New EU poll: info vital for voters

“THE biggest load of sh*te I’ve ever heard;” “The usual suspects” - two of the responses from observers following the launch of the Campaign Against the EU Constitution in Dublin this week.

The latter observation was most definitely correct: the campaign features many of the same people who previously stood against the Nice Treaty, such as the Green Party’s Patricia McKenna, and Andy Storey, a lecturer in the Centre for Development Studies at UCD. As for the first observance, well, that depends on your view of the Constitution itself.

But if the negative comments came as no surprise - given that the launch of the campaign was distinctly underwhelming - there won’t be any such instant dismissals from one quarter: the Government. It remembers well the lessons learned from Nice I, when, to its acute embarrassment, the public rejected the treaty, thereby threatening to block enlargement.