In truth, the treaty is so gargantuan and garbled that no sane person would undertake to read it, never mind understand it. Its size and lack of plain English is a fundamental flaw that cannot be overcome unless it is changed – Matt Cooper
It hasn’t gone away, you know. The Lisbon Treaty, just like a bad smell, continues to linger in public discourse prompted by ministerial comment and government sponsored surveys. Earth shattering news it most definitely is not to learn from the media that the EU is expecting the Irish government to buckle and hold another referendum in 2009.
In Gramscian terms it looks like the Dublin political class is reconnoitring the commanding heights in a war of position before manoeuvring to shaft the electorate and give the middle finger to democratic sentiment. Matt Cooper in the latest issue of the Sunday Times alerts his readers to a government belief that in order to reverse the defeat it suffered in the referendum, it need only win over one quarter of those who voted ‘no’ on the basis that they did not understand the treaty last time around.
True the government is Tower of Babel-like in its reconstruction of a shattered European strategy, evidenced from the public variance between the positions of Taoiseach Cowen and Foreign Affairs Minister Martin. But there is a sneaking suspicion that the real intent is to be found in the position of European Affairs Minister Dick Roche when three weeks ago he informed the public of his private view that another referendum is the way to go in tackling the thorny issue of the rejected Lisbon Treaty.
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