This video says about itself:
Our last chance. Ireland, Say NO to Lisbon Treaty.
From London daily The Morning Star:
Do better this time
(Thursday 11 December 2008)
THE Irish government’s readiness to comply with pressure from other EU member states to hold a second referendum on the Lisbon so-called reform treaty emphasises its failure to champion its own citizens’ referendum decision.
Ever since the Irish people trounced the entire political establishment by rejecting the treaty, which they saw correctly as the repackaged EU constitution that had already been rejected by both Dutch and French voters, Dublin has sought ways to undermine them.
Its shame-faced embarrassment has been matched by the degree of contempt for Irish democracy voiced by its so-called partners.
Refusing to accept that the Irish people have a right to reject the document drawn up by the unelected and unaccountable EU commission, eurocrats and their allies in member governments have portrayed the clear referendum majority as a problem for the Irish government alone.
They have confirmed the view consistently reiterated by opponents of an EU superstate, namely that advocates of a centralised EU have contempt for national democracy and popular sovereignty.
Their philosophy was applied in previous instances of individual states voting against certain treaties.
You have to keep on voting until you get it right. Only votes that welcome the trend to continent-wide centralisation are valid.
Both the commission and the EU council of ministers will bend over backwards to give the impression that they are willing to grapple with the issues on which Ireland rejected the treaty.
They will pay lip service to certain issues until the ink of Ireland’s signature is dry on the treaty and will then push on to break new ground and reverse previous concessions, opt-outs and protocols.
They will “guarantee” Irish neutrality at the same time as pushing ahead with military integration and expanded capability to fight the resource wars of the 21st century.
They will do the same for workers’ rights, even though the harsh reality of EU neoliberal economics and the blatantly political European Court of Justice (ECJ) leaves the Brussels spin doctors and tricksters with less room for manoeuvre.
When EU commission president Jacques Delors came to the British TUC in 1988, in the darkest days of Thatcherism, he succeeded in winning TUC leaders into believing that not only was the EU a haven for workers’ rights but that becoming “good Europeans” was the best way to achieve similar rights here.
And yet every reference to workers’ rights in EU treaties and directives since then has carried the rider that rights must be in accordance with “national laws and practices.”
The ECJ rulings on the Laval, Rüffert and Viking cases did not occur by chance.
They were part of an EU-wide project of driving down pay, undermining collective agreements and eroding democratic control over public contracts through the “country of origin” principle which allows the worst practice of some countries to be smuggled into others with higher standards.
Refusal by the EU elite to shift ground on these issues should give pause to Irish trade unionists who may be tempted to fall for a “do better this time” second referendum.
And it should open the eyes of many in this country to the reality of workers’ rights in the EU.
See also here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
LISBON II: ‘SMOKE AND MIRRORS’
A second referendum to ratify the Lisbon Treaty will be held in the 26
Counties before October 31st of next year, according to the conclusions
of a European Union summit this week.
The Lisbon treaty, which seeks to militarise, federalise and centralise
power within the European Union, was rejected by the 26 County
electorate in June by a decisive margin.
Now EU leaders have agreed “necessary legal guarantees” which promise
to allow each member state to retain a member of the ruling European
Commission and soothe Irish concerns on taxation policy, family and
social issues, and neutrality.
EU leaders reached the deal today [Friday] in Brussels at the end of a
summit held to decide a roadmap on how to progress the European
project, despite the Irish rejection of the treaty.
The conclusions were agreed today by French and current EU president
Nicolas Sarkozy “with a view to enabling the treaty to enter into force
by the end of 2009”. Irish voters are to be required to back the Lisbon
Treaty before the term of the current European Commission ends on
October 31st, 2009.
The conclusions contain an annex of remarks, platitudes, assurances and
“guarantees” directed to Irish voters.
The conclusions state that EU leaders have agreed to offer the
“necessary legal guarantees” on the continuation of Ireland’s
officially-stated policy of neutrality within the European military
project; the recognition of the Irish constitution’s position on the
right to life; and the absence of new tax-raising powers in the Lisbon
Treaty.
NO GUARANTEE
It remains unclear how the so-called guarantees are to be given legal
effect, or whether they have meaningful and binding content.
They also stand in contradiction to the body of the treaty, as well as
new policies agreed at this week’s summit. One outlines a range of new
initiatives to strengthen the European Union’s military powers with the
goal of achieving readiness for a potential intercontinental conflict.
Immediate goals are for the EU are to be able to deploy 60,000 soldiers
within 60 days and thousands of civilian personnel — on at least a
dozen simultaneous missions — as part of a “strategic partnership
between the EU and NATO”.
And following British objections, the summit conclusions had to be
amended to remove a statement offering a guarantee on Irish workers’
issues. Instead, the conclusions contain language that now only offers
vague assurances on workers’ rights.
The conclusions state that the EU attaches high importance to social
progress and the protection of workers’ rights; public services; the
responsibility of member states for the delivery of education and
health services; and the essential role of local government in
providing non-economic services of general interest.
After weeks of back-room dealing, Taoiseach Brian Cowen finally
confirmed this lunchtime he is going to hold a second referendum on the
Lisbon treaty.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels, Mr Cowen said: “On the
basis of today’s agreement … I am prepared to go back to the Irish
people next year.”
Asked about the negotiations at the summit, British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown said he believed people would be satisfied by the
agreement of EU leaders.
“I believe (it is) a successful attempt to ensure that the Irish
concerns are taken note of but not disrupting the progress we made in
Europe on the Lisbon treaty,” he said.
Mr Cowen was strongly criticised by the Irish opposition parties this
week for carrying on the talks ‘behind the backs’ of the electorate.
“It is quite astounding that EU leaders, officials, ambassadors all now
know the Irish government’s plan [for a second referendum on the Lisbon
Treaty] but the electorate has yet to be told,” said Sinn Fein
President Gerry Adams.
“They have not sought to have the Treaty re-negotiated but have spent
the last six months trying to find a way around it.”
Speaking at a conference for Ogra Shinn Fein, his party’s youth wing,
Mr Adams said that any guarantees which may be included in a future
treaty, are “totally unacceptable”.
“The Lisbon Treaty was rejected by the Irish people because it is a bad
deal for Ireland. It needs to be re-negotiated to definitively address
issues like neutrality, sovereignty over taxation, public services and
workers rights,” he said.
“It needs be about maintaining Ireland’s political strength in the EU.
How the Irish government and EU leaders deal with this issue will be
watched carefully by tens of millions of people across the EU who has
deep concerns about the direction that an elite within EU institutions
are trying to take.”
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny also said he had “very little confidence”
in Mr Cowen’s ability to steer the country towards a solution. Although
his party supported the first Lisbon Treaty, Mr Kenny said his party
had not given the coalition government a ‘blank cheque’ on the issue.
“I am astonished at the Taoiseach’s utter failure to build any
bipartisan support for a solution, something he desperately needs.
“My party, which has been consistently and strongly supportive of all
EU treaties to date, has not been consulted in any way about the
Government’s plans regarding the Lisbon Treaty.”
Sinn Fein Dublin MEP Mary Lou McDonald described the Lisbon re-run deal
as “an exercise in smoke and mirrors.”
Meanwhile, prominent anti-Lisbon campaigner Declan Ganley is launching
his Libertas lobbying group as a pan-Europe political party to compete
in next June’s European Parliament elections.
At a lunch for European journalists in Brussels today, Mr Ganley
outlined ambitious plans to campaign against the Lisbon Treaty and
build a new political movement.
An invitation to the lunch and press conference described Libertas as a
“new European political movement dedicated to campaigning for greater
democracy, accountability and transparency within the EU.”
http://republican-news.org/
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Provocative speech by Tory leader
The leader of the British Conservative party, David Cameron, has
reversed two decades of Tory policy on Ireland by telling the annual
conference of the Ulster Unionist Party that the he, like the United
Kingdom, has a “selfish and strategic interest” in the north of Ireland.
The Tory party leader also said the region had made great strides
forward over the past 15 years and he wanted a move away from old
politic rhetoric.
His address to the UUP’s annual conference on Saturday underlined the
renewal of unionism’s traditional ‘Orange Card’ alliance with the
Conservative Party.
In a chest-beating speech, he told gathered delegates, without irony:
“its time for Northern Ireland to be brought back into the mainstream
of British politics.”
Cameron mixed traditional Tory imperialism with Blairite zeal and spin
in an address which cheered the Ulster Unionists, desperate for a
revival following a series of devastating election losses.
And in a clear reference to the Thatcher-backed Anglo-Irish Agreement
which divided the Tories and UUP in 1985, he said the Tories had
regrets for the pact, which allowed the 26 Counties a direct influence
on northern matters.
He claimed the Irish “bring strengths to the mix” of English, Welsh and
Scottish.
Explicitly, Mr Cameron went on to reverse the words of former British
Direct Ruler Peter Brooke, who in 1985 proclaimed his party had no
selfish, strategic or economic interest in being in the North, a
statement considered fundamental to the subsequent peace process.
He provocatively declared that having the Six Counties firmly
controlled by the United Kingdom was “in the interests of Northern
Ireland” and “in the interests of the United Kingdom”.
And he added, as a nationalistic Briton, “It’s in my own selfish
interests too”.
It was a pivotal moment in the speech, on what could prove to be a
pivotal day for Mr Cameron.
It was also confirmed that he UUP and Conservative Party will cooperate
at next year’s European Union election and the next election to the
London parliament.
A decision has yet to be made as to whether the arrangement will be
expanded to a future assembly election.
FF SETS UP
Meanwhile, a ‘forum’ of the 26-County Fianna Fail party has been set up
across the border in the Crossmaglen/South Armagh area. The initiative
may eventually lead to the party developing a political base in the Six
Counties.
This move is different from speculation in earlier months of some kind
of political link up with the SDLP, now seen as unlikely.
It is understood that at this stage the initiative is considered as a
step in terms of organising branches, or cumainn, in the Six Counties.
There are no plans at present to field Fianna Fail candidates in
northern elections.
http://republican-news.org/
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British Army in ‘draw down’
The British Army is to change its official status in Ireland in a move
to highlight the demilitarisation and so-called “normalisation” in the
North.
For the first time in 30 years the British Army will have no general
officer commanding (GOC) to head its military operation in Ireland.
Instead a brigadier will be put in charge.
The downgrading in status is an extension of last year’s withdrawal of
troops from the north which marked the end of Operation Banner, the
British Army’s name for its part in the conflict.
In practical terms it only means around 30 military personal leaving
army headquarters at Thiepval barracks in Lisburn, County Antrim.
Five thousand troops will still be “permanently” based on Irish soil.
Many of these are currently engaged in other active occupations in the
Middle East.
With British forces still engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Ireland is now low on their list of military priorities.
The departing GOC General Brown said this week there was no longer a
need for “public order support”.
“We still provide bomb disposal, as has been seen in recent days and
weeks, and that will continue.
“The PSNI have neither the desire nor the capability to provide their
own bomb disposal.”
Brown suggested that street violence surrounding the Whiterock Orange
parade in west Belfast in 2005 delayed the announcement.
Management of the highly contentious Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) march
through Belfast in November was seen as the final test of the
normalisation process.
Brown said the British Army parade through Belfast city centre
demonstrated how normal the North had become.
“We had fewer people arrested on November 2nd than are arrested at an
average fourth division football match,” he boasted.
With British troops on standby, the parade was policed entirely by the
PSNI at a cost of almost half a million pounds.
A spokesperson for Republican Sinn Fein said that despite the
appearance of movement, the status quo would remain indefinitely.
“Recent admissions by Hugh Orde that his force is unable to patrol the
streets as they please because of the ever resurgent military
opposition to English rule shows that the military situation in Ireland
is far from ‘normal’.”
“The only normal number of British soldiers in our country is none.
Brown admits that ‘this is not a withdrawal’, but a full British
withdrawal remains the Republican demand.”
————————————————————————-
>>>>>> Loyalists target former INLA man
A former republican PoW last night blamed loyalists for a pipe-bomb
attack on his west Belfast home.
Gerard Foster, now a spokesman for the Irish Republican Socialist
Party, said that he returned to his flat on Lenadoon Avenue on Monday
night to find that a kitchen window had been smashed and a pipe-bomb
thrown inside.
“I arrived home shortly before 8pm to find a pipe bomb lying between
the kitchen and living room,” he said.
“A friend called the PSNI and the British army bomb squad took more
than eight hours to defuse it.
“The CID detectives told me that it was a viable device and that they
are treating it as attempted murder.”
Mr Foster, who had previously been warned by police on four occasions
that his life was under threat from loyalist paramilitaries, said: “The
cross-community work that I am involved in means that I regularly work
with former UVF and UDA prisoners and even former RUC and British army
personnel.
“I am someone who is working to bring the two communities together but
because of that work someone is trying to kill me and my family.
“My 11-year-old daughter regularly sits in that room to do her homework
and could easily have been killed if it had gone off.”
Mr Foster claimed that police had failed to publicise the bomb attack
on his home properly and had given the impression that the bomb had
been found on the road.
“I am angry that this attack is not being reported properly and that
people are trying to down-play it and put it across as some kind of
INLA stunt,” he said.
“It was a deliberate attempt to kill me and my family.”
IRSP spokesman Paul Little said his party would meet loyalist
representatives to determine whether the UVF or UDA had been involved
in the attack.
“We will be asking these groups to condemn this attempted murder
outright and to disassociate themselves from it. Gerard Foster is a
well respected community worker in west Belfast and had helped set up
the local residents’ association,” he said.
————————————————————————-
>>>>>> United Ireland referendum soon – SF
A referendum on a united Ireland could be held before 2016, Sinn Fein’s
Conor Murphy has said.
At a public briefing, An Ireland of Equals — the Peace Process and
Beyond, held in the House of Commons, Mr Murphy said that reunification
was not a spectator sport.
“We were accused of setting 2016 as the date for the hundred-year
anniversary. It may take longer,” he said.
“But I actually think it could happen sooner than that in reality if we
keep the momentum going when the economic realities and the political
realities hit.
“We have received an awful lot of attention over the last 10 years with
American presidents and other nations dropping in but that will start
to wane.
“Then we will start to realise we are a small island, we have quite a
lot going for us.
“All these small signs show we will ultimately have to take charge of
ourselves in the end,” he added.
In a separate development, the 2007 annual population reports, released
this week, showed an increase in the birth rate in the Six Counties,
from 13.4 births per thousand of population to 13.9.
Some commentators believe the traditionally higher birth rate among
Catholics could ultimately lead to a nationalist majority.
There was an overall 1% increase in the population of North, to an
estimated 1,759,000.
With the population of the 26 Counties now at 4,422,100 it means the
total population of the island is higher than at any time since the
Famine.
However, the latest figures also show the population of Dublin will
fall in the coming decades for the first time since the Famine if
immigrants stop coming to Ireland, as is expected.
————————————————————————-
>>>>>> Feature: The Sinn Fein election
———————————————————————
Donal Kennedy looks at the electoral facts surrounding Sinn Fein’s
historic victory at the 1918 General Election, ninety years ago this
week, and takes issue with those academics, journalists and politicians
who seek to undermine its democratic legitimacy.
———————————————————————
On 28 January 1919, exactly one week after the first meeting of Dail
Eireann, a young man remarked in his diary –
“Just one thing occurs to me to mention before I put this diary away:
an example of how our claim for self-determination of small nations
-championed by Britain in the name of the Czechs – is misrepresented by
politicians and newspapers there. In quoting statistics for last year’s
general election they give the total votes cast for and against Sinn
Fein only in contested elections, completely ignoring the 25
constituencies where Sinn Fein candidates were returned unopposed, thus
presenting an entirely misleading picture.”
Ninety years on Irish politicians, newspapers and academics have
adopted the disingenuous begrudgery of the British commentators
remarked on by Edward MacLysaght, who lived from 1887 to 1986, whose
character may well be remembered by some readers.
Professor Richard English of Queen’s University, Belfast, in his study
of Ernie O’Malley, remarks that Sinn Fein polled “only 47 per cent” of
the votes cast in Ireland. Ex-taoiseach and chancellor of the National
University of Ireland, Garret Fitzgerald, I’m advised, has also made
the same claim, in the Irish Times.
The party Fitzgerald led, and its predecessor, Cumann na Gael, would
have been so lucky to get 47 per cent of votes cast, ever! For they
never won the hearts of the Irish people. Abstentionist republicans
allowed Cumann na Gael to rule from 1923 to 1932, and Fitzgerald would
never have formed his first government if an IRA prisoner and an INLA
prisoner hadn’t been elected to the Dail in 1981.
One Stephen King, writing in the Irish Examiner (3 December 2008)
acknowledges the 25 uncontested seats but would have us believe that
the Irish Parliamentary Party, some of whose members, and tens of
thousands of whose supporters, had faced German artillery and machine
guns for four years in France, was intimidated by a virtually totally
unarmed republican movement, many of whose candidates and key workers,
including Desmond Fitzgerald, Garret’s father, had meekly allowed
themselves to be arrested, deported and jailed by the British.
The fact is uncontested constituencies were quite common in Ireland and
Britain in 1918, as indeed they were prior to 1918.
In 1906 unionists got more than 50 per cent of the votes cast in
Ireland but nationalists took the lion’s share of the seats, 84 of
which were uncontested.
In 1886 unionists got more than 50 per cent of the votes cast, but
nationalists got the lion’s share of the seats, 66 of which were
uncontested.
Did the unionists complain, whining like Terry Molloy in On The
Waterfront – “I coulda had class, I coulda been a contender, coulda
been somebody, not just a bum” ?
Did they, heck! Elections were of secondary interest to conservatives
and unionists. Votes, Irish or British could be overruled. In 1906 the
Conservative Party was reduced to about 25 per cent of the seats in the
House of Commons, and Arthur Balfour,who had been the prime minister,
lost his seat. Unfazed, he addressed his followers saying that the
party, in office or out, should control the affairs of “this Great
Empire.” As the Lords, with a Conservative/unionist majority could veto
Bills passed by the Commons, it was no idle boast.
When the veto was removed the Conservatives and unionists took to the
para-military to complement the parliamentary road. ” A rifle in one
hand and a ballot in the other” one might say.
Anyway, to dispose of the bum analysis peddled by the enemies of
democracy, Sinn Fein in 1918 took 73 seats, nationalists 6 and
unionists 26.
All the Unionists, except two for Dublin University (Trinity College)
and one for Rathmines, then a Borough on the edge of Dublin, were in
Ulster. Every other seat save Waterford in the provinces of Leinster,
Connacht and Munster, went to Sinn Fein.
In those three provinces wherever Sinn Fein and the Nationalists
slugged it out toe-to-toe Sinn took over 50 per cent of the votes cast
in every constituency except Waterford. Five of the Nationalist seats
were retained in Ulster, some of them because of an understanding with
Sinn Fein aimed at keeping the Unionists out.
I believe that the Sinn Fein victory of 1918 was a popular one
unequalled in these islands since. In the 12 UK general elections since
1964, where all, save the Speaker’s seat, have been contested, only
once did the party which won power equal the 47 per cent of the votes
cast,which Sinn Fein won in 1918 when there were so many uncontested
seats. By way of contrast, the current UK government took about 32 per
cent of the votes cast in 2005.
————————————————————————-
>>>>>> Analysis: Vilifying the dead
O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
The stench arising from the current British enquiry into the murder of
the Lurgan solicitor, Rosemary Nelson must surely assail the nostrils
of those at the front line in the defence of human rights around the
world.
The murders of the defence lawyers Rosemary Nelson and Pat Finucane
shocked even those of us who were used to the dirty war being waged on
our streets. The murders also shocked people in the United Nations, and
the European Parliament and perhaps for the first time, the extent of
British violations of human rights in the North of Ireland dirty war
became a focus for international human right organisations throughout
the world. Who would believe that a country claiming to be the mother
of Parliamentary democracy would preside over a system, nay even be
part of a system that murders lawyers? That only happens in Latin
American dictatorships or so they tell us. Yet under British democracy,
death squads, official and unofficial, have operated in the 6 Counties
for the past forty years.
Rosemary Nelson was a victim of the death squads. The Mother of four
children was blown to bits by a bomb placed beneath her car on a cold
day in March, 1999. Long before the death squads finished her off, this
small woman, a lawyer and champion of human rights, had been subjected
to years of threats from RUC officers and Unionist paramilitary
organisations in the Lurgan area of the North.
In September 1998 a year before she was murdered, she testified before
a United States Congressional hearing during which she stated that
because she represented suspects detained for questioning about
politically motivated offences, she had began to experience
difficulties with the RUC. She claimed that these difficulties involved
RUC officers questioning her professional integrity, making allegations
that she was a member of a paramilitary group and at their most
serious, making threats against her personal safety including death
threats to herself and her children. She also told of receiving
threatening phone calls and letters and of being physically assaulted,
intimidated and verbally abused by the RUC during the Drumcree standoff
in 1997.
Many of the Human Rights organisations including CAJ, the British Irish
Watch, and the United Nations special investigator Param Curamaswamy
accepted that her complaints were valid. At least sixteen other
solicitors had also made complaints against the RUC for alleged threats
although it was suspected that this did not represent the true extent
of alleged RUC intimidation of solicitors representing
Republicans/Nationalist suspects.
So serious did the threats become against Rosemary Nelson that the
Independent Commission for Police Complaints took the unprecedented
step to refer them to the then Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam.
A lesser person would have given up and moved but Rosemary Nelson was
no ordinary lawyer.
She pursued the RUC over the killing of Robert Hamill and successfully
helped Colin Duffy to appeal his conviction on a charge of murder. But
it was her work with Brendan Mac Coinnaith and the Garvaghy Road
Residents Association that earned her the hostility of Unionist
Paramilitary organisations, closely associated with the RUC.
When the death threats didn’t work, hundreds of leaflets using the most
vile language, impugning her reputation and claiming that she was
having affairs with known IRA men, were posted all over Lurgan. It is
tribute to her bravery and the loyalty of her husband that she
continued to do her work on behalf of the people.
The same allegations surfaced last week when the British established
enquiry heard claims by an anonymous RUC Special Branch man hiding
behind a curtain, that were similar to the leaflets in Lurgan all those
years ago.
Neither those who knew Rosemary or the wider Nationalists community
were surprised although most were outraged that in a time of political
policing progress; the bad old days of the RUC haven’t gone away.
But then scurrilous and malicious allegations and character
assassination is the stock in trade of the British establishment and
their puppet police and paramilitaries.
The minds of the people had to be destroyed before the subjugation of
their bodies. It was the first story that counted, usually lies, half
truths and smears so brilliantly described by the former British
intelligence officers, and whistle blowers, Colin Wallace and Fred
Holyroyd. Their job in Lisburn RUC station was to peddle as much
disinformation as a compliant media would accept. Both became the
victims of character assassination by their British Masters when they
fell foul of MI5.
We don’t have to stray far from our own City for such examples for
examples of the character assassination of the dead. The dead of Bloody
Sunday were vilified throughout the world, before their corpses were
even cold. The Widgery enquiry put the official British seal on the
story.
Indeed an enquiry has been set up by the British for every atrocity
they have committed over the past forty years. The objectives were
never about truth or proper investigation but to make the issue sub
judice, in the hope that by the time the inquiry reported, the incident
would be forgotten. The opportunity to impugn the integrity of the
victim or witnesses was an additional bonus.
Those with long memories will recall the Bennet enquiry into the
beating of suspects in interrogation centres by the RUC. Doctor Irwin a
police doctor, who had examined many of the suspects, spoke on
television about the number of injuries he had seen. He was accused in
a leaked story to the Daily Telegraph, of holding a grudge against the
RUC because of their failure to investigate a crime by a member of the
security forces against his wife.
The allegations that death squad operations were official British
Government policy resulted in another enquiry headed up by the Deputy
Chief Constable of Manchester John Stalker. A professional policeman,
he got to close to the truth and had to be removed but not before his
character and those of his associates had been destroyed and his career
as a policeman finished.
Even the reputation and integrity of the United Nations Rappateur Param
Cumaraswamy was publicly questioned by the RUC because he raised
concerns about the threats to Rosemary Nelson and the lack of a proper
investigation into the murder of Pat Finucane.
The problem with all the enquiries set up over the years including the
current ones is that the terms of reference are set by the British.
The lawyers representing the family of Rosemary Nelson were not
permitted last week, to cross examine the witness who impugned her
reputation. Yet special status in all these enquiries is given to MI5
as well as to former RUC officers and representatives of the Ministry
of Defence. It is becoming clear that the objectives of the current
enquiries advocated by the Canadian Judge Cory are more concerned with
character assassination than with establishing collusion in the murder
of Rosemary Nelson. It is equally clear that the British Government
can’t afford an enquiry that will be truly independent.
It was the late Fr. Denis Faul who in the course of his work in
exposing the atrocities of the British Army and the RUC in the 1970’s
stated ‘I can verify that the British never told the truth about a
single thing they ever did in this country.’
If the current enquiries are anything to go by, truth is not part of
their agenda.
Someone once stated that Ireland has always been the rock upon which
English virtue has floundered. To that could be added the virtue and
credibility of British enquiries.
—————————————————————-
IRISH REPUBLICAN NEWS
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Patronising
IRISH opponents of the Lisbon Treaty will doubtless afford maximum publicity to the “explanation” given by Britain’s Minister for Europe Caroline Flint as to why people in the republic voted overwhelmingly No.
Her explanation sums up the patronising and arrogant attitude of the pro-EU centralisation elite.
The poor simpletons in Ireland apparently rejected the united sound advice of all major political parties, the media, business and farming interests because they hadn’t understood the treaty and had been misled by the No campaigners.
Who told her so? It was “some people” she met in Dublin a month ago – presumably the same “some people” who thought, before the referendum, that they could con the Irish people into believing that the Lisbon Treaty was something qualitatively different from the EU constitution that French and Dutch voters had already rejected.
The Irish know better than most the contempt of the EU great powers for people’s sovereignty in smaller states and Ms Flint’s dismissive comment that, in the event of a second No vote, “we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” indicates a readiness to ignore or override the voters’ decision.
If and when Brussels, with the connivance of Brian Cowen’s quisling government, forces a second vote, supporters of national democracy across Europe will rely on Ireland’s electorate to stand firm.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index2.php/free/comment/last_drop_of_blood
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> Belgian EU-treaty ratification still pending?
>
>
>
> On December 10th 2008 the Belgian campaign *Notre mot à dire/Onze Zeg*
> (1)*
> *addressed the Constitutional Court of Belgium. In a first request, they
> demand the cancellation of the Flemish ratification.
>
>
>
> *Notre mot à dire*/*Onze Zeg* wants the Court to find out if this
> constitutional treaty can be voted by a parliament. Won’t the treaty
change
> the constitutional position of Belgium? Has the Belgian procedure been
> executed properly? Are the Irish referendums a matter of discrimination
> towards the Belgian people? Are the opt-outs in the Treaty in conflict
with
> the principle of equalities?
>
>
>
> In Belgium the Royal Assent on the Lisbon Treaty has not yet been
> officially
> announced, half a year after the vote of the last regional parliament
> (July
> 10th). Browse the “Moniteur belge”
> here
> .
>
> The Belgian ratification process requires an agreement between the federal
> parliament en all different regional parliaments (click
> here).
> The discussion on this decisive agreement is postponed due to the
tensions
> between the political parties north and south of the country. It is not
> clear when Belgium will sort this out.
>
>
>
> Both facts (Court and lacking Royal Assent) mean Belgium has not yet
> entirely finished the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, though
> all official EU-websites are stating that only Ireland is left.
>
> * *
>
> Belgium can now be added on top of the list of countries that have
> problems
> concerning the treaty’s ratification (Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic,
> Ireland and Finland). The Lisbon treaty can only go into effect after it
> has
> been ratified by all the member states.
>
>
>
> Belgian government is misinforming the people and the other EU-members.
Its
> “deposition of the ratification instruments” is used to cover up an
> unfinished ratification process. With this request *Notre mot à
> dire*/*Onze
> Zeg* intends to make clear this way of handling is not worthy of a
> democratic, legal state.
>
>
>
> *Notre mot à dire/Onze Zeg* asks a clear and honest answer. Is the Belgian
> ratification finished, yes or no?
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Dublin prepares Yes conspiracy
UNDER pressure from their grand masters in the EU, the Irish government is going flat out to convince voters that they got it wrong on the Lisbon Treaty in the previous referendum last May.
Having promised to deliver a Yes vote whatever it took, the government coalition led by Fianna Fail has been stepping up its efforts to bamboozle, cajole and bribe enough people to vote Yes in the coming rerun.
While the Irish government is undoubtedly working hard to isolate sections of the broad coalition of forces opposed to Lisbon, groups such as the People’s Movement, Ireland’s main progressive opposition to the Lisbon Treaty, and the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), which advocates an independent Irish foreign policy and the maintenance of Irish neutrality, are working equally hard to do it all again and secure a second No vote.
Such groups deserve our solidarity. While we can’t contribute to their campaign funds, nothing prevents us from sending messages of solidarity or from encouraging friends and relatives who are eligible to vote No and to point out that such a course of action would be in the interests of working people throughout the EU.
Solidarity messages can be emailed to the People’s Movement at post@people.ie and to PANA at eircom.net. Alternatively, they can be sent by post to People’s Movement, 25 Shanowen Avenue, Dublin 9, Ireland and to PANA, 17 Castle Street, Dalkey, Co Dublin, Ireland.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/features/ireland_eye
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