Last weekend, Jim O’Hara, the no-nonsense boss of Intel in Ireland, suggested to me that one way to think about the Lisbon vote was through the prism of Monty Python’s brilliant “what have the Romans ever done for us?” sketch.
In The Life of Brian, the army council of the People’s Front of Judea are sitting in a dingy room planning to kidnap Pilate’s wife. John Cleese, the chief freedom fighter, asks rhetorically, in an effort to inspire his troops ahead of the future dastardly acts: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” Hilariously, the assembled would-be assassins reply: “‘Well . . . there’s the aqueduct, the sanitation, the roads, the public baths, education . . .” And so on, and so on.
When we think of the Lisbon Treaty, sometimes it serves to focus the mind if we pose the same question: “what have the Europeans ever done for us’’. This is particularly pertinent when we hear about the threat of a European army and the like.
Certain elements of the No campaign are trying to paint the EU as a threatening empire that is intent on taking away our freedom. Similarly, some on the Yes side are implying that the EU, and the EU alone, has been responsible for all our economic progress in the past 25 years.
Neither of these arguments is entirely accurate – there was a lot more going on economically than was the case in the EU.
All the poor EU countries did not grow at the rate we did because there are unique domestic factors, as well as other significant ones, at play.
The No side has put forward arguments which serve to paint the EU as some kind of ogre. We’ve seen images of the foetus and Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, as well as fallacious arguments about the minimum wage in a political union whose DNA is ‘left of centre’ and where workers’ rights and union membership are a given.
So neither side is being accurate, but that’s the nature of referendums. Such is the opinion of the government that a prominent member of the Yes campaign told me that they were thinking of running a poster which simply stated: ‘Vote Yes now, get the government later’. What do you think of that one?
Let’s go back to the People’s Liberation Front of Judea and ask: what have the Europeans ever done for us?
Well, there’s the money, the roads, the schools, the labour legislation, the free trade area, the opportunities, the “gateway to Europe’’ argument which served us well when we were trying to host multinationals, the farm subsidies . . . and so on, and so on. It’s impossible to deny that the balance sheet has been stacked in our favour, and if the EU is now trying to tinker with its structure (which, after 40 years, has outgrown its usefulness),why shouldn’t it?
If we take the tinkering analogy a bit further, it strikes me that the EU is getting the builders in with the Lisbon Treaty. It is fixing the plumbing to make the house operate better. This is stressful. Surveys suggest that doing up the house is one of the most stressful things you can do. So the fear over the Lisbon Treaty is like the natural anxiety we have the night before the builders come to knock down the old bathroom and put in a new one. What will it look like? How much hassle will it be?
Will there be dust everywhere? These are the kinds of questions we ask ourselves.
Does the house need new plumbing and, if it does, what will happen to the old way of doing things? I was just getting fond of the old immersion when we’ve decided to rip it out. Weren’t you?
If we can see beyond the pain of the builders, we should try to see what the house will look like. Sometimes, with renovations, the most lasting impressions are none at all. After a day or two, the place feels the same; once the smell of paint evaporates, it feels as if the extension or the new plumbing has always been there.
When we stand back, the impact of a Yes vote in Lisbon will be the same. We will continue. The slow progression of the EU- and Ireland’s membership of it – does appear to be in our best interests. It is now part of what we have become politically. It appears logical to continue down this road because, socially, the EU has been at the vanguard of moving legislation in a more open and tolerant direction in the past few decades.
Economically, it is a plus to be a member of a huge entity. (Although there are some serious reservations about being in a currency union when our main trading partners, Britain and the US, are not. If you doubt this, just ask yourself why are our shoppers voting with their feet in the North?) The issue of the currency is a separate one. You can still be a full member of the EU without adopting the euro – just like Denmark, Sweden, Britain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the three Baltic republics.
Maybe the Yes campaign shouldn’t overplay it. For example, it is hard to buy the ‘heart of Europe’ description of a small island at the edge of the Atlantic. We are not geographically or politically at the heart of Europe and, financially, we are very much out on the limb of Europe. But we are part of the EU and that is, from a strategic point of view on how we position the country, the best option.
So, on balance, I believe that we should just get on with it. I wish the arguments were stronger, but they are not. If we vote Yes, we continue along the path we have been on for the last 40 years. But none of the problems go away. We still have to sort out the banks (this column favours letting them go bust and starting again), and get the economy moving by taking little positive steps, rather than waiting for the big bang that will save us.
More than any other time in recent history, we have to sort out our own mess.
The EU will neither accelerate nor decelerate this process. It is up to each one of us to do something positive. The Lisbon Treaty should be passed, even if only for the simple fact that it is now a distraction to the real business of getting people back to work. Let’s just vote Yes – and then go for it.
Transparency : It is clear to me that this article is obviously written by a D4 resident and with that mindset only.So on this fine line on the sand in Dalkey I part from . The Treaty of Lisbon 2 will be a broken promise to be followed by a new wave of Plantation just as exactly happened when the Treaty of Limerick was broken and all the best in Ireland left and resided abroad.Both treaties devised by D4 redidents .Our vulnerability is raw now and will be after the referendum but a No vote does not deny us our… Read more »
Good luck to you all, I’m staying right out of this one.
Me too. Sub.
Oh dear. Lock up your sturdy children, the Illuminati are coming to ravish your happy maidens and to overrun your homesteads. Our dignity, land and resources have been subjugated by decades of negligent, corrupt and incompetent government which the wise people of this Fair Isle have seen fit to reelect year after year. Europe has and will continue to be a mostly positive influence on this State. I wish the same could be said for the real conspirators in this drama.
The Lisbon treaty is about the future of the EU, not it’s past.
We are under no obligation to vote yes to a coup d’etat by a bunch of bureaucrats.
Europe has being good for Ireland – it’s being good for me. I got a 3rd level qualification thanks to Europe. I am grateful. I would be picking spuds now if it was not for Europe – instead I’m a professional with a good job. The EURO has being a disaster for Ireland. The UK is surviving the recession better because Sterling loses value and people keep their jobs. The problem with Europe now is that the agenda is being set by big business. It’s not quality of live that’s important, it’s money. Lisbon will make it easier for big… Read more »
Quote: “We still have to sort out the banks (this column favours letting them go bust and starting again), and get the economy moving by taking little positive steps, rather than waiting for the big bang that will save us. More than any other time in recent history, we have to sort out our own mess. The EU will neither accelerate nor decelerate this process.” Unfortunately the EU will decelerate the process of recovery. Where do you think the money for NAMA will come from? Not from any sane private investors, but from the ECB. It’s the same borrowing of… Read more »
The Treaty of Lisbon is a political document. Therefore it derves to be analyzed as a political document. Unfortunately (once again), this has not happened-except at the margins of the debate. In effect, the debate has completely malfunctioned. In fact the debate is of a lower quality than before – with all sorts of nonsense entering the debate. In fact it has descended into a complete farce. It has been one continual insult to the electorate. It seems to me that the debate has never really occurred. Instead we get a continual series of hard sell efforts. We have in… Read more »
Sorry – an important correction – “It is in effect a massive straightjacket for five hundred million people. “. I should add – and most of them are never to be consented on the matter. Instead politicians, most of whom have read the Treaty will do the consenting for all for them. The Dail consented to taking over Anglo Irish Bank, and that would never have received the consent of the people either. And we know who would have been the wisest means of making that decision. Of course the EU Commission backed the Dail in it’s actions all of… Read more »
And here was I thinking David was one of us. On the yes vote argument, David is asking us to employ the “carrot and stick” method of doing things, as in… Hell we’re in the shit anyway, what have we got to lose, vote yes to make them happy and maybe they’ll throw us a few crumbs from the banqueting table, something good might come out of it for us in the long run. Thats how they get their policies adopted. One british politician recently said catastrophies were ideal opportunities to release bad news or to get unpopular policies through.… Read more »
David, you end article on “lets just vote yes and then go for it.” Oh dear. MMmm, So, you want Lisbon ‘cos, ‘we should just get on with it, cos, on balance EU in your viewpoint has been at the vanguard moving legislation in a more open and tolerant direction’, and, ‘lisbon is really just plumbing fixtures’ much needed for our house. OK, i go back too your appearance on ‘late, late show’ and ryan turbidy’s remark on the farmleigh week end out and how it’s all a bit “airy fairy” the whole idea, that, culture, will put Ireland ‘back… Read more »
This is shock doctrine in action. Perceived financial survival drives the debate. If you think being outside the pale being cheesed off with Leinster House is bad, wait until you get a load of the Brussels inefficiencies. Ireland will find its real place in the queue in the next few years and only the informed (a la D4) will be the only beneficiaries and thro’ their merciful intercessions, you may benefit as well. And why? It’s very simple – bigger bureacracies just are more inefficient. 27 countries all milling around?! So you outsource the lot to a big corporate like… Read more »
Hi David, I sense your “Yes” is half-hearted at best. The thing about Lisbon-II is that it is being portrayed as the “only game in town”. Now where did we hear that one before???? There are many untruths being told by both ‘sides’. Those that claim that being a part of EU and we should continue in it is a reason to vote Yes are being completely disingenuous. And who is saying that only our most senior “representative”, An Taoiseach! Lisbon II is not a referedum on whether we want to be in Europe or not? The latter is clearly… Read more »
Afternoon all,
Yes you are probably right the article reveals a half-heated and weary “yes”. My problem is I don’t believe either side and therefore have concluded that I will vote as I’ve done on all EU referendums which has always been pro-European, possibly on the basis that I’m not much enamored with the various wagons in the No camp. David
Amazing! This has to be a new low for David. A discussion of the Lisbon treaty which discusses nothing to do with the treaty and compares Ireland to the protagonists of Monty Python. In fact the only reason to vote yes seems to be money. Where does it stop? If someone were to offer us money to kill someone would we vote yes (taken to the extreme)? David does not seem to be aware that we are also Europeans being in the same continental plate. What have we done for ourselves as Europeans? Where do we want the EC to… Read more »
David Mc Williams – your words are a welcome . I am not enamoured by what I see in the ‘No’ camp either and I am happy to vote ‘No’ still ..Should there be a ‘No’ victory this does not eliminate the parties of FF FG Lab etc and all the elected politicians and either way Irish Politicians will know how to fight to represent their people and the same ‘free people’ after a ‘No’ vote will know and will receive a better political value in return instead. We must not confuse ‘the raw accounting and financial mess ‘ with… Read more »
David, If you look into how the EU is run, the MEPs are puppets. Can you tell me exactly what a councillor does in the EU parliament? Why is the Lisbon treaty written in a language nobody understands other than specialised lawyers? In article 52, the treaty allows the previous articles to be over ruled. Muslims will be allowed to sexually touch girls, without vaginal penetration and this will be legal in the eyes of EU law. The death penalty will be brought back, the EU will be split up into military regions for some strange reason. Want more reasons… Read more »
David, that was a disappointing article devoid of true analysis and objectivity, gut feeling doesn’t cut it for me. I understand your sentiment but you smudged the article towards the yes side. I voted NO and will do so again. Why? I have never been given a reason to Vote Yes that wasn’t hypothetical scaremongering. This treaty is nothing but an endorsement of the corrupt politics of Fianna fail the banking system and state run media. The ECB has got this system on a lifeline until we vote yes. That is more than enough reason for me to Vote NO… Read more »
Nail on the head my son, nail on the head!!
David, I have to agree with fellow bloggers here regarding this article. Sure looking at it from one angle we are shooting ourselves in the foot as without the E.C. our still unfinished road network would not be here along with the other benefits we have gained from membership. But voting yes just to appease the ECB is a bad move also. Maybe by voting no and pissing off the body politic we will have the IMF in here sooner and then we can begin sorting out the mess F.F. have gotten us into. Our saving grace at the moment… Read more »
We should just get on with it?
The basis for making international agreements that will effect how this country and the entire European Union is run, is that what the corporates recommend?
David you have lost all perspective, you seemed to be writing popular material for a while, but have slipped back into D4 land………
This article has finished it for me, your positions are clear, they are not good ones so adios!
The Irish should fix their own broken political and governance systems before lecturing other Europeans. Besides that home truth it’s good that the end of the once perennial threat and often the reality of war can be banked and people who have security of employment or income can afford to quibble about the Lisbon Treaty from their armchairs – – in my opinion, it’s a very selfish attitude. Ireland remains a very conservative country with British structures largely intact including the Victorian culture of secrecy. A week hardly goes by without another example of the buck stops nowhere system: if… Read more »
Does anyone know what would happen if the Referendum is passed on Friday and somewhere down the line all the worst fears of the No campaign come to pass and Ireland decides to abrogate the treaty. Could we do this? Would we be free to leave or would they send in the European Army to sort us out. No kidding, I’m curios at this prospect.
Lisbon ? i thought it was about builders ? That was a really bad half assed article .
MK1
Hello, Sir.
I agree with you on this. I have nothing to add to what you have written. You have said all that needs to be said.
I will not waste people’s’ time by re-stating.
Read what MK1 said, folks; then make your own mind up.
wills, that is the best that I can do: I agree with MK1 on this.
I cannot claim to express my opinion in a better fashion than that.
Goto.
It takes great care, time, understanding, and attention to manage your finances wisely and effectively. If you neglect your finances, you will see the consequences of that neglect and the resulting negative impact on your life. Don t let your finances get to that point. Get out of your It takes great care, time, understanding, and attention to manage your finances wisely and effectively. If you neglect your finances, you will see the consequences of that neglect and the resulting negative impact on your life. Break free from your Financial Mess from a book that helped me called Financial Purity… Read more »
I urge everyone to watch the film “the soviet story”.
Let us be brave again, let’s not buckle to pressure or guilt. Prove Yeats wrong about romantic Ireland and let a new era of Saints and Scholers shine.
Remember we saved Europa once before, we’ll always be her spiritual heart.
“Fág an bealach”
Eirinn go brath!!!
Folks, It is difficult to remain awake;
to stay alert;
We MUST remain so.
We have to challenge everything that is thrown at us.
There are people trying to wear us down. We must keep going.
Let’s keep at it!
Count Down – Already we are experiencing increased visual Collective Deception and Corporate Bullying by Irish journalist, professional associations ,Ryanair, and desperate politicians eager to restrain the Electorate ‘to think’. This is a national class act shackling every Irish Ankle they come close to within their propaganda roar including their employment . Soon Irish Freedom will be LOST and in a manner that happened without resistant that only can be described as a ‘coupe deceit a l’Irlandaise’. This confusion among the electorate will certainly secure a yes vote win . So what happens next ?The Financial Mess has not gone… Read more »
sorry for a few mis spelt words – never checked
If we vote Yes, we continue along the path we have been on for the last 40 years. ————————————————– (((Comment quote: ”a #No vote allows us to walk tall in our country and not to feel as a foreigner in our own country.” Great!))) ———————————- STAND UP to the business clique who put us where we are in the first place. Don’t be bullied! …. Or talked into it all over again. You know what has happened; see it for what it is for goodness sake,and say No No No No No No No No No No No No!!!!!!!! That… Read more »
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
http://www.oneworldscam.com/obama_deception/watch.php
This is who is really in control.
Voted no the last time, even voted for Joe Higgins in the European elections, but can’t bring myself to vote no this time. Ireland is back to being the beggar of the eu again. And as any good beggar knows, you don’t make waves, you just sit down, keep quiet and hope some better-governed eu member will drop a few pence into the begging bowl, “for the nurses & teaches, you see”. You never know, we might get the odd warm cup of tea sometime.
(just for email follow-up
On NAMA, this link provides evidence the banks are returning to casino capitalism, this time though in the full knowledge they will always be bailed out forevermore.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/28/derivatives-bailed-out-ba_n_300420.html
Why do we need these banks? Lets get rid of all of them and start from scratch, just the same as the US needs to abolish the federal reserve. That way we won’t be in debt and inflation won’t exist. Also, if need be get out of the EMU, devalue our currency again.
Lisbon simply does not reflect the the scale at which business is conducted. Scale has alarmingly grown as a result of the leveraging effects of new methods and technologies. Scale has made many of the laws for engagement irrelevant and naively our business leaders believe they are being clever. Technology allows locally decontextualised laws to prevail to the detriment of the populations (e.g. outsourcing to places which are cheaper becasue in the end…the remote laws allow it). There is a looney belief the world is an endless resource as a result of boundless human invention. Plausable idea if time is… Read more »
I’m voting “NO” in the Lisbon treaty because I’m proud to be Irish and I’m proud to have a country that I can call home and it also makes sense.
Czech senators opposed to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty have filed a new complaint against it with the country’s constitutional court.
Say No.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8281098.stm
Folks, I am going to watch this now:
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2009/09/28/david-tommy-on-the-hour
Just spotted the link from a tweet by DMcW.
Titanic Moment Arrives at a Ryanair Terminal Near U:
‘Yes’ Vote is liken to the moment immediately before it sunk , the Stern ( front ) rose high before it fell forever.
‘No’ Vote is liken to the moment immediately before it sunk those in the life boats were saved.
Can I just remind anyone who is undecided about Lisbon II of the EU’s reaction to Lisbon I : Which was “How dare you!” Europe suffers a marked Democratic defecate & increasing remoteness from the people. No means no, it’s (legally) shoddy in the extreme (& very Irish) to ask for a re-run of the treaty. No one lost a job in France nor in Holland, nor do we think them any less European by voting NON to the EU Constitution, nor did they loose any Foreign Direct Investment… Did any one ask them to vote again? No. They re-wrote… Read more »
Oooooh! DMcW speaking VERY straight truth on that link above:
He calls what the bankers and developers did a “coup d’etat”;
He explains that NAMA is a mechanism to give us the bill for the debts of only 2000 developers, nine of whom used over €70 billion of debt.
I am re-thinking my opinion expressed re some of your views about David on the Late Late that night. If he had said then what he says in this link, he would have detonated a megatonne bomb!
Bloggers
DmcW called it out on NAMA on this show he left a link too yesterday.
The truthbomb went off right under everyones nose., on f’n Aurthurs day, he called it out for what NAMA is, on the link he left in.
Joshua Tree – After the ‘Yes’ vote is into law we can sing ‘what am I looking for’ …because like before, we will have then again morphed into ‘Lepracauns’…only this time we wont be living in a faery bush instead we will be inside a Toxic Bank donating our blood to 2,000 reviving skeletals
Three politicians have been reported missing in the run -up to the Lisbon 2.0 i) Dick Roche ii) Martin Cullen iii) Noel Dempsey. I thought that Dick Roche would have a lot say about this, after all he is the minister responsible for this area, and he was the only member of the Irish government who stayed sober through the entire negotiation process – but Minister Roche is conspicuous by his absence. What is Martin Cullen minister for these days, apart from abusing the Army’s helicopters ? Cullen has said absolutely nothing about the Lisbon Treaty – maybe he has… Read more »
David – concerning the Monty Python sketch – it also possible to say “What did the Brits do for us ? ”
Railways, canals, roads, harbours, lighthouses, Fine Georgian buildings, “Arthur” (originally an English product), the Abbeys of Killkenny, Wellington, various writers etc….
And still we could not wait to get free of them. And we were overrepresented in the British Parlaiment, and Britain was number 1 in the world when we decided that we wanted out. I think it has to do with an appropriate level of authority more than anything else.
David Mc W. really cutting loose on that link vs. The Late Late Show.
Is it possible the Government shafted him after Farmleigh?