Pity you can`t get your facts right, the Irish have been shafted Twice via Referendums!
To the surprise of the Irish government and the other EU member states, Irish voters rejected the Treaty of Nice in June 2001.
Then...
The first referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon held on 12 June 2008 was rejected by the Irish electorate, by a margin of 53.4% to 46.6%, with a turnout of 53%. The second referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon held on 2 October 2009 and the proposal was approved by 67.1% to 32.9%, with a turnout of 59%.
Asking the Irish to vote again on the Lisbon treaty is arrogant, insulting and undemocratic
Sat 13 Dec 2008 16.00 GMT
In June this year, 53.4% of Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty, against 46.6% who supported it (giving the "No" camp a "sweeping victory" similar to Obama's). Yet now the Irish will be asked to vote again. EU officials' behind-doors deal to force a second referendum in
Ireland reveals their utter contempt for Irish voters, and for democracy itself. It is an historic sucker punch against the sovereignty of the people.
As soon as the Irish people's ballots were counted in June, their rejection of Lisbon was treated as the "wrong" answer, as if they had been taking part in a multiple-choice maths exam and had failed to work out that 2+2=4. Now, they will be given a chance to sit the exam again, "until [they] come up with the right answer,"
says George Galloway, attacking EU elitism. The notion that the Irish "got it wrong" exposes gobsmacking ignorance about democracy in the upper echelons of the EU. The very fact that a majority of Irish people said no to Lisbon made it the "right answer", true and sovereign and final. "No" really does mean no.
The Irish were subjected to a tirade of slanderous abuse when they dared to reject officials' carefully crafted and profound (in truth, overlong and turgid) document on the future of the EU. One Brussels official
described them as "ungrateful bastards", on the basis that Ireland has received lots of handouts from the EU and thus should be more obedient to its paymaster. Pro-EU commentators
blamed "populist demagogues" for cajoling the Irish into voting no, and said the EU's plans should not be "derailed by lies and disinformation".
It was widely claimed that the Irish
simply didn't understand the treaty, and may have been confused by its "technocratic, near incomprehensible language" (well, they are ignorant Paddies, after all). Some claimed that the Irish mistakenly, possibly even illegitimately, had used the referendum to register disgruntlement with their own ruling parties.
Margot Wallström, vice-president of the European Commission, said officials should try to "work out what the Irish people had really been voting against". I would have thought that was obvious: they were handed the Lisbon treaty; they said no to it.
We've been here before. When
French and Dutch voters rejected the European constitution in 2005 (and according to
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the current Lisbon treaty is the "same as the constitution"), they were sneeringly insulted by their betters in Brussels.
Neil Kinnock said it was a "triumph of ignorance". Andrew Duff, Liberal Democrat MEP,
labelled the "rejectionists" as an "odd bunch of racists, xenophobes, nationalists, communists, the disappointed centre left and the generally pissed off". He asked whether it is wise to "submit the EU Constitution to a lottery of uncoordinated national plebiscites".
