Lisbon Treaty 2: A victory for fear.

So Ireland approved the Lisbon Treaty at the second time of asking. I would love to think the reason for this is because as citizens we were better informed this time around but sadly this does not seem to be the case. As I watched RTE news interviewing the voters emerging from the polling centres the same message emerged. People voted for jobs, for investment and to continue Ireland's membership of the EU. I found this all very confusing as I thought we were voting on the Lisbon Treaty. The treaty according to the Referendum Commission involved the changing of the rules that governed the EU to allow greater efficiency in an expanded Europe. Let's put aside the fact that we are in the EU and we still have 397,000 unemployed people and that this treaty was not about our membership of the EU. How did the Yes side manage to change the debate to everything except what was contained in the treaty.

To be fair some elements of the No side did not help. I don't think any sane person would be comfortable positioning themselves on the same side as COIR (the Germans are coming for your babies). Then again on the Yes side we had Michael (screw the workers) O'Leary so if people where looking for leaders it was a tough one.

So what about the issues. Surely a logical debate between the political class through the media would inform and enlighten us. Throughout what passed for a campaign the Yes side did everything they could to avoid discussing the treaty. The saner elements of the No campaign to be fair attempted to discuss elements of the treaty. There were important issues that needed to be debated. This campaign was an important chance to discuss the direction that the Lisbon Treaty was taking the EU. That debate never came I am afraid to say. The victory on the Yes side was built on lies. The failure of the Yes side to actually debate the treaty did a disservice to democracy. The most worrying part of the whole campaign was that the media became a cheerleader for the Yes side. Journalistic balance and fairness were put aside for the campaign (with a small number of exceptions)and we witnessed opinion masquerading as fact. In a democracy the vote of the public has to be respected (unless they say no) but this campaign was not a fair one. As citizens voting on an important issue we are entitled to a reasoned debate and a media to facilitate it. We know politicians will attempt to manipulate us and without balanced and fair coverage by the media it becomes an easy task.