The people who lost the referendum are the same people who have to steer Ireland through the economic downturn. Will they make a mess of that too?
The Lisbon Treaty campaign was characterised by a deep political void between the establishment and the people.
The establishment behaved as if there were no change to the economic background noise. When they couldn’t ignore falling house prices, rising unemployment and collapsing retail sales, they duplicitously tried to blame the No side.
Worse still, they spoke of a great European future without the slightest inclination to listen to the people or as certain why the people – who know the wheels are coming off – might be worried.
Lisbon defeat highlights need for fresh thinking
15 June 2008 By David McWilliams
The people who lost the referendum are the same people who have to steer Ireland through the economic downturn. Will they make a mess of that too?
The Lisbon Treaty campaign was characterised by a deep political void between the establishment and the people.
The establishment behaved as if there were no change to the economic background noise. When they couldn’t ignore falling house prices, rising unemployment and collapsing retail sales, they duplicitously tried to blame the No side.
Worse still, they spoke of a great European future without the slightest inclination to listen to the people or as certain why the people – who know the wheels are coming off – might be worried.
This spectacle was a Marie Antoinette moment and can be seen as a tipping point when the Irish electorate appreciates that all is not well, wants to express this, all the while understanding that merely voting on an issue cannot solve everything.
In addition, we sense that the world is becoming a highly competitive place and that Ireland has to respond, not just to European political demands, but also to global economic realities.
Taken together, it’s difficult to imagine a more out-of-touch political class and this observation goes from the cabinet right down to the social partners.
If they are not in a position to figure out what the people are afraid of, do you think they have the smarts to galvanise the country to face the economic challenge of the next few years?
Last week, the economic data was unambiguously weak as the labour market turns and retail sales fall for the third successive month, at a time when inflation is rising. The entire edifice — which was built on buying and selling property to each other financed by other people’s money -h as come crashing down. More significantly, as the property boom enveloped most small towns and villages, the downturn is being felt everywhere.
We have to ask ourselves whether the people who orchestrated the shambolic Lisbon campaign are the people we should trust to get this economy going again. Have these characters the vision to draw the strands together, focus on the solution and execute what is required?
What do you think is more likely in the next 18 months: a final smash-and-grab to loot the last of the family silver by the various grubby vested interests, or a clear, unselfish economic plan which puts the people first?
Ireland needs to look at another way of doing business. We are facing a huge challenge on a number of economic fronts including the property market, our brittle banking system and endemic public sector inefficiency, as well as the rising dilemma of mass immigration in a contracting economy.
An interesting way of looking at the threats we face is to regard the global economy as a theatre of war. If we are prepared and our defences are strong, we should have little to worry about.
However, we now know that Ireland has been bingeing, while the rest of the competitive world has been working. They are fitter, hungrier and more focused than us. The best measure of this is our burgeoning current account deficit, which evidences our delinquency.
Ireland is engaged in a war for resources, talent and profit. All over the globe there are new fronts opening, new battles and skirmishes – all underscored by a high stakes intelligence game to see what others are doing, where they are deploying their power and in what guise they are likely to attack next. From a military perspective, the solution to Ireland’s issues is quite straightforward.
The great military campaigns of our time have one thing in common: when the sovereign was threatened, the people pulled together to repel the threat. A war cabinet was instigated and orders were given clearly. Failure was not an option. Everyone realised what had to be done and where money needed to be spent.
The best brains in the country were used, the best planners were given rein and old, petty animosities were set aside for the greater good. This was benign patriotism, sparked by a foreign threat to security.
Today, Ireland faces a threat to our prosperity and we need a similar war cabinet, staffed by our smartest people.
This means opening up the national executive to non-political experts. Irish business needs to get involved in a national plan that re-invents the country. Business leaders should step forward as citizens to play their part in re-imagining the economy.
Many countries have done something similar. Malaysia put a 20-year plan together in the 1990s, seconding the best brains from the private sector to run much of it – as did Finland, Singapore and Israel at various stages in the past 30 years.
The key to active patriotism is to resuscitate the idea of the good citizen driven by a sense of patriotic volunteerism.
If the cabinet could see that the future of the country is too important to be left to politicians and civil servants, we could open up governance, using ‘best practice’ rather than local politics and turf wars as the yardstick.
In addition, some of our best and brightest business minds who have opted to be tax exiles rather than pay tax here might be persuaded of the virtue of good citizenship, rather just the bulging bank balance. Both sides could benefit from ‘patriotic volunteerism’.
The state could give responsibility to those who have proved they can manage and those who have managed would have the opportunity to shoulder national, rather than private, responsibility.
Some might argue that, in a global economy, there is little small countries can do, but this is not just nonsense, it is a cop-out. More to the point, connectivity is the key. If there is something good going on in one country, the news will spread like wildfire, sucking in the curious with their talents, capital and networks.
According to last week’s New York Times, the world has 1.4 billion plugged-in internet users and that number is growing by 250million a year. There are three billion mobile phones in the world with another billion coming in the next three years.
Ten hours of video are being uploaded on YouTube every minute of every day. This connectivity revolution, where the best salespeople for ideas will be individuals playing a giant game of ‘pass it on’, is ideally suited to dramatic initiatives. The country with the best idea will be the most talked about.
So rather than diminish a national rejuvenation project, the internet and globalisation will reinforce its strength. And most significantly, after last week’s EU carry-on, ‘active patriotism’ is precisely the opposite of what the Lisbon Treaty was trying to do: rather than give away more powers to some remote body, the solution is in our hands.
We know best what we have to do and we can, as a nation, sort it out.
There are ‘notions’ out there that the ‘No’ vote was as a result of the various No campaigners, likewise the ‘Yes’ people are being blamed for not doing enough. And while there may be some truth to this on the ‘yes’ side of things, it holds little contact with reality on the other. When the establishment asks us to vote in a referendum, they hand over control to the Sovereign and this they forgot. They forgot that they became little more than advisers. They forgot that We take our Constitution very very seriously indeed. They forgot that we need sound… Read more »
The Marie Antoinette analogy is very accurate. The elites want us to eat cake and accept the transfer of sovereignty to unelected officials in Brussels. You are also correct in asking whether our current elite has what it takes to dig the economy out of its hole, and that we are concerned about mass-immigration. In my opinion Cowen has already shown poor judgement – especially on the stamp-duty question. He arrogantly rebuffed PD and FG advice on this issue and the housing-crash and mass-unemployment are part of the result of this. Another aspect of this is immigration, which fuelled an… Read more »
No nation is an island and Ireland is no island in Europe anymore in time of globalization. We have to establish correct linkwork between peoples of EU to makes EU works to benefit its peoples instead of eurocratic elite with hidden agendas. As far as immigration in Ireland is concerned, in Polish case this is direct result of anti-Polish policy of Berlin-Paris axis, which wants to make Euro Reich out of EU. This was also magnifying due to their classic extension of this axis to Moscow neo-Stalinist-fascist Putin. That reminiscent Vichy-Hitler-Stalin and Mussolini policy. Franco-German-Russian imperialism served by Putin loving… Read more »
Er Krystof we are an island… See all the water there?
All the talk before the vote was a “no” would give us no options ? Sarkozy seems now to be saying let’s listen to what the Irish want ?
As you mention “the solution is in our hands.”, Hopefully more businesspeople will now engage in real debate on practical policies !
Interesting, all the main business groups promoted a “Yes” vote. Considering the reult, I’m not sure if that was representative ?
B, I do not see any water, I did not have chance yet to visit Ireland. But I am having a conversation with you in Ireland, I do know Irish history and prehistory, I know where Irish peoples came from and why some of you have dark hair and some are blond.
So you see Ireland is not an island anymore in economical, political and communication sense. And as I mentioned above decisions made by Moscow, Berlin and Paris caused economical immigration to Ireland from Poland. This is what matters in here.
David. The key position with regard to steering us through this crisis is the Minister, who will be in charge of the nation’s finances. Let’s look at the current office holder, he knowledge of this area, and his rate of acheivement in government. Brian Lenihan is the current minister for Finance. He is well qualified in the legal area. He was previously Minister for Justice, Equality, Law Reform. His period of responsibility for the Justice portfolio lasted ten months. In ten months, working in a area where he was eminently qualified, a young energetic minister should have acheived a lot.… Read more »
Future Taoiseach. The unions element of the Irish Labour Party is probably the brains of the party. Ever listen to Joan Burton, Joanna Tuffy, Kathleen Lynch ??? They are all completely irrelevant and daft. Throw in Michael D Higgins, Ruairi Quinn,Phat Rabbitte, etc.. Dessie O’Malley said that labour would go mad if they got into government. And sure enough. Everytime the Labour Party got into government they lost all reason and instigated silly ideas. And never ceased implementing silly ideas. And FG never stopped them. The inadequacies of the opposition are the reason why FF are always in power. The… Read more »
Krystof, Ireland is an island. We have no land connection to any part of Europe. Deco, Ahern has never proved he is an accountant. There are funnily enough no records of him qualifying. And I wouldn’t go around connecting ministers with competency. Most of them can hardly tie their shoelaces together. Lenehan comes from a posh school in the city centre that has an attitude removed from the majority of Irish people. I know because I was about 5 years behind his youngest brother in the same institiution. I would agree with you that the opposition are a mess. They… Read more »
But what way will it go now? The opposition cannot say the government f**ked it up, the Govt. can’t say the opposition f**ked it up! I hope that we will see people of character among this political establishment that will take responsibility and not waste more time bickering and making political over and under tones. We definitely need an enterprising leadership to chart these “unchartered waters” they say we have just entered. There is not an emergency because we rejected Lisbon, there is an emergency because of the externalities that have and are causing havoc with our credit, labour markets,… Read more »
I think we should have another general election and encourage new talented people to run for office because lets face it our present government are too week and are not patriotic. Why would a government want to change our constitution so that the people can’t vote on big issues, this is what dictators do. I think Cowan should have the desincey to resign and we should have another general election where we can have a strong patriotic government who are not going to give the country away to a foreign power on a silver plater (It last happened to us… Read more »
Guys, can you all calm down a bit. The No campaign spent the last few months spreading lies about the treaty and most Irish people were taken in by these lies, is that really all the governments fault? I did some campaigning for the yes side and I can tell you that the reasons given by some people for voting no were pathetically simplistic and had nothing to do with the treaty; they were nationalistic small islander comments. Some small portion of blame must also be laid at David McWilliams feet, it was he who said, in a recent popular… Read more »
I do not blame the Govt. per ser BUT as part of an appauling YES campaign they take a huge part of that and should do. This was not like a national election so why did all the Policital Parties (on both sides of the argument) think that putting their faces on posters instead of the YES they promoted was clever? They were also always on the defencive to the ridiculous points such as the “our commissioner, abortion, conscription etc.. instead of being straight forward about what the treaty means. IBEC also said “it was bad for business” if we… Read more »
sub
Thanks for all the comments on Lisbon. The result is clearly not the end of the world by any stretch. Just to clarify, Arthur like many campaigners (on both sides) you seem to have an uneasy relationship with the truth. I have never said that we should leave the EU, what I did say is that EMU is not in our interests and as the financial balance sheet of the country deteriorates, we might have to question the wisdom of a currency union in an economic system that has no fiscal transfers. If Euro interest and exchange rates move as… Read more »
If I may make a computer analogy…Ireland is going thro an Economic ReBoot. Wehn we come back online, it;ll be a little different – rules will be completely changed. Now is the time to start writing them. Internet/ Mobile/ and notions of sovereignty all need to be put in the mix. Come on paddies start being imaginative!! Diaspora may neeed to be couched in terms of an e-diaspora.
Hi David, Your war analogy is correct. And during ‘harder more challenging’ times, countries should go on a ‘war footing’. Code Red, as it were. But Ireland, and other countries and regions, are always in competition for resources, talent, business, etc. We have done reasonably well, at times. However, we have also not done reasonably well at other times, as what you say is correct: > we now know that Ireland has been bingeing, while the rest of the competitive world has been working. They are fitter, hungrier and more focused than us. The recent failings in our economy, the… Read more »
The examples you give (Finland, Singapore, etc) of countries that brought in business minds to re-vitalise matters tend to have a more unified goal and willingness to sublimate selfish desires for the wider good. You neglected to mention some of the other countries where the lines between businees and politics were blurred (Chile, Argentina, Russia, China) that were less……..altruistic. Do you believe that if business men in this country are handed the reigns of power that they will be restrained and not instigate changes to benefit themselves, most likely to the detriment of the small fry? I don’t buy laissez… Read more »
First up, I would probably have voted Yes if I was living in Ireland (I am an expat) and I still think our future probably lies in Europe. However, is it just me or is anyone else a little disgusted – and frankly astounded – by some of the language being bandied about over the weekend by some of our so called “European Partners” such as the French FM who – it would appear – believes that us little Irish should be “grateful”. Since when did structural funds etc come with these strings attached? Are we supposed to have been… Read more »
Thriftcriminal, I think you can have both State encouragement of start ups and businessmen shouldering patriotic responsibility. In all these iniatives you don’t have to coerce anyone who doesn’t want to get involved but the power of the willing in such ventures can be remarkable. Let’s not drown ourselves in cynicism just yet! best david
Fair enough. BTW it was your site (via Leviathan) that got me reading The Shock Doctorine and raised my level of cynicism :-)
Why has nobody focused on the sheer folly of joining the Euro and pretending that Dublin was in the same class as Milan or Madrid as a city?.Ireland is hopelessly uncompetitive compared with America where a private in the Army starts on $17,000 and the average wage across the economy is $17 per hour.In the Irish public sector which employs 25% of all employees the average is $40 per hour.That is the problem. Can’t imagine the Govt imposing a wage freeze for 4 years.The look on Gay Mitchell’s face on Saturday was classic.
Thriftcriminal, there are many, many historical examples of seemingly distasteful alliances bearing fruit in a longer run for the greater good. Probably one of the most distasteful I can think of was CJH and Dermot Desmond putting together the plan for the IFSC – I don’t think anyone could accuse either of them not to be primarily focussed on their best interests but the resulting impetus this initiative gave to the Irish economy cannot be denied.
Dear Friends As in age of globalisation Irish See suddenly shrunk to the size of large European river I suppose deeply imbedded islander thinking have to adapt to the 21 century European reality. Otherwise as I mentioned early in my comments Germans with French collaboration and Russians (who are not even in EU) will decade what is going on in Ireland. I have given one example that their decisions caused migration to Ireland from Poland. But that was just one example how Berlin, Paris and Moscow decide what is going on in the rest of Europe including Ireland. London will… Read more »
GOM
It all depends on your metric. I am deeply suspicious of the overly simplified metric of economic growth. All growth patterns undergo a classic pattern of 4 phases, Lag, Log, Stationary and Decline. We are in the Log phase still but Stationary will come and will bite us all. I would sooner engineer a comfortable stationary phase that defers the decline as much as possible, instead of allowing for catastrophe.
Agreed, but in general, each growth pattern can be taken as a unit itself and the trend is generally up, all other things remaining constant, e.g., no war, no natural disasters… An interesting metric for this would be to ask the question, is it better to be poor in a modern Ireland or the one of the 80s, 50s, or 30s?
Not sure which cam first, the use of this model to map the growth of bacteria or economic development….. but I always find it interesting that so called “man made” phenomena relate to naturally occuring phenomena… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_growth
David, In referance to your comment above. My apologies if you never stated in your TV show that Ireland should leave the EU. The thrust of your argument being that Ireland should leave the Euro and refocus away from Europe to the international Irish family, (who unfortunately are decreasing in size and importance). I think that this type of academic idea was quite popular among the public and appealed to their nationalistic/ empire building instincts. But it is an unhelpful and misleading diversion for the immediate problems we face. I feel that it contributed to the publics feeling that we… Read more »
Ireland is/was a show-case for the power development of Europe. The show is over with the first lethal blow: property scam – that started when the new tec. boom burst around 2000 – collapse. We could be seeing the first major implode of capitalism we’ve heard so much about . I think maybe we are, and thought frightened glad to see it. It comes with the collapse of our eco system due to exploitation strange, or synchronistic perhaps. Dar David, I think it’s time to stop thinking what is to again replace the property scam, because you know well what… Read more »
To B,
On the island comment, yes Ireland is an island geographically, but not politically or economically. Your childish insistence on “but we’re an island” is frankly embarrassing. I suppose you’re going to write to Simon & Garfunkel next to point out that in fact we are not “islands in the stream” ?
To Krystof,
For all our sakes I hope you are wrong.
Bob
Bob
Arthur – In terms of numbers and influence the Irish international family is neither shrinking in size or importance – a strong argument could be made for just the opposite. What is always at risk of diminishing and degrading is the connection to the Irish identity held by millions worldwide. Right now, it’s a fairly healthy connection but the thrust of David’s works, I think, is that Ireland needs to start working at the relationship it has with its extended family in new and creative ways. It’s not really an academic idea – power and strength come from numbers. We… Read more »
The net result is we voted against something that all our political parties (except the shinners and the lunatic/vegan fringe in the greens) recommended. In fact, I almost voted no due to the incompetence of the Yes side in refusing to tell it like it is…. but in the end I voted Yes due to the politicians on the No side telling outright lies!!! …………a damming indictment of a campaign if ever there was one. What I found unsettling was the surprise at the No vote, practically everyone I knew was voting no; it seems like the disconnect with the… Read more »
Guys, unless we understand our limits and constraints and the extent of what we can and have achieved, we are on a hiding to nothing. The French and Germans etc are right to be condescending. We should be mature enough to hear the real message and do something about it and stop being so indignant. We are a bunch of jumped up noisy scroungers and the fact that most of us continue to vote the the crowd that’s in power proves it. QED! We still think and act like islanders and are to a large extent dominated by the parochialism… Read more »
Deco
If you investigate the matter I think you will find that the (Dublin) media are for the most part from rural Ireland. For instance, just look at the line up of Newstalk 106 hosts, the journalists in the mainstream newspapers and most prominantly RTE. Dubs are as rare as a Minister at Lisbon Final Count.
Regards
Rob
This quoted article to follow sums it up for me……The Sunday Business Post June 15 2008. Around 300 fishing boat owners, skippers and crew members met in Athlone yesterday to decide their response to last Friday’s nine-hour meetings between the Federation of irish fishermen and two minters about concern over rising fuel price. After the meeting agriculture and fisheries minister Brendan Smith and junior minister Tony Killen announced they would meet the EU fisheries commissioner Jo Borg in Brussels on wednesday to look for an immediate aid package for irish fishing industry. (talk about not biting the hand that feeds… Read more »
Phillip
It’s an interesting idea, but do you really think that Ireland can take on Switzerland as the land of commercial and political neutrality? Ireland has a strongly US flavour, possibly because of the huge Irish lobby in the US, Switzerland merrily stashes Nazi gold and says “it’s just business”.
One possible alternative is to take over the British role as the 51st US state, it means having to put up with a lot of unadulterated nonsense, but it’s a role that has benefits, so they say.
Philip, agree 100% that “unless we understand our limits and constraints and the extent of what we can and have achieved, we are on a hiding to nothing”…. The rest of what you’re saying is thought provoking. I guess it depends on whether you see technology/innovation providing another quantum leap or whether old style resource constraints will catch up with us. Either way, things will change, so the “If in doubt, Vote No” should have been ruthlessly exposed as the BS that it is. I hope Krystof is wrong. But maybe he should have a quick look at limits and… Read more »
Philip, “We should focus on building integrity over making money as the route for our progress to make this a reality” – the recent events, whether we like them or not, to many in Europe and the ROW demonstrate the fickle nature of any Irish alliance, this alone will scupper your idea of building integrity from the get-go. There are states with the same population/demographic as ours that punch way above their weight but for differing reasons – I agree we need to assess what we can achieve but we also need to decide on what we focus on. This… Read more »
“Today, Ireland faces a threat to our prosperity and we need a similar war cabinet, staffed by our smartest people.” Sounds good, Dave, but in practice this sort of thing degrades into professional politicians who know nothing about any practical subject listening to the advice of professional consultants whose “education” has been so specialised as to be little more than worthless. The crisis is the result of artificially low interest rates instituted by the ECB and the FED which for all practical purposes resulted in the replacement by speculation of what might have been investment in a less manipulated economy.… Read more »
Diogenes, The effect of the futures market on the price of oil is completely overstated. As you have mentioned yourself the speculators on the futures market can not take delivery of oil. They sell their options to some one who can take delivery prior to the agreed delivery date. Therefore speculators can only affect the short term price of oil. They can’t increase the use of oil in the world, but their actions make it more likely that there will be a large correction to the price of oil in the medium term. I wouldn’t get too carried away with… Read more »
Dear Friends Some do hope I am wrong or I do not understand where long term interests of EU nations as Ireland is. In 1987 I have written an essay what will happen in Germany if top Western political leaders, including British Queen will praise and celebrate, as they did, Adolph Hitler false invention of ‘German capital Berlin birthday’. Remember at that time Iron Curtain was firmly in place and no one expected it would fall down in near future. However no journal in UK and US I approached was prepare to publish it telling me that Germany has change… Read more »
A note on integrity and Lisbon Treaty Although I was a YES voter, I think it would be a very bad idea to try change our minds as a nation. It would damage our image irreparably. The die is cast and the crys and whimpering going on at the moment should not distract from the fact that we are now in the limelight . The next steps are crucial over the next 4-6 weeks (about the life span of a fad). Cowen has a real opportunity to do something very interesting and creative. If GAZPROM are anticipating 250 USD to… Read more »
Although the initial reaction, according to Micheal Martin is sympathetic, the sentiment of the EU leaders will come home more through their actions. There are mechanisms by which a sub-group of the 27 can move forward. Entering into this type of arrangement, to me, is the worst case scenario for us, i.e., we don’t care about your NO vote, its your problem. The best case is re-negotiation which I don’t think is likely, at least not on all the topics. The problem however, is that the NO campaign, and in particular Libertas, took a “stop this at all costs” approach… Read more »
The idea of an economic ‘war council’ of business experts is a very good one David. However, how can we ensure that these experts wouldn’t use that opportunity to become the new vested interests, the same kind of vested interests that drove the planning and construction debacle that has the economy where it is today? How do you determine the purity of a businessman’s patriotism?
Business patriotism is a bit of a dreamy idea. What you’re talking about is really political patriotism. Business can’t be business if it has to take into consideration the percentage of people on the margins of society who do not qualify/benefit from the “trickle down effect.” In this country Finland (as you mentioned) business has been advising government in finance, and after twenty years – give or take – you can see the degeneration in society. Finns (ordinary people) who were at one time a pillar of honesty, exemplary, are cheating at every given chance to stay afloat. Free education,… Read more »
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