Anti-immigration group urges ‘No’ vote over border fears

AN ANTI-IMMIGRATION group is urging a No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum on the grounds that it will lessen the country’s controls over its own borders.

The Immigration Control Platform claims the treaty, which will make the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding for all member states, is too broad in scope and lacking in opt-out clauses.

“We see this as a blank cheque and it goes without saying that anyone who would sign a blank cheque would be a very foolish person,” said spokeswoman Áine Ní Chonaill.

The group has fielded candidates in the last two general elections without success and Ms Ni Chonaill yesterday declined to say how many members the group had, but she said it spoke for a large proportion of the public whose concerns about immigration were being ignored by the main political parties.

She quoted numerous legal experts who had interpreted the Charter of Fundamental Rights as potentially forcing member states to give asylum seekers the right to work, to accept overflow asylum seekers from overburdened member states, and to limit deportations.

While successive governments had been lax about immigration control, she said, there would come a time when they wanted to impose restrictions and would find they no longer had the powers to do so.

“It is not the short-term or even medium-term likelihood, but I am saying to you: because there is no opt-out clause, you are signing up to this for all time. You don’t know what’s out there or how things change. The EU has talked recently about environmental change and the possibility down the line of environmental refugees.”

The referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is scheduled for the second week in June. Information is available from the Government’s website, www.reformtreaty.ie and the independent Forum on Europe website, www.forumoneurope.ie.

The statutory Referendum Commission, www.refcom.ie, will also be publishing for and against arguments in the coming weeks.