SINCE its failure to persuade the Irish people to vote for the Lisbon treaty last summer, the government has developed a three-pronged strategy to ensure that we vote in favour of it when it is put before us for a second time this autumn.
Firstly, it has successfully sought to guarantee that each member state will retain a European commissioner. Then, on Friday, it secured a deal with EU leaders in Brussels whereby the union has agreed to offer the government legal guarantees about certain aspects of the treaty.
The final part of the strategy involves the government making sure the voting public has enough knowledge to make an informed choice in the autumn.
As conventional wisdom suggests that Lisbon 1 failed as a result of a poorly run 'Yes' campaign, the third part of the government's strategy may yet pose the biggest challenge.
So, on the basis that mistakes were made last time around, how can the pro-Lisbon side best go about ensuring that the Irish people vote 'Yes' in Lisbon 2 this autumn? The Sunday Tribune put the question to campaigners and communications experts.
"The second Lisbon Treaty campaign will be won by the government doing less, not more.
"It would take an incredible act of bravery for the Irish electorate to reject the proposition a second time and, to be quite blunt, we're not as confident about ourselves as we were in the middle of June last year.
"We now realise that we didn't, in fact, invent a new economic paradigm that would tie the nation into an increasingly prosperous future while the unimaginative Germans, French and Swedes lagged hopelessly behind.
"This can't be the basis of the campaign for a 'Yes' vote but it doesn't have to be; we know it already. The treaty will be passed comfortably if the debate is kept simple and focuses on the economy and the future of Ireland in Europe. Endless arguments about the legally binding assurances will turn voters off.
"The government, with historically low approval ratings, cannot allow itself get caught up in personalised spats with the 'No' side either. The benefit of Fine Gael and Labour supporting a 'Yes' vote will be greatly diminished if the campaign goes personal and the public are forced to choose between, say, Joe Higgins on the one side and Dick Roche on the other.
"Crucially, Fine Gael has to convince its own support base that its future government needs the treaty to be passed."
"The last Lisbon campaign foundered on mistakes that must be prevented in the second campaign. The first was the acceptance that the treaty is incomprehensible. Once you accept that, you position the 'Yes' side as putting a contract in front of the people and saying 'No one has any idea what this means. Sign here…' The nation would be crazy to vote 'Yes' for something that politicians either don't understand or refuse to explain. All politicians in parties wanting to pass Lisbon 2 must be able to explain it with clarity.
"Threatening voters with a two-tier Europe, on the basis that the other countries – committed, as they are, to openness, fairness and listening to member states – will be mad at us if we don't vote 'Yes' will be counter-productive. We're being invited to vest more faith in a Union that has served us well by signing a new treaty that streamlines its capacity to serve us – and all member states – well in the future.
"It's as simple as that. And it needs to be kept as simple as that. The risk this time is that a greater number of people will make a greater amount of noise about the wrong thing. Scaring people about the economic impact of a 'No' vote might just work, but it's like proposing marriage by threatening to leave your partner if they don't say 'Yes'; it's unlikely to make for a happy union.
"The 'Yes' campaign will be won or lost by the simplicity of the argument; if we hear lots of single specific examples of how Europe will be better, post-Lisbon, for businesses, communities and those in need, we'll get a 'Yes' vote. If we hear tons of guff about 'a two-tier Europe' we'll see a close-run thing."
"The 'Yes' campaign needs to focus on the swing voters who voted 'No' to Lisbon 1 but are largely positive about Ireland's membership of the EU, albeit with some legitimate concerns. Those 'No' voters cannot be patronised or told they were wrong to vote 'No' but rather that their concerns have now been hammered home to the political leadership in the EU. This in itself demonstrates the effectiveness of the checks and balances in how the European Union operates and the belt-and-braces provided by our own constitution. It needs to be pointed out that although the substantive text of the treaty has not changed, the Irish 'No' vote actually achieved a better overall position for Ireland and the other member states since the principle of retaining a commissioner for each state has been agreed. Regardless of the fact that commissioners do not 'represent' their home states, it is nonetheless a powerful symbolic connection and a significant concession. The system works.
"The campaign also needs to focus on the practical benefits of Ireland ratifying the treaty that will flow from our sending a strong and unambiguous message to the wider world of engagement and solidarity with our European partners, giving stability and purpose in turbulent times.
"Workers must also be reassured that solidarity with our European partners and the development of the single market will bring benefits to them that far outweigh any downside. 'We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.' An appeal to people's sense of 'being European' and evangelising about the EU and Ireland's membership will succeed only in preaching to the converted and irritating floating voters.
"A coherent, co-ordinated and consistent message needs to be delivered by every single player on the Yes side. The Yes campaign needs to be de-politicised with well-known and respected public figures from all sections of Irish society to the forefront. Politicians must be actively involved too but must leave their party jersey on the bench, acknowledging the fact that their profession has rarely been held in such low esteem. They must also refrain from admitting they haven't read the treaty and do a crash course in Euro 101 before they take to the public airwaves.
"The government would also help its case immensely by announcing and implementing a range of measures to ensure that European legislation is subjected to much more public and rigorous scrutiny and reassuring voters that Ireland's interests will be vigorously defended at all times. Legitimate concerns about the EU and how it operates must be pursued on an ongoing basis but, naturally, this can be done much more effectively with the goodwill that exists inside rather than outside the tent.
"Finally, it must be hammered home through every media outlet, including local radio and newspapers, that the Lisbon treaty will absolutely not introduce military conscription, abortion or euthanasia and neither will the European Court of Justice; that Ireland's military neutrality is not substantively affected and remains our prerogative and ours alone; and that the government will never surrender its power to control direct taxation, including corporation tax."
"The best way to secure a 'Yes' vote in the next Lisbon referendum will be for all political participants to recommend and campaign for a 'No' vote.
"Alternatively, the 'Yes' side should simply campaign on a 'Say No to the Shinners' platform, since the Irish people have always shown they have the good sense to ignore this group of economic illiterates whose only policy on Europe has been to say 'No' when the EU is the only thing preventing Ireland's bankruptcy."
With Declan Ganley's Libertas not heading up the 'No' campaign for Lisbon 2 and the fact that Sinn Féin's Mary Lou McDonald's star appears to have fallen after she lost her MEP seat in the 5 June local elections, it now appears that newly elected Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins will be the most prominent face of the 'No' campaign in the autumn.
The Sunday Tribune asked Higgins, "How can the anti-Lisbon side best go about ensuring that the Irish people vote 'No' again in Lisbon 2?"
Speaking from his new office in Brussels, the new MEP said, "The point is that the treaty is still the same. There is an elaborate charade going on to divert attention from the fact that the treaty is the same.
"The guarantees don't change some of the key issues that were there last time around. They don't change the limitations on workers' rights and don't change the question of the common commercial policy. They don't change the moves towards the militarisation of the EU.
"The government has thrown up some red herrings and answered them but they were not the issues that made us reject the treaty in the first place. It is exactly the same treaty and therefore the objections we had the first time will be put forward again.
"The fact that Libertas played such a role the last time shows that sections of the media elevated Declan Ganley to be the leader of the 'No' campaign, but there were many groups and organisations that participated in the 'No' campaign and I assume that will be the same again.
"We will have a vigorous campaign and this idea that it is a foregone conclusion is not right
as it was the same the last time around until the final weeks."
i support a yes vote, but i fear a backlash from the voters to discredited politicians like eamon ryan and paul gogarty if they front the yes campaign. they have already been given their verdict in the recent elections.
Have a look at the bias in this report. How much space is given to the Yes side and how much to the No? And newly-elected Joe Higgins is portrayed like a lone voice - the "Who's left" - or maybe someone had a word and said, gosh, you better stick in at least one No voice otherwise people might see we are TOTALLY biased! Didn't the Irish people vote no last June..? So who do YOU represent? Certainly not the wish of the Irish people and certainly not objective reporting. The gloves are off - no pretence of objectivity this time!! What a disgrace. Ireland is not a democracy in the normal sense, if the media is as warped and biased as this report. The subversion of the Irish people's decision from last year will traduce the fabric of our democracy forever, and shows the contempt the politcal and media establishment have for the sovereign will of the people. I read the same kind junk from Fionnán Sheahan in Irish Independent on Saturday - saying what the Yes side needs to do to win - and then going on to explain in a totally pro-Yes fashion how wonderful Lisbon is. You pay no heed to what the people say and are part of the ruling elite, telling the people what to do and who you regardas the great unwashed who need to be educated with your "insight", which invariably happens to coincide with the conservative politics on offer in Ireland. Well lads, you may be in for a big shock in October - just like you got last year. A lot of people care not a jot for Lisbon and will be voting No as the only way to hurt and indeed oust a government which has destroyed the country, presided over economic disaster, but has saved the bacon of the rich at the expense of ordinary people and the poor. But you won't be reporting that until after it happens - firstly as you don't listen to ordinary people and maybe don't even know it; secondly as you wouldn't want to report a view which doesn't fit with your own; and thirdly, it would possibly damage the prospect of a Yes vote which must be talked up as a foregone conclusion, a decision taken after private briefings with govt spin doctors and among the media cabal - who are all pro-Yes essentially from what I read. The strategy has all be worked out behind closed doors - a media and political consensus to vote yes. Listen to RTE's Pat Kenny and Seán O'Rourke letting their guard down bigtime the day of the Lisbon referendum count last year. In professional media, people are given the facts, and op-ed is separate. In Ireland, you get opinion as news. This kind of report is no different from something spewed up by a government-controlled media in a country without press freedom - except in Ireland on stories like Lisbon, the government doesn't need to exercise any control - you do it instinctively. Shame on you. But you'll be found to be in the minority elite you are in again next October when Ireland delivers what you'll say of course is a "shock" no vote. Won't be shock to many people who can't wait to exact revenge.
I think I'll be an abstainer, by way of steering a middle course, but I won't be a militant abstainer as it all seems too much bother for my brains and my door-knocking skills.
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I support Yes but most of this is PR waffle, accompanied with an implicit threat of disaster for the economy, if a majority vote No. It simply repeats the error of first time, in different language. You need to explain how the protocol overrides the text of the Treaty and devise a crisp answer to the Open Europe sceptical analysis.
http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research...
Extract
"EU leaders agreed to attach the declarations as a protocol to the Treaty after the Irish referendum and once it is already in force, but the text of the conclusions notes that:
“The Protocol will clarify but not change either the content or the application of the Treaty of Lisbon.”
"Today the EU Presidency confirmed that: “the text of the guarantees explicitly states that the Lisbon Treaty is not changed thereby."
It is vital to answer this basic charge. It's a fallacy to believe that if you engage with that case, you give it credibility. If you ignore the case, you undermine your own credibility.