The Lisbon Treaty - Rejection opens door to unknown

HOW’S that for a humiliating, demeaning and irrefutable kick in the transom? No matter how the spin doctors try to dress it up with talk of immediate reviews and extensive analysis, it was a bloodbath.

Just like Custer taking the field at Little Big Horn, it never occurred to our Government that things could go so very, very wrong, so terribly wrong for their yes campaign. It was a dart in the eye to Ireland’s great and good who thought that their endorsement was all that was needed to carry the day.

The very great and good who thought that a bit of the usual cajoling and that old reliable — the tribal call to arms — would counterbalance the great democratic deficit; the great confusion and distrust in which the yes campaign drowned. Confusion about converging armies, confusion about independence on taxation, confusion about representation and confusion about legislation to protect workers’ rights.