in mind when I said:

Nobody can sensibly claim that there is nothing that can usefully be done/decided at the pan-European level.

amused,
Scofflaw

Torakx

i admit scofflaw you make a sound arguement that anyone reading would be compelled to at least agree with some of it.
but i have a few issues which still prevent me from being able to vote yes.

i get the feeling when i consider the original treaty that the amended version will maybe after 5 - 10 years be changed slowly to fit the original.
when i see how changes are brought about in other places its obvious it can happen in europe too.

and i feel the people who drafted up this treaty obviously were happy with everything in the first one including our government! god help us had they gotten there way on that!so i have issues with now agreeing to anything these same people put infront on my nose.the foundation of this treaty for me is tainted already.i know what they would like to see in europe and i could never agree to them leading us.

also didnt we lose alot of our fishing to european vessels trawling our waters legally since we entered europe?
im sure there are other things too i am just a bit more ignorant than you or many others here in that respect.

molloyjh

Torakx wrote: »

i admit scofflaw you make a sound arguement that anyone reading would be compelled to at least agree with some of it.
but i have a few issues which still prevent me from being able to vote yes.

i get the feeling when i consider the original treaty that the amended version will maybe after 5 - 10 years be changed slowly to fit the original.
when i see how changes are brought about in other places its obvious it can happen in europe too.

and i feel the people who drafted up this treaty obviously were happy with everything in the first one including our government! god help us had they gotten there way on that!so i have issues with now agreeing to anything these same people put infront on my nose.the foundation of this treaty for me is tainted already.i know what they would like to see in europe and i could never agree to them leading us.

also didnt we lose alot of our fishing to european vessels trawling our waters legally since we entered europe?
im sure there are other things too i am just a bit more ignorant than you or many others here in that respect.

Scofflaw has addressed the fishing point elsewhere quite well. The money we lost was nothing to what we gained. That is the whole point of the EU. We cannot possibly get everything we want 100% of the time. We have to weigh up whether the benefits of overall membership outweigh the negatives. And I think we can all agree that they do. Quite heavily.

With regard to the background and overall objectives of Lisbon you'd need to go back to the Treaty of Amsterdam. The reforms that are in Lisbon have been in the works since then. The EU was still ruled by the set-up that was implemented when only 6 member states were involved and had little or no mention of issues like global warming, terrorism etc. In other words the EU's "constitution" (for want of a better word) was out of date and needed modernising. The EU had also expanded and was continuing to do so and the rules re voting weights, unanimity and the Commission size were making the whole legislative process very slow and cumbersome.

The reforms in Lisbon are meant to allow the EU to continue to expand while ensuring that legislation doesn't take years to be passed into law(which at the moment it can do). It is also meant to prevent the continuation of these complex and rather large international treaties that we've had to deal with the last few decades by allowing amendments to be made directly to the Treaty rather than via another Treaty.

The whole thing probably won't make a blind bit of difference to you or to me, but it will enable the EU to better do it's job. And given it's history, and our history within it, that surely can only be a good thing?

Scofflaw

Torakx wrote: »

i admit scofflaw you make a sound arguement that anyone reading would be compelled to at least agree with some of it.
but i have a few issues which still prevent me from being able to vote yes.

i get the feeling when i consider the original treaty that the amended version will maybe after 5 - 10 years be changed slowly to fit the original.
when i see how changes are brought about in other places its obvious it can happen in europe too.

You can't really do that with a treaty, though. There are a couple of things that can be changed after the event, but the fact that they can be changed is stipulated in the treaty.

Countries tend to get narky if someone changes treaties after the event. Also, if the Treaty of Lisbon was changed after the event, anyone in Europe could take a case that their country had actually ratified something else.

Torakx wrote: »

and i feel the people who drafted up this treaty obviously were happy with everything in the first one including our government! god help us had they gotten there way on that!so i have issues with now agreeing to anything these same people put infront on my nose.the foundation of this treaty for me is tainted already.i know what they would like to see in europe and i could never agree to them leading us.

I appreciate what you're saying there, but funnily enough Irish governments are far better at negotiating EU treaties than they are at running the country - possibly because there's nothing in EU treaties for developers.

Torakx wrote: »

also didnt we lose alot of our fishing to european vessels trawling our waters legally since we entered europe?

Not really - about $6.7bn has been fished from Irish waters by other EU countries since we joined in 1973 (figures are up to 2004), compared to the $3.5bn we've had in the same timeframe, most of which was in the earlier days after entry, when our fishing fleet was far smaller in capacity. Before we joined, we used to get about 9% of the fish from Irish waters. These days, we fish about 45% of what comes out of Irish waters - the other EU countries take about $250m a year compared to our $200m - for comparison, we're still getting about half a billion euro a year in subsidies from the EU.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Freeborn John

Scofflaw wrote: »

Freeborn John is, in fact, exactly the person I had in mind when I said:



amused,
Scofflaw

Note that whenever scofflaw cannot refute a point, he adds 'amused'. The laugh is on him.

Torakx

id actually rather we had not joined the eu at all. unfortunatly i was too young at the time to be able to vote let alone learn what it was all about.
i feel since entering this superstate we are heading down a bad path.
i have said why in another post and gotten a warning because it was classed as conspiracy theory.
i always thought conspiracy was something hidden.but what i had said was not hidden just plain fact. yet it was about another state that wasnt europe but still greatly effects europe. so the mods win on that one.

Freeborn John

molloyjh wrote: »

With regard to the background and overall objectives of Lisbon you'd need to go back to the Treaty of Amsterdam. The reforms that are in Lisbon have been in the works since then. The EU was still ruled by the set-up that was implemented when only 6 member states...

More junk from the yes-men. The treaty of Amsterdam assigned the following number of MEPs to 15 countries so clearly was not designed with 6 member states in mind.

---

Amsterdam Treaty Article 138.2. The number of representatives elected in each Member State shall be as follows: Belgium 25 Denmark 16 Germany 99 Greece 25 Spain 64 France 87 Ireland 15 Italy 87 Luxembourg 6 Netherlands 31 Austria 21 Portugal 25 Finland 16 Sweden 22 United Kingdom 87.

Freeborn John

Torakx wrote: »

i have said why in another post and gotten a warning because it was classed as conspiracy theory.
i always thought conspiracy was something hidden.but what i had said was not hidden just plain fact. yet it was about another state that wasnt europe but still greatly effects europe. so the mods win on that one.

I think handing out infraction notices and warnings is what makes scofflaw 'amused'?

marco_polo

Torakx wrote: »

id actually rather we had not joined the eu at all. unfortunatly i was too young at the time to be able to vote let alone learn what it was all about.
i feel since entering this superstate we are heading down a bad path.
i have said why in another post and gotten a warning because it was classed as conspiracy theory.
i always thought conspiracy was something hidden.but what i had said was not hidden just plain fact. yet it was about another state that wasnt europe but still greatly effects europe. so the mods win on that one.

I am not sure that any woman who, before we joined the EU, was made to give up her jobs in the Civil Service by the Irish Government upon getting married, would agree with you.

Torakx

yes the eu brought alot of nice things i can obviously agree with that.
but i also feel the good certainly does not outweigh the bad say 5-10 years after we pass this treaty.
just take a look at some other superstates and see what that got them.
europe is turning into a refined and sophisticted version of those other superstates from the present and past and this treaty is only helping to solidify that.
for that reason alone i am against anything that pushes us further inot europe.
i read the treaty 5 months ago and was really suprised about some of the things i read. some of it i dont rmeember others i do vaguely but at the time i had a very very strong conviction whoever made this treaty was the biggest scam artist i ever came across.

lol apologies for the mistypes!

molloyjh

Freeborn John wrote: »

More junk from the yes-men. The treaty of Amsterdam assigned the following voting weights to 15 countries so clearly was not designed with 6 member states in mind.

---

Amsterdam Treaty Article 138.2. The number of representatives elected in each Member State shall be as follows: Belgium 25 Denmark 16 Germany 99 Greece 25 Spain 64 France 87 Ireland 15 Italy 87 Luxembourg 6 Netherlands 31 Austria 21 Portugal 25 Finland 16 Sweden 22 United Kingdom 87.

You need to read that post again. Maybe a little slower this time. The point was that the the time that Amsterdam was being drawn up that was the state of play (and I don't mean that they only had voting weights for 6 Member States :rolleyes:). Since then Amsterdam and Nice have been stop-gaps while the Member States were negotiating the reform that they were aiming for when they were first negotiating Amsterdam.

They couldn't reach the necessary agreements in either Treaty so made certain changes to help facilitate the more pressing concerns like new accession states and set up IGC's to progress the larger issue of reform. These IGCs ultimately led to the European Convention which came up with the draft EU Constitution.

Have a read of these:
Amsterdam Treaty info
Nice Treaty info
Laeken Declaration info
EU Convention info

marco_polo

Torakx wrote: »

yes the eu brought alot of nice things i can obviously agree with that.
but i also feel the good certainly does not outweigh the bad say 5-10 years after we pass this treaty.
just take a look at some other superstates and see what that got them.
europe is turning into a refined and sophisticted version of those other superstates from the present and past and this treaty is only helping to solidify that.
for that reason alone i am against anything that pushes us further inot europe.
i read the treaty 5 months ago and was really suprised about some of the things i read. some of it i dont rmeember others i do vaguely but at the time i had a very very strong conviction whoever made this treaty was the biggest scam artist i ever came across.

lol apologies for the mistypes!

The scam artists who agreed the final draft were the 27 current member states of the EU.

Which persent and former superstates do you find the EU most similar to, and where do you see the parralels?

Scofflaw

Freeborn John wrote: »

I think handing out infraction notices and warnings is what makes scofflaw 'amused'?

Read the Charter. The place to complain is the Help Desk. You now have a couple of spare days to do so.

moderately,
Scofflaw

Torakx

marco_polo wrote: »

The scam artists who agreed the final draft were the 27 current member states of the EU.

Which persent and former superstates do you find the EU most similar to, and where do you see the parralels?

im a bit cautious to say which states again lol.
i already got an infraction from someone unrelated to these threads!
but i think it should be obvious enough in a general way to which continent we are similar to regarding federal law oops i mean eu law and member states law.

and what i mean about scam artists is the original creaters of the treaty not the people paid/duped/forced/convinced to push it,sign it or claim to have created it.
i also cant mention who that is because i will get an infraction again.
due to conspiracy theories.

oscarBravo

Torakx wrote: »

i also cant mention who that is because i will get an infraction again.
due to conspiracy theories.

You're running the risk as it is, mentioning them obliquely.