Why vote? Tories aim to scupper treaty

SO our half-Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche is in action again.

He tells the German Council on Foreign Relations we have learned our lesson and will be good little children in future and that the Lisbon Treaty will be passed this time.

His assurances are such that “senior MEPs” are going ahead with a series of votes on the implementation of Lisbon even before we have been forced to vote again. Such respect for democracy. And such is the view of us from within the trough where the mandarins feed.

Please ascertain our semi-minister’s response to an interview in The Times of London on April 29 in which William Hague, shadow foreign secretary – and almost certainly Britain’s next foreign secretary – stated clearly “the next Tory government would kill the Lisbon Treaty and halt the latest process of European integration”.

And this “even if the treaty had been ratified” by the time they take power (at the latest by May next year).

As the Tories look certain to win and carry out this plan, could our European affairs mini-minister explain why we should have to vote again on this issue? Won’t it be a waste of time and scarce money? Why not, for once, accept the free democratic decision,already given, of the Irish people?

Richard Murphy

High Town

Coralstown

Mullingar

Co Westmeath