Gilmore: Lisbon yes side winning

By Paul O’Brien, Political Correspondent

Monday, September 07, 2009

LABOUR leader Eamon Gilmore is refusing to accept the yes side is losing in the Lisbon treaty campaign.

A new poll last week showed the size of the yes campaign’s lead was slipping.

Whereas the yes side led by 26 points in June, the margin has now slipped to 17 points.

This resembled the situation in the first Lisbon referendum last year, when the yes side held a comfortable lead for months but was overtaken in the final week of the campaign.

But Mr Gilmore rejected suggestions the yes side was headed for another defeat. "I don’t accept we’re losing, I think we’re winning."

The "big difference" between this and last year’s campaign, he told RTÉ radio, was there was now a "much greater understanding" about the importance of the treaty to Ireland.

The country’s second largest trade union, Unite, is opposing the treaty because of concerns about workers’ rights. But Mr Gilmore insisted the union was wrong. "The largest union in the country [Siptu] has also come out, and it’s come out in favour," he said. "Unite is wrong."

Meanwhile, former European Parliament president Pat Cox lashed out at the "Irish Ayatollahs and Little Englanders" who were opposing the treaty.

It’s understood Mr Cox was attacking Coir, the staunchly conservative No campaign group which has links to Youth Defence, and the Europhobic British Independence Party which is involving itself in the Irish referendum campaign.

Coir spokesman Richard Greene, meanwhile, defended his group’s claim that the minimum wage could fall to as little as €1.84 if Lisbon was passed – even though the impartial Referendum Commission has made clear that the EU has no powers in this area and cannot affect the minimum wage here.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, September 07, 2009