Now, and again this is a political statement of preference of mine, but it is precisely because of the content of the rejection in France which makes it credible. Not that it was France that rejected it, but why France rejected it.
A masterpiece of Jesuitical sophistry! The reasons for any no vote are always arguable and will change depending on who you talk to. The hard left in Ireland also voted against Lisbon because it appeared to them to endorse the neo-liberal policies of global capitalism. The hard right in both France and Ireland voted against Lisbon because of their social conservatism and Nationalist proclivities.
Probably the biggest block of NO voters in Ireland voted NO because the Treaty had been rendered deliberately unintelligible by elite conspiracy to make it appear different from the Constitution. This was a contemptuous way to treat any electorate and I have a lot of sympathy for that particular argument. It was a "solution" created to solve a French problem (NO to Constitution) and ended up causing an even bigger problem for a more democratically inclined Irish polity. Hopefully no European electorate will be treated with similar contempt again.
But at the end of the day what matters is not the multitude of reasons why people voted NO: Whether a left-winger approves of a left wing rejection of neo-liberalism, or a right-winger approves of a right-wing rejection of a further erosion of national Sovereignty is neither here nor there - neither type of vote is more "credible" or more "creditable" than the other. Their effect is precisely the same - to prevent the further development of a more European polity - whatever way you try to dress it up. notes from no w here
I agree on that, and had I been able to vote in Spain (I was moving and changing voter registration so I missed it) I would probably have voted no on those grounds alone. Not that it would have made a difference in the result (a "safe" no vote) but at least it would have brought the participation rate closer to 50% :-) Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
On the Irish voters being obligated here to vote on a crappy (and here I don't disagree on the substance, it's the form I find objectionable) treaty revision, I don't think anyone in the EU forces Ireland to hold referenda. My understanding is, unlike every other EU member state, Ireland is constitutionally obligated to hold such referenda for modifications to the constitution large and small.
Here in France, I think Chirac was obligated by popular demand to put it to a refendendum, like Mitterand did with Maastricht. But he was not constitutionally obligated to do so. It was a political decision. I think the same goes for Netherlands too.
But Ireland is a special case. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
