British Ratification: The Ghost of Lisbon

The UK has become the 19th country to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. It seems like no-one across Europe is willing to even consider the notion of Democracy any more.

In a previous post I had noted that Gordon Brown was said to have been supportive of the Irish electorate, and would stand up for Irish democratic process should Lisbon be rolled on anyway. I'm now starting to have my doubts as to whether or not this support will actually take place.

It's amazingly shocking to me the lengths governments will go to in order to turn a blind eye to Democracy, whilst still heralding it as their highest ideal.

The papers from the debate on Lisbon in the House of Lords, who voted to ratify the treaty, are very interesting indeed:

I think it is right to say—I hope that it is not controversial—that most authorities recognise that the treaty of Lisbon is and has to be technically dead. It had to be ratified to become alive—to exist—by all 27 of the signatories to it, and one of those signatories has declared that it does not wish to do so and has rejected it. That is the technical position; I do not think it is widely disputed. One has to be realistic—perhaps in this House it is particularly our duty to be realistic—and recognise that corpses can be resuscitated in certain circumstances and by certain ingenious devices.

What on earth is going on here? How blind can people be, or unscrupulous, as to completely fly in the face of everything our western democratic system is supposed to pride itself on? We need the other countries of Europe to stand up and support the fact that without Irish ratification, there is no treaty. Over. Done with. Move on.

What are these ingenious devices anyway? Wonderful ways of pulling the wool over people's eyes yet again? I would have thought that the British government would have serious concerns over throwing away national sovereignty in this way.

It must be said that Lord Howell of Guildford, who stated the above, was doing so in the context of trying to prevent it, i.e. supplementing an amendment to respect the Irish vote:

(a) Parliament to consider the most appropriate response to the changed circumstances and uncertainties caused by the rejection of the Lisbon treaty in the Irish referendum; and

(b) any amendments to the Bill made necessary by those changed circumstances to be considered in detail by the House, if necessary on recommitment”.

It must ALSO be said that this amendment was overwhelmingly defeated.

It's interesting as well that the British Government places itself in the position to make such monumental decisions for its people without actually consulting them. It seems they expect the same of the Irish government also:

The issue here is very simple. It is whether, having got this far, there is any justification for not continuing. We should look first at what the Irish say. They have urged other countries to proceed with their own ratification processes. The Irish Minister for Europe, Mr Roche, said on the BBC on Monday:

“I believe that the Irish people have had their say. I believe that they now want to allow each of the other member states to have its say and then at the end of this process to say, ‘Well where does this leave us? Where are we?’ I mean, the whole genius of Europe is that it has moved together and that it moves together in unison. The idea of a two-tier Europe is not attractive to any member state”.

It appears that Mr Roche wants to scare the Irish electorate into feeling like they'll be "left out". And how can he claim to know what the people think or want, when he got it so wrong over the referendum?

I personally think that what the Irish people want is for their views to be respected without being bullied and scared into an alternate course. That's what the NO result meant, and its about time people realised that.

In any case, the European Council meets today and tomorrow, so we'll just have to wait and see to what extent democracy will be respected, if at all.