Labour turning its back on neutrality, says Gormley

THE Labour Party is turning its back on neutrality and deserting public service workers by backing the Nice Treaty, the Green Party said yesterday.

In a hard-hitting attack, Green Party president John Gormley said Labour had aligned itself with Fianna Fáil with its stance on the Nice Referendum.

“Labour’s softly, softly policy towards the Coalition Government on Nice exposes their total lack of any visionary radical agenda,” he said.

“Because of this stance, Labour’s slow electoral decline is guaranteed even under a new leadership. Leadership is not their problem, the lack of a radical policy is.”

Meanwhile, Republican Sinn Féin (RSF), which launched its No campaign yesterday, said budget cutbacks could result in the rejection of the treaty.

RSF president Ruairí Ó Brádaigh said voters on the ground had lost trust in the

Government and they would pay on referendum day: “The people of the 26 counties shouted stop to the ever tightening EU grip when they voted down the Nice Treaty. Yet this decisive rejection has been ignored by the politicians.”

Republican Sinn Féin says a Yes vote will lead to greater EU militarisation, loss of sovereignty and increased domination by the larger member states.

Also yesterday, European Affairs Minister Dick Roche accused No campaigners of playing the race card by suggesting country will be flooded by immigrants if the treaty is passed.

Post-Nice, all 15 member states can continue to apply their own national policy on free movement of workers from the applicant states for two years, the Minister said.

After that time, individual countries can opt to continue applying the measures for a further three years and following that an application can be made for a further two years, he said.

“It is simply untruthful, a distortion of the facts and a deliberate attempt to mislead the Irish people for the Emigration Control Platform, the National Platform and Justin Barrett of the NO to Nice Campaign to suggest, as has been done over the last few months, that Ireland is somehow unique in this matter,” he said.