Lisbon referendum - Government needs to step up campaign

IN just over 40 days — October 2 — we will have the opportunity to vote, for the second time, on the Lisbon Treaty. Yesterday the Vote No to Lisbon group opened its campaign calling for a rejection of the Treaty.

Just six weeks before voting our politicians are scattered to the four winds, hopefully enjoying their holidays because, when the Dáil reopens on September 16, they face unavoidable and deepening challenges.

Though it will only be two weeks before the vital Lisbon vote, the generation-defining NAMA debate is scheduled to take place at that time and the Commission on Taxation’s report will be circulated. Work will continue on the December budget, widely expected to be the toughest in the history of the State.

The cost, even an estimated cost, of NAMA may become clearer just as cuts in public service spending and probably increased taxes are identified. It will be hard to convince workers and those dependent on welfare to embrace sacrifice just as a multi-billion euro package is put together to bail out our reckless bankers.

It might be an overly excited description to call this confluence of events a ticking time bomb but only just.

It is not difficult to describe it as such when you consider Mr Cowen’s precarious Dáil position — he is just one more defection away from defeat. Should he suffer a Dáil defeat before the Lisbon vote it would significantly damage the campaign to have the Treaty ratified. The rejection of the first Lisbon vote was the first calamity of the Cowen premiership and unless he secures a positive vote in October his political career, and maybe those of his closest allies, is over.

Yesterday the Vote No to Lisbon group warned us that we were being “threatened, cajoled and lied to”. If pointing out the obvious — that we will be isolated, second class European citizens if we reject the Treaty for a second time — represents threatening behaviour then let’s have all the threats we can muster. We can endure threats but as our current crisis has proved we cannot survive without the European Central Bank. This may not suit our grand notion of ourselves as a sovereign state but it is the reality.

Mr Cowen and some of his colleagues acknowledged that the first campaign was less than it needed to be yet it is hard to see how the situation has changed.

Our politicians, all of them, have left a void on Lisbon II that is being filled by civil society. Several pro-Europe groups were launched campaigns in July. So, instead of hearing the arguments from Brian Cowen, Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore and John Gormley, Nell McCafferty, Bill Cullen and The Edge have taken up the baton. The really frightening thing about this is that if Lisbon is rejected again Mr Cowen and his colleagues will express surprise and contrition. Not only that but they will expect sympathy and blame everyone but themselves.

Even at this late stage the Government parties and those who support them on this must step up to the plate and show the leadership needed to get Lisbon ratified. If they cannot do that how can we believe they are capable of resolving other, far greater difficulties?