FF's passionate and principled advocacy of Nice Treaty is truly inspiring

Biffa Bacon

Oh, I’m sorry, did I say “passionate and principled”? Pardon me.

What I really meant to say of course was “cynical and manipulative”. Because I’ve just read in this Thursday’s Irish Times how Fianna Fáil intends to conduct its referendum campaign. Basically, they’re going to employ a load of market researchers to find out what concerns are most likely to get the average gobdaw on the street to vote Yes, so that they can then base their entire campaign around them. Thus we can expect to hear a hell of a lot over the coming weeks about the terrible economic perils of voting No, backed up by the most tenuous of arguments and flimsiest of evidence.

Now call me naïve, but I thought that seeing as how it was a Fianna Fáil-led government that negotiated the Nice Treaty, Fianna Fáil would perhaps believe it was a good deal for the country. Surely they would have no problem telling us why it was such a good deal and why we should vote Yes? Apparently so. Apparently they need us to tell them why it’s a good treaty, so that they can then turn around and repeat to us what we’ve just told them.

There is no effort to engage in honest political debate or to show leadership here. It is simply a cynical attempt at manipulating the electorate, to sell them a “product”.
Some might say this is just good politics, after all, it’s the same strategy they followed during the general election and they damn near got an overall majority then. But that result was more to do with the sheer awfulness of the opposition, who failed to present any sort of convincing alternative to FF. This time it’s different. The No lobby are well organised and are effective campaigners, and crucially, show real conviction in their opposition to the treaty.

The thing is, I am almost certainly going to be voting Yes to Nice (again) and I even voted for Fianna Fáil in the last election. But their approach to this referendum is just cute-hoorism at its worst, perhaps best exemplified by the decision to appoint Dick Roche as Minister for Europe, a man who, after the previous Nice referendum defeat, declared that it would be undemocratic to hold the same referendum again without renegotiating the treaty. If Bertie does lose a third referendum in a row this autumn, he can hardly blame the electorate for showing the same level of cynicism towards Nice as he has shown towards them.

Xterminator

Just so i have this straight ...

If they dont listen to the people their arrogant, but if they do, their guilty of being manipulative?

One of the main complaints abou the last referendum was that the Yes parties didnt take the fears of the ordinary people into account, and didnt listen.
They make attempts to address that this time but now they are castigated for doing so.

To me it sounds like their damned if they do and damned if they dont.

X

Aspro

They make attempts to address that this time but now they are castigated for doing so.

Attempts such as what? It's a re-run of the same treaty, just with more spin, job-loss scaremongering and propaganda to get the result they want this time.

ReefBreak

I'm glad it's being re-run. Very few people voted for it the last time because they really didn't know what it was all about. Plus I've heard absolutely zero good reasons from the No camp as to why we should reject it. Provided we're properly informed this time, I imagine it'll get passed and a good thing too. Bottom line is that it'll be very beneficial for our economy.

...anyway, Sinn Fein are urging a No vote... So it'll be a Yes vote from me.

dathi1

3 cheers for reefbreak hip hip...............:D

ReefBreak

...Hooray! Isn't it Israel's fault that the Nice treaty is being run again?

dahamsta

...Hooray! Isn't it Israel's fault that the Nice treaty is being run again?

No, it's George Bush's.

adam

dathi1

hehe no but I'm sure they hope we vote yes!!! we're their major competitor in the IT industry world wide...on euro expansion they'd love to a shift to eastern Europe diluting our IT prospects.
.

ReefBreak

Originally posted by dathi1
...on euro expansion they'd love to a shift to eastern Europe diluting our IT prospects.
.

Actually I think I might vote No now. No really, I'm serious.

Typedef

Originally posted by ReefBreak

Actually I think I might vote No now. No really, I'm serious.

Good for you ReefBreak.

It's good to see some people aren't just eaten up by cynicism and sarcasm.

Biffa Bacon

Just so i have this straight ...

If they dont listen to the people their arrogant, but if they do, their guilty of being manipulative?

One of the main complaints abou the last referendum was that the Yes parties didnt take the fears of the ordinary people into account, and didnt listen.
They make attempts to address that this time but now they are castigated for doing so.

To me it sounds like their damned if they do and damned if they dont.

No, what they are doing is employing market researchers to find out what would most worry voters about a second rejection of Nice, and then playing on those fears throughout the campaign. It is not a question of listening to people’s concerns about the impact of a Yes vote and then discussing them with them. Basically, all we’ll be hearing from these halfwits is how de economy will suffer if we don’t do what we’re told. Forget any concerns you might have about a two-speed Europe or concentration of power in the hands of the big states, don’t expect us to address those, just accept our unsubstantiated claims that the economy will suffer.
Is it too much to expect the people who actually negotiated the treaty to come out and defend it on its own merits? Sorry, but the cute hoorism being displayed by Bertie and co just sickens me.

gandalf

Its actually quite pathetic that they cannot even attempt to address peoples concerns about aspects of this treaty, the fact they are resorting to scare tactics so early suggests to me they think the Irish voting public are a pack of morons.

I really hope the Irish electorate prove them wrong.

Gandalf.

bonkey

Originally posted by gandalf
the fact they are resorting to scare tactics so early suggests to me they think the Irish voting public are a pack of morons.

Well, to be fair to them, I dont think what theyre doing is all that bad.

The last time round, there was a problem with information, resulting in a low turnout, which may or may not have been the reason for the No vote.

So - whats the solution? For a start, the Nice treaty is too big and too complex to be able to simply or impartially stand back and offer an explanation of the entire thing. For a start, the vast majority of voters dont care about the whole thing - they care about specific issues. Secondly, a lot of people will not go to the trouble of looking for the answer to their few questions amongst the tons and tons of literature which would have to be produced in order to explain the entire treaty.

Ultimately, anyone who is going to encourage a vote for one side or the other is going to focus on specific issues. Almost everyone who is going to actually vote will make their mind up based on a small number of specific issues.

Ultimately, finding out what issues the people are interested in or concerned about tells you what issues you have to address in order to be able to effectively convey the message.

At the end of the day, the No camp arent going away, which means that if FF come out with complete spin and hooey to address the issues people are concerned about, the No camp will have a field day in tearing them to shreds. Which means that while FF may look to inform themselves about which issues they need to address, they wont get a license to spout pure fiction. You can also it for granted that amongst the list of issues will be every single argument that the No camp have been vociferous about.

So - like I said - I dont really see anything wrong or underhanded in what theyre doing. They're being honest about it to begin with, and they are looking to answer the issues that the public are concerned about.

What else would you expect them to do? And thats not rhetorical. If you think they are being underhanded in any way, please explain what would be an honest way of going about it. Yeah - ok - "dont have a second referendum" will be a biggie, but get over it - there will be a second referendum. Once you accept that, and that FF are looking for a Yes vote, exactly what would you have them do?

I mean - theyre being a lot more honest about this than pretty much any party seems to be about its election manifesto's for a start....

jc

Cork

FF won the election. Did people know what they were voting for?

Why not rerun the election?

Nice is a stepping stone to a EU super power - The EU messed up in Bosnia yet they seem intent to mess up again.

What will PJ mearas role in the new campaign be?

Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ!

sceptre

Originally posted by Cork
FF won the election. Did people know what they were voting for?

Why not rerun the election?

Nice is a stepping stone to a EU super power - The EU messed up in Bosnia yet they seem intent to mess up again.

What will PJ mearas role in the new campaign be?

Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ,Pj, PJ, PJ!

Are you being sarcastic or have you changed party?

Serious question.

Cork

Are you being sarcastic or have you changed party?

Good Question, I tought that FF were doing a pretty decent job. But I think that cutbacks in our health system is wrong.

We need to re-organise our health system. Abolish all those health boards. Many cities in the world have bigger populations than all of Ireland.

FF's main priorities seem to be Nice & the Budget. I would say - what about health & education?

I am anti Nice - I think that it is a stepping stone to Kaos. But I think - However bad FF are - they are the best that are there.

I have also changed my mind on the Bertie Bowl. We need to prioritise spending and spend wisely & vote Nice down again for the sake of democracy & accountability.

Biffa Bacon

Ultimately, anyone who is going to encourage a vote for one side or the other is going to focus on specific issues. Almost everyone who is going to actually vote will make their mind up based on a small number of specific issues.

Ultimately, finding out what issues the people are interested in or concerned about tells you what issues you have to address in order to be able to effectively convey the message.

If this was what they were doing I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But unless I’ve misunderstood completely, what they are doing is asking people “What arguments/issues would be most likely to get you to vote Yes?”, and then using these as the basis of their campaign. It doesn’t matter if these issues are relevant to the Nice Treaty at all or in anyway logically coherent, once they think the average moron on the street will fall for it they’ll use it. Thus we’ll be hearing a lot about how the economy will suffer, how we’ll lose influence in Europe, how we’ll be making little Polish babies cry. What we won’t be getting is a logical refutation of each and every one of the No camp’s arguments or a justification of the treaty’s provisions on their own merits. The complaint last time was that the politicians weren’t listening to the people’s fears and this is exactly what’s happening this time. Tell us why it’s OK for us to be losing our automatic right to a commissioner, tell us why there has been a re-weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers, tell us why we’ll be getting proportionately fewer MEP’s, tell us why enhanced co-operation won’t make us a second-class state. But please, spare us the “Europe is at a crossroads, we owe it to the people of Eastern Europe” bull****.