(So far!!!) Ireland says "NO" to Nice

Bard

http://www.ireland.com/special/nice/news/results.htm

So far it looks like a rejection of the Nice Treaty is on the cards, with Clare, Donegal North-East, Kerry North & South, Limerick West, and Waterford all returning a slim majority for the no vote.

Interesting...

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Bard

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"Have a gorilla!" ... "No thanks, I'll have one of my monkeys, they're milder."

nesf

Aye, looks bad for the treaty. Still its still a bit early to be sure.

amp

No doubt because we live in a democracy Bertie will ask us again and possible a third or fourth time.:

Are you sure you don't want the Nice Treaty? Are you sure?

Suits you sir.

But maybe that'd be a good thing, cos the public couldn't fail but be better informed by a rerun of the Nice Treaty on it's own.

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Lunacy Abounds! GLminesweeper RO><ORS!
art is everything and of course nothing and possibly also a sausage

[This message has been edited by amp (edited 08-06-2001).]

Canaboid

That's it Amp. Their arrogance is unbelieveable. Tell the average punter nothing except to vote yes and they will.
Well they didn't

Magwitch

My only worry is that a NO vote will bolster the Morons of Irish politics like the far far left and Patrica McKenna.

As it stands at this posting it is 53% no and 45% yes with 22 of 41 counts in.

In some way mean or form accession countries will get into Europe, and when they do Ireland can look forward to a frosty and lonely time.

fisty

I would imagine that only about 10% of people voting actually fully understood what the treaty was about...
I know I didn't until it was on boards and i did a little research.
A lot of the no campaign was done in the pub with old men saying things like "cant be givin away our army" and **** like that.
was a bit of a sham of a referendum but tenner says amp is right and they'll hold it again....how did the other two votes go?

Magwitch

Unfortunitly they will have to hold it again or get it in through the back door. As I siad the accession countries will get in, and when they do we as a "small" nation are going to to be very bloody lonely.

I have to say that I am from one of the two consistuencies that ratfied the treaty, but that siad I do not like the idea of a re-run. I do however think that the Greens and co. are politically inept and cannot see how deeply adverse a no vote is for the future of Ireland within Europe. Nice will go ahead in some form and when it does if we are not behind it there are countries that will remember the delay and who caused it.

Frankly I feel embarrassed for us as a Nation today. Not that I am ashamed to be Irish (far from it) but that public figures with such little grasp of international affairs can not only hold sway in this country but gain influence after that result.

Bard

- with only Laois-Offaly yet to return, it stands as follows:

TOTAL POLL: 968,552

YES     45.38% (439,511 votes) 
NO      53.94% (514,742 votes)
SPOILED 14,299 

How the **** 14 thousand people manage to spoil a Yes/No vote is surprising to say the least...

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Bard

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"Have a gorilla!" ... "No thanks, I'll have one of my monkeys, they're milder."

Bard

For those who can't be ar$ed going over to Ireland.com, the final tally shows that of the non-spoiled votes, 46.13% voted YES, and 53.87% voted NO, giving victory to the NO camp.

Just under 1 million people voted with just under 15,000 of them spoiled votes.

Celt

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
Yes: 453 631
No: 539 478
</font>

bugler

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Magwitch:
Frankly I feel embarrassed for us as a Nation today.</font>

To be honest, I'm quite proud.There is more to life Magwitch, than following the crowd, or following suit because you are afraid of the consequences of using your own judgement. There is more to being a nation than seeking economic success and acceptance by other nations.Sometimes, the choices we make have hard and difficult consequences, but that doesn't invalidate the reasons we make them.

Illkillya

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Canaboid:
That's it Amp. Their arrogance is unbelieveable. Tell the average punter nothing except to vote yes and they will.
Well they didn't </font>

aye, and they didn't even bother to stick up a few posters. i regret to say i didn't vote, but if i did, i would have voted no, simply because all i know about the Nice treaty is that "if we vote yes, we will lose power, money and freedom". i.e, all i know about Nice treaty is what i saw on the Vote NO posters

K!LL!@N

I have nothing against the expansion of the EU. Where would we be today if we hadn't been allowed to join.
But i don't like the terms of the Nice treaty and i especially don't like that way that Bertie tried to railroad road it through ( rather ineffectually, i might add ).
I know for a fact that there will be another referendum soon enough. We have until christmas of next year to ratify the treaty. But i'd rather see a new plan being drawn up.
It is also nice to see the proverbial "egg on the faces" of bertie and his croonies. He was so smug about a victory. I don't think he even considered the possibility of a No vote. I know Brussels certainly didn't consider it. Apparently they are quite shocked by the idea of us rejecting it. Time for Plan B me thinks.

JustHalf

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bard:
How the **** 14 thousand people manage to spoil a Yes/No vote is surprising to say the least...
</font>

It could have been in protest. That or they were stupid.

Or both.

gandalf

Well I'm very happy that the people that bothered to vote made the right decision.
I'm very worried that so many did not feel comfortable/bothered to vote.

Maybe now we can have a proper debate on the kind of Europe we want to be a member of, one that has the power centralized & makes decisions effecting its citizens behind closed doors or an open transparent partnership of sovereign democratic states. On a side note if this treaty was so important for the whole of Europe, why weren't the citizens of the whole Community asked for their opinions on it?

Whatever happens I'm sure the Government will make sure that they allow more time for debate and do not try to scaremonger the electorate. This is a great day to be Irish.

Gandalf.

androphobic

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by bugler:
To be honest, I'm quite proud.There is more to life Magwitch, than following the crowd, or following suit because you are afraid of the consequences of using your own judgement. </font>

Personally I think that the no vote to Nice was, in many cases, a prime example of "following the crowd".
As I have said before, if someone genuinely has grievances with Nice and decided to vote no as a result, then that's all well and good.
But let's face it, a lot of the Irish public haven't got a clue - despite advertising campaigns.. which really weren't that good - of the details of the Nice Treaty.

Nice was a difficult referendum.. eventually I decided to vote yes but that decision took some time. The thing is - it needed to be researched thoroughly and I don't think a lot of people actually did that.

On both sides I'm certain there were people who voted Yes for the sake of it, or No for the sake of it, without actually knowing the full facts.

And in this case, it seems much more likely that the uninformed voted No without this knowledge as "we're not losing our ****ing neutrality boys" has been frequently heard in the last few weeks.. round my part of the country anyway.

bugler

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by androphobic:

Personally I think that the no vote to Nice was, in many cases, a prime example of "following the crowd".
</font>

I can't agree.I believe most people were aware that the overwhelming majority of other European countries were signing up to the Nice Treaty, so Ireland as a nation most certainly was going against the crowd in voting 'No'.
I can't speculate on anyones reasons for voting the way they do, if they use their vote on a basis of 'going with the crowd' then they are fools, but I think that Pro- Nice treaty voters using this as an reason for the Treaty being rejected smell distinctly of sour grapes.

Victor

Dustin for Taoiseach!

Well, to be honest, will this mean a quicker election? Or will they run scared?

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Changing call sign to SIERRA PAPA OSCAR OSCAR FOXTROT.

Celt

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by bugler:
I can't agree.I believe most people were aware that the overwhelming majority of other European countries were signing up to the Nice Treaty, so Ireland as a nation most certainly was going against the crowd in voting 'No'.
I can't speculate on anyones reasons for voting the way they do, if they use their vote on a basis of 'going with the crowd' then they are fools, but I think that Pro- Nice treaty voters using this as an reason for the Treaty being rejected smell distinctly of sour grapes.</font>

Um i disagree,
My mother/father/brother all voted no.
None had read the white paper (quote my brother, its going to be pro treaty anyway!)
They didnt even have reasons for voting no, just vague stuff.

gandalf

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by WhiteLancer:
Um i disagree,
My mother/father/brother all voted no.
None had read the white paper (quote my brother, its going to be pro treaty anyway!)
They didnt even have reasons for voting no, just vague stuff.</font>

Well I voted No, my parents voted no, most of my work colleagues voted no, but we all made the effort to read the summary document and a lot of the newspaper articles from all sides. I even tried to read the treaty (big mistake, my head still hurts). We discussed the treaty on numerous occasions. So as far as I'm concerned I made an informed vote on the treaty.

I believe that most people who voted yes were following the crowd or listening to the scare mongering by the so-called main political parties of which I am a lapsed member (but soon to be rejoining).

Gandalf.

bugler

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by WhiteLancer:
Um i disagree,
My mother/father/brother all voted no.
None had read the white paper (quote my brother, its going to be pro treaty anyway!)
They didnt even have reasons for voting no, just vague stuff.</font>

Well as I have said I can't speak for everyone, but your family should treat its vote with a little more respect, maybe? Again I will have to say that Pro-Treaty people saying that the public was bullied or misled into this are being slightly absurd aswell as derogatory towards the voting public, the Irish people had serious reservations about the treaty, whatever their root.You do not get a negative reaction to a European embracing Treaty like this for no reason other than 'people went with the crowd'.All the main parties were Pro-Yes, yet large numbers of usually loyal voters did not tow the party line this time. How do you explain that? You'd have thought people so easily influenced(and led astray...) would have been convincingly coerced into a 'Yes' vote wouldn't you?

gandalf

Well an encouraging side effect of this No vote is that it is stimulating debate in all our European partners as well. I have been surfing all the European Newspapers and
using babelfish to translate their reactions. Yes there are quite a few "small Ireland" and "selfish Ireland" but there are articles, especially in the French press wondering if they should have a referendum and questioning the Democracy of their own countries ratification of the treaty.

Gandalf.

Bloody Drunkard

Bertie can't complain the only YES campaign i saw was from Fine Gael who at first called it "the weakest treaty ever negotiated by an irish government"

NO was a good vote. It would be a risk to our nutrality, We could not Veto a move for an EU army. We would have lost a commissioner and had less power

Expansion can still go ahead without this shamble sof a treaty

PhilipMarlowe

I think apathy played an important part too..
People who weren't too sure what it was all about would have been more inclined not to vote at all IMO... maybe taking the line that whatever the outcome, things wouldn't be remarkably different than before...
Those who felt strongly about it voted no, I guess as a protest vote in a lot of cases.
Me, I would have liked to give a protest NO vote, but when I saw my most "favourite" people advocating a No vote, i let my apathy get the better of me...
As an aside, what are peoples opinions on compulsory voting...?

Bard

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Licksy20:

As an aside, what are peoples opinions on compulsory voting...?</font>

A woefully bad idea for a number of reasons - not least that 1> it's impossible to enforce and 2> some people genuinely don't have an opinion.

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Bard

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"Have a gorilla!" ... "No thanks, I'll have one of my monkeys, they're milder."

DadaKopf

When you think about it, this referendum was perhaps one of the most important and as far as referenda go, people had little reason to be cynical about their abilities to use their one vote to influence politics.

Depending on the spin, and depending on how Cowen excuses himself for his embarassing ****-up, the result ought to be seen as a signal of political vigilance which the other small EU countries would be wise to follow suit. Most politicans knew well that the Nice Treaty was rushed and not well thought out and on top of that, it's not particularly democratic.

It's great that we rejected it and we should do it again when we're asked. If we and other countries are wise about this whole thing, we (Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg etc. - small countries) should combine out powers to fight for proper democracy in Europe. Any executive committee has less than one delegate from each member state at any one time is WRONG as well as the fact that the president isn't democratically elected AND
the whole thing SUCKS.

As for compulsory voting: Belgium has it. I think it's a great idea - it would instill civic duty again. God knows there's not enough of that.

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"I collect spores, moulds and fungus."

Greenbean

This whole Nice vote was an absolute disaster. All I could continuously hear from the yes camp was an arrogant /\sshole telling me I was "letting these poor countries down" repeated continuously. Nothing more, no real debate, just a blackmail chant.

I do want to let these countries join, I do not want to let them down, but there were so many other issues on that (extremely messy) treaty and I wasn't going to simply vote yes because that was the happy positive thing to do. They took a shameful risk here and ended up having it all backfire when alot of the countries people got very suspicious; "what the hell is this thing?" they cried! This left it wide open for all the bad rumours of the day to come out. "abortions legal!" - there goes women over 50, "EU will force us to war, take away our neutrality" - there goes your xenophiliacs, "Ireland looses its power and becomes a second tier country", "Germany France England centralise power for themselves!"..."we won't be able to veto any more mad Europeans!" and on and on.

I stuck a big NO down, we had plenty of time and the respect people are being shown is very media like; i.e. assume the people are dum and tell them what to do. If after this a proper discussion is held, as it should be, then the fears can be countered (I heard plain contradictions in what the parties said, surely there should be only one interpretation of a PROPER agreement), and we can then vote knowing what it is we sacrifice, not have everybody scared theres alot **** being signed up to without knowing it.