Declan Ganley is planning to field more than 400 candidates in next June's European Parliament elections, in the 26 countries - including Britain - where voters have had no direct say on the treaty.
Mr Ganley said that campaigning on a single issue would enable voters to deliver "a clear, unequivocal message" that Europe's elites would not be able to misinterpret. In the past, EU leaders have claimed that "No" votes on the constitution in France and the Netherlands were the consequence of domestic political issues. Mr Ganley hopes to win more than 80 seats in Strasbourg, creating a Europe-wide voting bloc which would have a strong mandate to block passage of the treaty. "There's no national party that can provide that sort of punching power in the European Parliament. The voters will have mandated candidates to go in and ensure that there will be no attempts to resuscitate the Lisbon Treaty."
Mr Ganley hopes to win more than 80 seats in Strasbourg, creating a Europe-wide voting bloc which would have a strong mandate to block passage of the treaty. "There's no national party that can provide that sort of punching power in the European Parliament. The voters will have mandated candidates to go in and ensure that there will be no attempts to resuscitate the Lisbon Treaty."
Essentially he is running a party which has no program beyond formulating popular disillusionment with the European Project. That means nobody will really care what his party will really do once they are in the parliament. Clearly this gives him the possibility to give all kinds of promises to larges scale donors. It might come down to a classic "Nationalism for Rubes, Neoliberalism for Business" strategy.
