Did Lisbon invalidate the democratic process?

aurelius79

This not a discussion about whether voting yes was the right decision or not. This is about whether having two referendums with two different results on the exact same treaty invalidates the right of the public to vote in a referendum or even an election.

If the public is so easily swayed by fear or misinformation, then what good is a democratic system? Why allow people with such little knowledge about a particular issue to speak for the entire nation? As I said, this isn't about yes or no as the problem affects both sides.

What did the Lisbon referendums say about the EU? We, as a nation, voted no on the Lisbon Treaty. Whether that was right or wrong is debatable but for this discussion it is irrelevant. This vote was completely ignored by the EU and we were forced to vote again. What would have happened if we voted no the second time? Would they have made us vote again and again until we voted "correctly"? Would they have just passed the treaty with only the consent of the Irish government? It was clear that they were unwilling to alter the treaty, so what do you think would have happened?

imme

are you speaking for the people

aurelius79

imme wrote: »

are you speaking for the people

I'm speaking as a person with a democratic right to determine my own future, as are all the people of the Republic.

imme

it's the prerogative of government to introduce referendums to the people:cool:
we live in a democracy at the whim of government

aurelius79

imme wrote: »

it's the prerogative of government to introduce referendums to the people:cool:
we live in a democracy at the whim of government

Really? I thought the right to a referendum was given to us by our constitution. Isn't that why we had a referendum in the first place? If it was up to the government, we would not have had one. Anyway, this is off-topic. Do you have an opinion regarding my original post?

imme

aurelius79 wrote: »

Really? I thought the right to a referendum was given to us by our constitution. Isn't that why we had a referendum in the first place? If it was up to the government, we would not have had one. Anyway, this is off-topic. Do you have an opinion regarding my original post?

referendums are proffered at the whim of government, subject to the constitution.
your question was 'Did Lisbon invalidate the democratic process'
well if we were asked to vote, how was the democratic process subverted?/invalidated?
I know what you're saying aurelius79, you're hurting about not being respected, but there ya go, such is life.

Scofflaw

The most obvious demonstration that democracy wasn't "subverted" is in the fact that the referendum result was completely different. Clearly the will of the electorate in June 2008 and October 2009 were different things - and that being so, on what basis should they not have been consulted the second time?

regards,
Scofflaw

ei.sdraob

has the world ended yet? still waiting for all the things promised by the No camp

Furious-Dave

aurelius79 wrote: »

If the public is so easily swayed by fear or misinformation, then what good is a democratic system? Why allow people with such little knowledge about a particular issue to speak for the entire nation? As I said, this isn't about yes or no as the problem affects both sides.

Democracy is the only way to run a country. The question is where on the political compass does the government stand. The very fact that the people are so easily swayed by propaganda is why I believe referenda a dangerous.

aurelius79 wrote: »

What did the Lisbon referendums say about the EU? We, as a nation, voted no on the Lisbon Treaty. Whether that was right or wrong is debatable but for this discussion it is irrelevant. This vote was completely ignored by the EU and we were forced to vote again. What would have happened if we voted no the second time? Would they have made us vote again and again until we voted "correctly"? Would they have just passed the treaty with only the consent of the Irish government? It was clear that they were unwilling to alter the treaty, so what do you think would have happened?

The result of the first referendum was not ignored by the EU. I'd say they almost shat themselves as they probably thought it was a done deal, especially when Ireland negotiated a lot of the terms in the treaty. No one was forced to vote again, we were simply asked to, perhaps guilt tripped into doing it. If the treaty had been passed without referendum it might have been illegal and the government might have had to have been dissolved, though that would probably have been a good thing. As has been explained to death on this forum a lot of the reasons why the electorate voted the way they did had nothing to do with the treaty, so there was no need to alter it.

aurelius79

imme wrote: »

well if we were asked to vote, how was the democratic process subverted?/invalidated?
I know what you're saying aurelius79, you're hurting about not being respected, but there ya go, such is life.

The issue I am trying to raise is not that we were allowed to vote. It is that we were allowed to vote, that vote was deemed invalid by the EU, and we were asked to vote again on a treaty that didn't change at all from the first vote.

As to your second comment, my personal feelings have nothing to do with the actual outcome. My concern is the process in which that outcome was achieved.

Scofflaw wrote: »

The most obvious demonstration that democracy wasn't "subverted" is in the fact that the referendum result was completely different. Clearly the will of the electorate in June 2008 and October 2009 were different things - and that being so, on what basis should they not have been consulted the second time?

regards,
Scofflaw

How is it an obvious demonstration that democracy was not subverted when a decision made by the electorate is ignored? What happens when the will of the people remains the same? Are we to assume that we would have been forced to vote for the third time? This is an issue that really needs to be addressed.

We were given certain guarantees by the EU regarding conscription/military action in an EU conflict. What reason do we have to believe these guarantees will be honored when the result of a democratic referendum is deemed incorrect and we are forced to vote again?

As far as the will of the people, we only need to look to the Czech Republic to see how the will of the people can be subverted by threats from the EU. The Czech president has raised real concern regarding the Charter of Fundamental Rights, in which he believes German property seized after WWII could be reclaimed. What is Barroso's reaction to these concerns? Public threats to remove the Czech commissioner. One can only speculate as to what threats he made in private.

Dinner

aurelius79 wrote: »

The issue I am trying to raise is not that we were allowed to vote. It is that we were allowed to vote, that vote was deemed invalid by the EU, and we were asked to vote again on a treaty that didn't change at all from the first vote.

The EU did not invalidate the result of the referendum. How many times does it need to be said? We held a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008. It was rejected.

Shortly after this, a number of surveys were carried out to find out why it was rejected. The result showed that the majority of people who voted no didn't have a clue what the treaty was all about (and many people on the yes side were similar). Please, with reference to the treaty, indicate which article of the treaty should be modified in order to allow people to understand? Bearing in mind that we all know that this myth about the treaty being unreadable is just that, a myth. Many people without any sort of political or legal background have read it.

The surveys also found that abortion, conscription etc. were all factors in some people decision to vote no. Since the treaty didn't affect any of those things, there was no need to modify it. All that was needed was a series of legally binding agreements/clarifications to make it perfectly clear what the Lisbon Treaty did not do.

It baffles me that some people still have this 'not a comma has changed' mentality. What do you want changed? Should they just change it for the sake of it? Just to appease the people with the above mentality. If something doesn't need to be changed then it doesn't need to be changed.


Also, one thing that you need to get straight. The EU did not, once again the EU did not invalidate the result of the referendum. Nor did they force us to vote again.

We voted, we rejected.
Government asked why and got results.
Government acted on those results to solve the concerns of the public.
The Governmant (not the EU) asked us to vote again in light of the fact that many concerns have been satisfied and the people who didn't understand the treaty have another chance to understand it better.

It is not undemocratic. Quite the opposite. It is a perfect example of democracy in action whereby the concerns of the public are discovered and satisfied. To somehow construe that that act is undemocratic is just stupid.

aurelius79 wrote: »

How is it an obvious demonstration that democracy was not subverted when a decision made by the electorate is ignored? What happens when the will of the people remains the same? Are we to assume that we would have been forced to vote for the third time?

Why would they? If we voted no a second time we'd sure as hell vote no a third time out of spite if nothing else. This pretence that we would vote again and again and again until we gave the 'right answer' is just baseless bollox. There is not one hint that anything like that has ever or will ever happen.

aurelius79 wrote: »

We were given certain guarantees by the EU regarding conscription/military action in an EU conflict. What reason do we have to believe these guarantees will be honored when the result of a democratic referendum is deemed incorrect and we are forced to vote again?

Please show us where in the past the EU has violated the guarantees given to Ireland for Nice 2 and Denmark for Maastricht 2. I don't suppose you have anything other than baseless paranoia to back this up, do you?

aurelius79

Dinner, first I'd ask that you refrain from using language more suited to the schoolyard than to a mature forum. I assume we are all adults here, let's try to behave as such.

Eliot Rosewater

Given that you've taken Dinners use of a number of certain words as an excuse not to deal with his post, I will take up the argument instead.


You've laid a number of charges against the EU - firstly that it ignored the result and secondly that it forced Ireland to have a second referendum. Both these assertions can be broadly refuted by the fact that ratification of EU treaties has nothing to to with the EU, and that the method of ratification is not an EU competency. The competencies are laid out pretty clearly in the Treaties themselves.

First charge

The first argument - that of someone ignoring the referendum result - is baseless. The referendum question was effectively "Do you give the state permission to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon?" The people voted No; the state was not given permission to ratify the Treaty; the Treaty was not ratified. It really is that simple.

Your argument now is that the holding of second referendum was somehow breaching the will of the people. This is incorrect on a number of accounts. Firstly the people never expressed a will not to be asked again, unless there was some small print on the bottom of my ballot that I never spotted. More importantly, the will of the people is not some concrete idea. It is highly flexible and will change over periods of time. Our only gauge of the will of the people is through a referendum. So given that the two referenda returned two different results we assume that the will of the people changed. This is unsurprising given the different economic context and other factors.

So the end result is that the subsequent ratification of Lisbon was breaching the will of the people in June 2008, but not the will of the people in September 2009.

I think this is the point where No campaigners arbitrarily pick the 2008 opinion as somehow being better than the 2009 one. This has nothing to do with fact; merely that it suits their outlook.

Second charge

The second charge was that the EU forced Ireland to have another referendum. Its technically fallacious, as I said above. I think, though, what your trying to say is that the EU forced the Irish Government to force the Irish people to vote again. Well I suppose it doesn't hurt to be reminded that the EU in this case is the sum total of the member states. Saying the EU forced anything is just a semantic construct to make the situation sound worse than it is.

The initial argument against this is that the Irish Government were for the Treaty of Lisbon. They helped negotiate it and campaigned for a Yes vote. The EU member states didn't need to force the Government to get it ratified: the Government wanted to do that anyway.

Saying, that there was undoubtedly pressure on Cowen and Co to do the business. However all this talk of forcing ignores the fact that Ireland is held in good standing in Europe generally and that fundamentally the EU is a voluntary organization. The "anti Ireland conspiracy" that some people paint of the EU member states cannot be true in theses circumstances. If the EU was really out to get us (and I dont know what kind of material gain would be in it for the member states) we would be sure to exercise our liberty to leave.



Ive put something like 25 minutes into writing that. I hope my time and effort was not wasted on you and that you will at least address the points I made.

aurelius79

Thanks for the reply Eliot. I would have responded earlier but I was playing in the snow.

I freely accept it was our government responsible for the referendums. To me the Irish gevernment and the EU are somewhat interchangable as I believe the government is acting in the best interest of the EU at the moment.

As I stated in my first post, I don't wish to argue for or against the actual result. I'd like your opinions on whether you think the public should even be asked to vote in a referendum. If the will of the people can be swayed from one moment to the next, should the future of our country be subject to the opinions of the general public?

To reply to the second part of your argument. You stated that the government campaigned for a yes vote. I don't believe the government should have been involved with a campaign for either side. They had a responsibility to inform the public of the full contents of the treaty. This is where I think their responsibility ended. I think it was slightly unfair for the government to get behind the treaty as they did. The 'no' campaign were at an obvious disadvantage from the very start. I honestly believe they had genuine concerns about parts of the treaty but their voices were not heard. I believe a lot of people voted a certain way based more on their political affiliation rather than on their actual knowledge of what they were voting for.

I realize this is what democracy is all about but maybe democracy isn't such a great idea after all. It just seems that whoever has the most money for a particular campaign is the one who gets their way.

So this brings me to my main point. Should we just scrap democratic procedure all together and just let our government make the decisions? It seems like it would be a lot less stressful for everyone.

Scofflaw

aurelius79 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply Eliot. I would have responded earlier but I was playing in the snow.

I freely accept it was our government responsible for the referendums. To me the Irish gevernment and the EU are somewhat interchangable as I believe the government is acting in the best interest of the EU at the moment.

It would be off-topic, and take too long, to challenge that particular assumption.

aurelius79 wrote: »

As I stated in my first post, I don't wish to argue for or against the actual result. I'd like your opinions on whether you think the public should even be asked to vote in a referendum. If the will of the people can be swayed from one moment to the next, should the future of our country be subject to the opinions of the general public?

To reply to the second part of your argument. You stated that the government campaigned for a yes vote. I don't believe the government should have been involved with a campaign for either side. They had a responsibility to inform the public of the full contents of the treaty. This is where I think their responsibility ended. I think it was slightly unfair for the government to get behind the treaty as they did. The 'no' campaign were at an obvious disadvantage from the very start. I honestly believe they had genuine concerns about parts of the treaty but their voices were not heard. I believe a lot of people voted a certain way based more on their political affiliation rather than on their actual knowledge of what they were voting for.

Strictly speaking, the government didn't campaign, and, indeed, isn't allowed to. The government parties campaigned - although in Lisbon I the Green Party didn't, of course - but they campaigned as parties on the same basis as Fine Gael and Labour and Sinn Fein, using their own resources.

aurelius79 wrote: »

I realize this is what democracy is all about but maybe democracy isn't such a great idea after all. It just seems that whoever has the most money for a particular campaign is the one who gets their way.

So this brings me to my main point. Should we just scrap democratic procedure all together and just let our government make the decisions? It seems like it would be a lot less stressful for everyone.

No, I don't really think so. There was a good deal more going on in the change of opinion than is suggested by totting up who spent what - something that's easily shown by the fact that the shift of opinion started very shortly after the initial No. By the time the campaigns swung into gear, the result was already largely decided.

Referendums are, to me - even when they cast something I care about, like Lisbon, into hazard - a very important reminder to the political parties to take the electorate seriously, which was the main failing of the first Yes "campaign".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Lockstep

It's fairly part and parcel of Irish politics; we've had two referendums on divorce and four on abortion for example.

Eliot Rosewater

Yes I would be in favour of removing the referendum process for EU Treaties. They are far too complex for the lay man to understand. Representative democracy works on the principle that you elect people who "know better." Its the full time job of TD's to know what they are voting on. On the contrary the average citizen must spend his tea time mulling over complex international concepts.

In practice direct democracy works on the basis of some interest group trying to convince someone of something. Ideally democracy would involve each individual deciphering the issues themselves and then deciding. However what inevitability occurs is a kind of shouting match, with the average joe soap voting on the basis of what he read on some poster. And as we have seen with the recent campaign, interest groups arent averse to playing dirty tactics to get what they want.

Add to this the fact that the EU treaty debate isnt suited to shouting matches because theres rarely something to shout about. Its hard to get excited about streamlined decision making. So what happens is mis-truths and lies start being spurting out, be it "yes to jobs" or "no to abortion," slogans which have no direct relation to the Treaty.

View

aurelius79 wrote: »

If the public is so easily swayed by fear or misinformation, then what good is a democratic system? Why allow people with such little knowledge about a particular issue to speak for the entire nation? As I said, this isn't about yes or no as the problem affects both sides.

Two good questions.

The answer to the first was best expressed by Churchill when he said that democracy seems an incredibly stupid system, that is, until you look at the alternatives.

The second you'd need to refer to the Supreme Court. The people voted, when approving the constitution, to authorise the Government to enter into international agreements on our behalf. They also voted to authorise the Oireachtas to ratify those agreements. They did NOT vote for us to have referenda on international agreements. It was the Supreme Court, not the people, who in effect "forced" us to have referenda on international agreements (as a consequence of the Crotty judgement). In addition, as there is no easy mechanism in our constitution, for treaties to be referred to the Supreme Court for a definitive ruling on their constitutional implications in advance of a referendum, referenda are essentially held with no one having a clear idea about what the major constitutional issues under debate should be. This is not to say such a ruling would actually help - the SEA referendum "debate", held after the Crotty case was just as bad as the latest ones.

Bottle_of_Smoke

It appeared to me that after the results of the first vote came about the recession talk in the media really really hyped up. This could of course happened anyway but it did make me a bit suspicious.

Government also put in a really small effort in the first treaty campaign. After Nice they should have known Lisbon needed a strong effort. Did they perhaps expect a no vote and then felt safer with a super-charged second campaign. Perhaps thought putting in two strong efforts could have produced two close votes with No edging it. I'm aware I'm straying into conspiracy theory territory here.

Still I don't think it was undemocratic myself. The Irish public had every opportunity to vote No the second time around.

Furious-Dave

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

It appeared to me that after the results of the first vote came about the recession talk in the media really really hyped up. This could of course happened anyway but it did make me a bit suspicious.

Government also put in a really small effort in the first treaty campaign. After Nice they should have known Lisbon needed a strong effort. Did they perhaps expect a no vote and then felt safer with a super-charged second campaign. Perhaps thought putting in two strong efforts could have produced two close votes with No edging it. I'm aware I'm straying into conspiracy theory territory here.

Still I don't think it was undemocratic myself. The Irish public had every opportunity to vote No the second time around.

Nah, I think Fianna Fáil are just retards, and there's nothing more to it than that.

Scofflaw

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

It appeared to me that after the results of the first vote came about the recession talk in the media really really hyped up. This could of course happened anyway but it did make me a bit suspicious.

Government also put in a really small effort in the first treaty campaign. After Nice they should have known Lisbon needed a strong effort. Did they perhaps expect a no vote and then felt safer with a super-charged second campaign. Perhaps thought putting in two strong efforts could have produced two close votes with No edging it. I'm aware I'm straying into conspiracy theory territory here.

I'd love to believe they were that clever, but playing chicken with referendums simply isn't clever. My own view is that they cared more about the local elections than the referendum, where they probably reckoned they could just about get an apathetic Yes on a lacklustre turnout if Fine Gael and Labour did enough work - and thereby depleted their funds for the locals. After all, they had enough on their plate without Lisbon, what with Bertie up in front of the Tribunals.

To be fair, it quite probably would have worked without Ganley. I don't think he swayed people, but I do think he crystallised a certain humour in the electorate, and there's little denying that he caught them on the hop - by the time they realised he wasn't just a flash in the pan, it was too late for them to change course.

Speaking to local councillors (FF and Labour) shortly before Lisbon II, there was still no central effort to educate and mobilise the party rank and file - and, if we think about it, the political campaigns in Lisbon II only looked decent by comparison with the Lisbon I campaigns. The change in humour and the non-political Yes campaigns were the driving forces for the second result.

cordially,
Scofflaw

thebman

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'd love to believe they were that clever, but playing chicken with referendums simply isn't clever. My own view is that they cared more about the local elections than the referendum, where they probably reckoned they could just about get an apathetic Yes on a lacklustre turnout if Fine Gael and Labour did enough work - and thereby depleted their funds for the locals. After all, they had enough on their plate without Lisbon, what with Bertie up in front of the Tribunals.

To be fair, it quite probably would have worked without Ganley. I don't think he swayed people, but I do think he crystallised a certain humour in the electorate, and there's little denying that he caught them on the hop - by the time they realised he wasn't just a flash in the pan, it was too late for them to change course.

Speaking to local councillors (FF and Labour) shortly before Lisbon II, there was still no central effort to educate and mobilise the party rank and file - and, if we think about it, the political campaigns in Lisbon II only looked decent by comparison with the Lisbon I campaigns. The change in humour and the non-political Yes campaigns were the driving forces for the second result.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Personally I think people over 25 but younger than 40 aren't part of FF faithful and in the coming years we'll see a turn in political culture in Ireland and that these people don't like being told what to do with a face of a politician and want the facts even if they are too lazy to find them for themselves, if they aren't provided, they will just do the opposite of what they are being told to do.

Similar attitude that lead to Dustin being chosen for Eurovision and that has RATM as number one in UK charts for Xmas IMO.

Its a generation of people that will vote against something if it isn't presented to them in the proper way. Rightly or wrongly.

Hotblack Desiato

thebman wrote: »

Personally I think people over 25 but younger than 40 aren't part of FF faithful and in the coming years we'll see a turn in political culture in Ireland and that these people don't like being told what to do with a face of a politician and want the facts even if they are too lazy to find them for themselves, if they aren't provided, they will just do the opposite of what they are being told to do.

Similar attitude that lead to Dustin being chosen for Eurovision and that has RATM as number one in UK charts for Xmas IMO.

Its a generation of people that will vote against something if it isn't presented to them in the proper way. Rightly or wrongly.

Sounds a lot like my toddler... mho on Lisbon 1 was that collectively we threw our toys out of the pram. It certainly didn't reflect well on our maturity as an electorate.

However if we get one good thing out of the recession, an end to blind party loyalty/'family' voting patterns could be it.

aurelius79 wrote:

I realize this is what democracy is all about but maybe democracy isn't such a great idea after all. It just seems that whoever has the most money for a particular campaign is the one who gets their way.

You do realise that Libertas out-spent everyone else put together on Lisbon 1, don't you? It could rightly be argued that that referendum was bought. But now it suits the No side to claim the second one was bought by the state of the economy, 'yes for jobs' etc. and overlook the fact that many of the falsehoods they relied on so heavily the first time (minimum wage, abortion, conscription, etc) were utterly debunked by that stage.

Referendums are OK for single issues like divorce (but on abortion, even after four votes we have no clarity on what the Irish people really want.) Complex international treaties involving 27 nations amending treaties going back 50 years is not really ideal for a referendum.

I'd be in favour of allowing EU treaties to be ratified by a 2/3rds majority in the Oireachtas. Of course, we'd need a referendum to allow this...

Flamed Diving

Should we just do away with referenda altogether then?

bonkey

aurelius79 wrote: »

If the public is so easily swayed by fear or misinformation, then what good is a democratic system?

If this is a question specifically about Lisbon, then its loaded almost beyond belief, in that it pre-supposes that fear and/or misinformation drove the majority vote in one or other of the two referenda.

Why allow people with such little knowledge about a particular issue to speak for the entire nation?

Because no better alternative has been identified.

This vote was completely ignored by the EU and we were forced to vote again.

Regardless of their correctness (or lack thereof), these two claims are mutually contradictory. If the EU ignored our intial rejection of the Treaty, they wouldn't need us to vote again. If they forced us to vote again it could only be because they couldn't ignore the results of our vote.

AS others have already pointed out, these claims are inaccurate to begin with...but lets not lose sight of the fact that they're also illogical in combination with each other.

aurelius79

bonkey wrote: »

If this is a question specifically about Lisbon, then its loaded almost beyond belief, in that it pre-supposes that fear and/or misinformation drove the majority vote in one or other of the two referenda.

Of course I realize there were other factors involved but I believe many people made a decision based on fear, lack of understanding, or just their personal view of the EU as a whole; pro-EU voters would vote yes purely based on the fact they were pro-EU, anti-EU voters would do likewise.

bonkey wrote: »

Because no better alternative has been identified.

One could argue that an alternative was never sought in the first place. We could have had an independent council of legal, political and economic academics review the treaty, identify possible implications it would have for Ireland in the future, and submit an impartial assessment to the relevant bodies involved. Instead we had several campaign groups expressing their opinions on the treaty, causing more confusion than clarity.

bonkey wrote: »

Regardless of their correctness (or lack thereof), these two claims are mutually contradictory. If the EU ignored our intial rejection of the Treaty, they wouldn't need us to vote again. If they forced us to vote again it could only be because they couldn't ignore the results of our vote.

I admit "ignored" was probably a bad choice of words, dismissed might have been more appropriate. We, as a nation, made a decision regarding the Lisbon Treaty. Whether this was the correct decision or not is debatable. Regardless, the EU refused to accept this decision and requested our government to hold a second referendum. The PR machine was rolled out, guarantees were made, and we went ahead with a second referendum even though there were still concerns over the contents of the treaty.

Speaking of guarantees, what has the EU offered as a penalty if they have to break these guarantees. I'm sure we've all heard the phrase "guaranteed or your money back" at some point. What do we get if these guarantees are broken?

bonkey wrote: »

AS others have already pointed out, these claims are inaccurate to begin with...but lets not lose sight of the fact that they're also illogical in combination with each other.

I'm not sure why you believe these claims are inaccurate or illogical. They are simply my opinions on a subject which I believe every Irish person should consider.

Someone made reference to the referendums that were held regarding abortion and divorce. These referendums have no relation to the Lisbon Treaty whatsoever. We could, at a later date, hold another referendum to reverse a decision made on abortion or divorce. We can not hold another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty ever again. We made a permanent decision regarding the future of our country and I don't believe we will ever be allowed to reverse that decision.

PeakOutput

One could argue that an alternative was never sought in the first place. We could have had an independent council of legal, political and economic academics review the treaty, identify possible implications it would have for Ireland in the future, and submit an impartial assessment to the relevant bodies involved. Instead we had several campaign groups expressing their opinions on the treaty, causing more confusion than clarity.

if something affects our constitution(which i believe the lisbon treaty does) then there is no alternative to a referendum. if a referendum was not the only solution the goverment wouldnt have had one

I admit "ignored" was probably a bad choice of words, dismissed might have been more appropriate. We, as a nation, made a decision regarding the Lisbon Treaty. Whether this was the correct decision or not is debatable. Regardless, the EU refused to accept this decision and requested our government to hold a second referendum. The PR machine was rolled out, guarantees were made, and we went ahead with a second referendum even though there were still concerns over the contents of the treaty.

your doing a very poor job of being impartial even though you stated yes or no views are irrelevant. we had one referendum the majority voted no(why does not matter) after much research it was repeatedly suggested majority opinion had changed so the only solution was to have another and find out if it had. the majority then voted yes (again why does not matter)

Speaking of guarantees, what has the EU offered as a penalty if they have to break these guarantees. I'm sure we've all heard the phrase "guaranteed or your money back" at some point. What do we get if these guarantees are broken?

again your not being impartial even though you said in your op you were going to be

We made a permanent decision regarding the future of our country and I don't believe we will ever be allowed to reverse that decision.

of course we can, we can leave the eu whenever we want. if the treaty ends up being a disaster it will either be changed or we can leave

zenno

the simple answer to all your questions is, the reason the Lisbon treaty was passed was because of fear. fear can make anyone change their mind.

PeakOutput

zenno wrote: »

the simple answer to all your questions is, the reason the Lisbon treaty was passed was because of fear. fear can make anyone change their mind.

people just dont get this will of the majority lark do they

it dosnt matter why it was the will of the majority it only matters that it was

zenno

PeakOutput wrote: »

people just dont get this will of the majority lark do they

it dosnt matter why it was the will of the majority it only matters that it was[/quote:
through fear it always works and always will unfortunatly.

Dinner

zenno wrote: »

the simple answer to all your questions is, the reason the Lisbon treaty was passed was because of fear. fear can make anyone change their mind.

Funny you say that since fear was what defeated it the first time round. And it was fear that the no side attempted to use to try have it defeated second time round.

zenno

Dinner wrote: »

Funny you say that since fear was what defeated it the first time round. And it was fear that the no side attempted to use to try have it defeated second time round.

comon man. the government put the frightners up everyone before the second Lisbon referendum saying that ireland will be left behind and the bloody country will be doomed. I mean people were genuinely afraid of what would happen if we voted no again. the majority of people in this country were frightned into voting yes like little puppy dogs. frighten people enough and they will do anything even clean your shoes for you. sad sorry state of affairs.

zenno

anyway I would like to say happy christmas to all of you and have a great one this year regards of what happened this year. like I always said before it's great that a country can have a referendum regardless of the outcome. slainte.

Dinner

zenno wrote: »

comon man. the government put the frightners up everyone before the second Lisbon referendum saying that ireland will be left behind and the bloody country will be doomed. I mean people were genuinely afraid of what would happen if we voted no again. the majority of people in this country were frightned into voting yes like little puppy dogs. frighten people enough and they will do anything even clean your shoes for you. sad sorry state of affairs.

All of this apparent fear was more than balanced out by such gems as "Trust EU assurances - not on their lives!" (accompanied with a picture of an old woman and a foetus) and of course the very nice Sinn Fein one with a picture of a tank on it, and another with a foot crushing a tractor. And who can forget the UKIP booklet with pictures of an EU bulldozer and a picture of a Turkey. Then there's the minimum wage poster. And the one about Irish Democracy 1916 (!) - 2009. You see where I'm going with this?

The yes side had stupid posters with vague statements about jobs and the economy which were at least half since you had business leaders coming out and saying that it was good for the economy. (But of course many No supporters dismissed these arguments because it suited them to and labelled the them as nonsense).

The yes side had, at worst, half truths. The no side, at best, had misleading statements. And more to the point, the No side had a vast array of colourful posters each with a different lie. If the referendum was fought on fear alone, the no side would have won by a country mile. But it wasn't, so they didn't. The truth, as reflected by the post Lisbon 2 surveys, was that people were more aware of the actual contents of the treaty and less people formed their opinions from lampposts.

Dinner

aurelius79 wrote: »

Dinner, first I'd ask that you refrain from using language more suited to the schoolyard than to a mature forum. I assume we are all adults here, let's try to behave as such.

How did I miss this little gem?!

If you have a problem with my hideously offensive words such as 'bollox', 'stupid' and 'the' then feel free to report my post and a mod will look at it. Once you have done this I ask that you address the content of my post rather than dismissing it because a string of letters offended your eyes.

zenno

QUOTE: If the referendum was fought on fear alone, the no side would have won by a country mile.

sorry there you have it the wrong way around.

Eliot Rosewater

aurelius79 wrote: »

Speaking of guarantees, what has the EU offered as a penalty if they have to break these guarantees. I'm sure we've all heard the phrase "guaranteed or your money back" at some point. What do we get if these guarantees are broken?

Erm, well firstly are they going to break them? Any attempt to do so will involve a vote at the Council of Ministers which will be partaken by the Irish representative.

And even if they did manage to, I imagine a case would be brought to the EU courts fighting such an infringement, and the legislation would be struck down.

The EU runs a lot better and more exactly than many No people would (like to) believe asfaik. The day before the vote I was wasting the time of talking to a Libertas women who was trying to get me to believe this mad conspiracy theory about "competency creep," whereby the EU would eventually take more and more competencies without being given them by the treaties. Ignoring for the moment that the member states wouldn't allow that (or else they would have gifted those competencies in the treaties), it fails to appreciate the binding effects the treaties have and the legal avenues available to citizens and member states should the treaties be infringed upon.

PeakOutput

zenno wrote: »

through fear it always works and always will unfortunatly.

show me the facts or make it clear this is your opinion

zenno

PeakOutput wrote: »

show me the facts or make it clear this is your opinion

this is just my opinion. but alot of people i have spoken to after the yes vote said they were afraid of what will happen if we voted no again. so fear got to them. in their opinion as well as mine.

hatrickpatrick

The problem I have with the "you voted for a government which supports Lisbon, if you didn't like it you shouldn't have voted for them" fallacy is very obvious. Lisbon is one issue. You unfortunately have to vote for some policies you hate in our political system unless you happen to agree with 100% of a manifesto (which is extremely unlikely).

In my proposed system of "departmental democracy" - whereby you would vote specifically for people to work in each department - would solve this problem.

IE, you like the Green policy on Health but you detest their foreign policy, and you like Labour's FP but hate their health policy.
In my system you could vote for a Green department of Health and a Labour department of foreign affairs. That way you would not have this stupid problem of having to either throw the baby out with the bathwater or let a wolf in with the sheep.

View

zenno wrote: »

this is just my opinion. but alot of people i have spoken to after the yes vote said they were afraid of what will happen if we voted no again. so fear got to them. in their opinion as well as mine.

We wouldn't have had a second referendum if it weren't for the "fear factor" used by the No side in Lisbon I.

Also, your claim isn't backed up by the post-referenda analysis - it shows most "swing voters" (i.e. those who switched from No to Yes) did so months before the referendum campaign started.

ei.sdraob

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The problem I have with the "you voted for a government which supports Lisbon, if you didn't like it you shouldn't have voted for them" fallacy is very obvious. Lisbon is one issue. You unfortunately have to vote for some policies you hate in our political system unless you happen to agree with 100% of a manifesto (which is extremely unlikely).

In my proposed system of "departmental democracy" - whereby you would vote specifically for people to work in each department - would solve this problem.

IE, you like the Green policy on Health but you detest their foreign policy, and you like Labour's FP but hate their health policy.
In my system you could vote for a Green department of Health and a Labour department of foreign affairs. That way you would not have this stupid problem of having to either throw the baby out with the bathwater or let a wolf in with the sheep.

you know that actually sounds like quite a cool system

View

ei.sdraob wrote: »

you know that actually sounds like quite a cool system

It isn't.

The critical issue in politics is always the budget. If the money isn't there to pay for a policy, it isn't going anywhere. Hence, the critical issue would be who controls the budget?

If it is a central Minister for Finance then, whoever controls that department would get to "trump" the policies of all the other Ministers (Sorry folks, there is no money to pay for your election policies!). Alternatively, you'd need to give each Minister the power to raise taxes individually - in which case, I'd say it'd be a rare Minister who ever holds steady, much less reduces, the taxes to fund their department.

Essentially, you'd end up with a series of Presidential style elections for each Ministry. Based on our voting results to date, you'd have been almost guarenteed that we'd have rarely, if ever, had a Green or a Labour Minister running a department. That, of course, would defeat much of the initial attractiveness of the idea.

In addition, it also wouldn't solve hattrickpatrick's problem wrt to Lisbon as the odds there'd ever have been an anti-Lisbon/EU Minister is almost zero. If he wants change in this area, he either: a) needs to vote for a party which is closest to his position, or, b) if not happy with the parties on offer, set up a new one and go out an campaign for what he believes in. If people agree with what he suggests, he'll do well - if not, he'll have his answer from the electorate.

ei.sdraob

good point there

yeh sounds like a similar problem faced by a direct democracy system, of how will the budgets be decided

anyways were going offtopic here

to answer the OP no Lisbon didnt invalidate the democratic process, if anything it followed our constitution which sets out that the people have to be asked about important issues, and as we have seen there was a huge change of opinion once people realized they got duped by a bunch of crazy extremists

hatrickpatrick

View wrote: »

It isn't.

The critical issue in politics is always the budget. If the money isn't there to pay for a policy, it isn't going anywhere. Hence, the critical issue would be who controls the budget?

If it is a central Minister for Finance then, whoever controls that department would get to "trump" the policies of all the other Ministers (Sorry folks, there is no money to pay for your election policies!). Alternatively, you'd need to give each Minister the power to raise taxes individually - in which case, I'd say it'd be a rare Minister who ever holds steady, much less reduces, the taxes to fund their department.

I thought about this one myself and actually the idea I had was that each department would independently decide the tax rates, and if they raised taxes too high they'd simply be voted out. So you would almost have the parties being in financial competition with eachother which would ensure that there was as little extravagance and government waste as possible.

Essentially, you'd end up with a series of Presidential style elections for each Ministry. Based on our voting results to date, you'd have been almost guarenteed that we'd have rarely, if ever, had a Green or a Labour Minister running a department. That, of course, would defeat much of the initial attractiveness of the idea.

I was actually proposing the entire Dail be split up so that you would elect a certain number of TDs to each department and they would vote exclusively on issues relating to that department.

In addition, it also wouldn't solve hattrickpatrick's problem wrt to Lisbon as the odds there'd ever have been an anti-Lisbon/EU Minister is almost zero. If he wants change in this area, he either: a) needs to vote for a party which is closest to his position, or, b) if not happy with the parties on offer, set up a new one and go out an campaign for what he believes in. If people agree with what he suggests, he'll do well - if not, he'll have his answer from the electorate.

It would though, because for example you all say "Why don't you vote socialist / sinn fein / whatever" if you want the government to reject Lisbon. Well if we were only electing those parties to deal with the issue of foreign affairs (or even a new department exclusively for European affairs), I would obviously vote for them. The only reason I wouldn't now is because I disagree with their policies on other issues, which wouldn't matter in my system as they would have no power over other issues unless they were directly given those powers at the elections.

To make it clear, candidates would actually RUN "for" a department. You wouldn't just elect a certain number of TDs per area, you might elect a few TDs for the department of Education (and they would only be on the ballot for that department), a few for health, etc. So in other words, if I ran for the department of education, I would have an education manifesto and NOTHING else. That way people could actually vote for each specific policy they wanted rather than having to put up with the mixed bag system we have now.

EDIT: Just to reiterate: I, as a candidate, would have to choose the department I wanted to run for based on which issues mattered to me most.

View

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I thought about this one myself and actually the idea I had was that each department would independently decide the tax rates, and if they raised taxes too high they'd simply be voted out. So you would almost have the parties being in financial competition with eachother which would ensure that there was as little extravagance and government waste as possible.

The idea is reasonably close to the US system (at least at municipality/sub-state level), altough even there each department doesn't get to write their own budget. Also, I suspect you'd find that unless you are prepared to do wholesale US-style changing of the guard of the top decision makers in each department at election time, the permanent civil service would just raise taxes all the time. Remember too, if party A knows they will lose the next election, they have no reason to exercise restraint in ramping up taxes/spending etc at the end of their term, as they would leave their successor party the task of cutting services etc. to reign in spending.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I was actually proposing the entire Dail be split up so that you would elect a certain number of TDs to each department and they would vote exclusively on issues relating to that department.

You might want to look at how the old health boards beheaved. They were single issue boards and no one believed they were an ideal model for government. The main problem with such a divisive system is that - to take the case of the health boards - no one is actually prepared to stand against the idea of we need more money for the department/better services for all. Cutting the health service is not a vote winner.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It would though, because for example you all say "Why don't you vote socialist / sinn fein / whatever" if you want the government to reject Lisbon. Well if we were only electing those parties to deal with the issue of foreign affairs (or even a new department exclusively for European affairs), I would obviously vote for them.

Fair enough but I am not sure it would help you though. Realistically, we'd be highly unlikely to see someone from Labour elected to Foreign Affairs, much less from any smaller party. Also, remember that if anything FG and Labour are even more in favour of the EU than FF so I don't think you'd be happy with the choice made by the electorate.

Also, the EU can't be compartmentalised into just one departmental area. I'd say most, if not all, ministers are in Brussels for Council of Minister meetings on a regular basis. I'd suspect we'd look a little strange were we to elect a Eurosceptic Minister for Foreign Affairs while at the same time electing avid Europhile Ministers for Finance, Energy, Agriculture etc.

lintdrummer

Scofflaw wrote: »

The most obvious demonstration that democracy wasn't "subverted" is in the fact that the referendum result was completely different. Clearly the will of the electorate in June 2008 and October 2009 were different things - and that being so, on what basis should they not have been consulted the second time?

regards,
Scofflaw

With all due respect Scofflaw, that is a load of rubbish. The outcome of the 2nd referendum is irrelevant. We voted once, we got a result and that should have been end of story. Revisiting something due to different global circumstances is unacceptable. If that were the case we should be allowed to re-open debates on every referendum that's ever been taken, re-evaluate our stance based on what has happened since the first referendum and vote again.

What a society that would be, forever changing our minds and decisions being constantly held off because "we just mightn't be sure yet so give us another year to think about it."

I'd like to see Europe allowing us to take another referndum on Lisbon if, in a few years time, it turns out we're not too happy with it.

View

emmettogara wrote: »

With all due respect Scofflaw, that is a load of rubbish. The outcome of the 2nd referendum is irrelevant. We voted once, we got a result and that should have been end of story. Revisiting something due to different global circumstances is unacceptable.

Unacceptable to you maybe. It was, however, perfectly acceptable to the Supreme Court though (which ruled in favour of a Lisbon II referendum), plus, of course the electorate who approved Bunreacht na hEireann which left the question of second (or more) referenda to the Oireachtas.

emmettogara wrote: »

If that were the case we should be allowed to re-open debates on every referendum that's ever been taken, re-evaluate our stance based on what has happened since the first referendum and vote again.

We have already done that on multiple occassions: Abortion (4 or 5 referenda), Divorce (2 to overturn the original decision to ban divorce), Voting System (2 attempts overturn the decison to opt for PR-STV), Nice (2), Lisbon (2).

If we follow the idea that once we have a referenda on a topic we can't have a second one then most of our referenda couldn't have been held -we'd be stuck with the ban on Divorce, the Special position of the Catholic church, Articles 2 & 3 (as effected by the Belfast agreement). Were you to have such a situation, then it would not be case that "the people are sovereign" as they'd be banned from changing almost all of the constitution.

sceptre

emmettogara wrote: »

With all due respect Scofflaw, that is a load of rubbish. The outcome of the 2nd referendum is irrelevant. We voted once, we got a result and that should have been end of story.

Using your logic, one could successfully argue that all referendums are invalid. We voted on the Constitution as a whole on July 1, 1937, approving it as a whole, and the will of the people is final. Who are we to have referendums to overrule their wishes...?

Oh yes, we're the people and the constitution allows us to have referendums every second Friday if we damned well please on any provision of the constitution. We are allowed to reopen debates on any referendum we've ever passed. Or any referendum we've ever decided not to pass. That's the cool thing about having a democracy. While in the UK no past parliament can ultimately bind or restrict a future one, in Ireland no constitutional provision or referendum can bind or restrict a future one. That's nice as it allows us to change our minds. As people have mentioned, otherwise divorce would still be unavailable here, the Catholic church would still have a special constitutional position, there would be issues with regard to inheritance for children born out of wedlock, there wouldn't be a constitutional ban on the death penalty and voting would be restricted to people over the age of 21. Now, you might want to roll back on some of these but that's possible too for the group of mind-changing scallywags that we are. It's entirely within both the spirit and letter of the rules and it's been done before so there's precedent as well, not that any would be needed as it's entirely within the spirit and letter of the rules.

Not only is the result of the second referendum not irrelevant, it's entirely relevant and part of the current law of this state by being legally and legitimately passed under the laws of this state and if you don't realise that then you really need to start by reading the Bunreacht carefully.

lintdrummer

View wrote: »

If we follow the idea that once we have a referenda on a topic we can't have a second one then most of our referenda couldn't have been held -we'd be stuck with the ban on Divorce, the Special position of the Catholic church, Articles 2 & 3 (as effected by the Belfast agreement). Were you to have such a situation, then it would not be case that "the people are sovereign" as they'd be banned from changing almost all of the constitution.

Forgive me, it's late and I didn't write that post as well as I should have. Of course we should be allowed to ammend the constitution by way of referendum. However in the case of Lisbon we knew pretty much immediately after the first result that we would be voting again.

That would be acceptable if they had agreed to revise some aspects of it to address the concerns of the nation. But they didn't. And the fact that the economy went so pear shaped between the first and second vote only distorted the 2nd vote in my opinion. We were lead to believe that voting no had outcast us from Europe and we would never have any economic prosperity again.

It may not have been said in so many words but we all got the message. Phrases like "We need to be united in Europe" and "We need Europe to get through these tough times" were all that we heard after the first vote and in the run up to the second.
We never left the E.U., we just didn't like their treaty. A clever political campaign, but the public were mislead to make it work.

The second vote, in my opinion, was swayed by economics which had nothing to do with the result of the first vote. But the Government made us feel like it was our fault for voting no. It was scaremongering.

There are instances where referenda need to be revisited. Perhaps laws are outdated or amendments are made to a treaty based on public concerns and brought forward to be voted on again.

But in the case of the Lisbon Treaty referendum no changes were made. The economy went into freefall globally due to the banking crisis in the U.S.A., this was no reason to vote on the same Treaty again so soon after the first vote.

Therefore I still maintain that it was indeed undemocratic to hold the referendum again.

lintdrummer

sceptre wrote: »

Using your logic, one could successfully argue that all referendums are invalid. We voted on the Constitution as a whole on July 1, 1937, approving it as a whole, and the will of the people is final. Who are we to have referendums to overrule their wishes...?

Oh yes, we're the people and the constitution allows us to have referendums every second Friday if we damned well please on any provision of the constitution. We are allowed to reopen debates on any referendum we've ever passed. Or any referendum we've ever decided not to pass. That's the cool thing about having a democracy. While in the UK no past parliament can ultimately bind or restrict a future one, in Ireland no constitutional provision or referendum can bind or restrict a future one. That's nice as it allows us to change our minds. As people have mentioned, otherwise divorce would still be unavailable here, the Catholic church would still have a special constitutional position, there would be issues with regard to inheritance for children born out of wedlock, there wouldn't be a constitutional ban on the death penalty and voting would be restricted to people over the age of 21. Now, you might want to roll back on some of these but that's possible too for the group of mind-changing scallywags that we are. It's entirely within both the spirit and letter of the rules and it's been done before so there's precedent as well, not that any would be needed as it's entirely within the spirit and letter of the rules.

Not only is the result of the second referendum not irrelevant, it's entirely relevant and part of the current law of this state by being legally and legitimately passed under the laws of this state and if you don't realise that then you really need to start by reading the Bunreacht carefully.

Again, of course we should be allowed to ammend outdated laws in our own constitution and vote again on treatys that have been amended, but to vote again on an unamended treaty whilst being lead to believe that the first result had and was somehow going to continue to affect or economy is a different kettle of fish.

Strictly speaking, of course it's entirely democratic to get us to vote on the same treaty over and over and over again, it's in the constitution.

We should however have a good reason to revisit it. In this case I don't think we had a good enough reason to do that after such a short space of time. Things changed but not in a way that this treaty affected.

I have Bunreacht and have read it on more than a number of occasions so you don't need to inform me of the contents of the constitution, thanks all the same.