Cuffe rails against no campaign’s ‘neocons and Trotskyites’
Mr Cuffe was speaking at a press conference with his party colleagues, Energy Minister Eamon Ryan and Senator Deirdre de Burca, in which they outlined their belief that the treaty would prove beneficial for the environment.
They were joined at the conference by broadcaster Duncan Stewart, who made a passionate plea for voters to support the treaty and attacked Libertas, one of the groups campaigning for a no vote.
“Issues concerning climate change are by far the biggest challenge facing all of civilisation, and Europe is the driving force behind [major environmental] initiatives,” Mr Stewart said.
“Libertas in my view is… a very right-wing, American-backed neo-con organisation, and it is very clear to me that their agenda is to undermine the EU and our future, and they have absolutely no interest in the environment or tackling the issues of climate change, and we cannot be misguided by misinformation… because our future, and our children’s future, is at stake with this whole issue.”
Mr Cuffe, for his part, repeated the claim that Libertas had a “neo-con” agenda, and said: “I’m increasingly annoyed that a bunch of neo-cons, Trotskyites and Spuc-ers have been dominating the airwaves over the last few weeks, and I think that it is important that we have a mature, level-headed debate about the issues, and I don’t believe that is happening at the moment.”
“Neocon”, an abbreviation of neo-conservative, is a reference to the aggressive right-wing US political school of thought which has deeply influenced George Bush’s administration.
“Spuc-er” is a reference to supporters of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children and the prominent pro-life campaign calling for a no vote.
With “Trotskyites”, it’s believed Mr Cuffe was referring to some of the socialists in the no camp.
Meanwhile, Labour MEP Proinsias de Rossa warned it would not be possible to get a better deal for workers if the public rejected the treaty.
“When we started this process in 2001, there were 11 social democratic governments out of 15 member states,” he said.
“There are now 17 centre-right governments out of 27 [since the accession of new member states].
“It is entirely politically naive to argue that you can reject Lisbon and get a better deal for working people out of a completely changed political scenario. It’s not possible."
