By forcing the Irish people to vote again on Nice after they havealready voted No, the rich elite are telling them they can only vote Yes,maintains Roger Cole.
'Its showtime' was the phrase used to launch the Fianna Fáil general election campaign earlier this year by P.J. Mara, the party's director of elections. It reflected the inability of Fianna Fáil to separate reality from entertainment. P.J. . Mara and the party are incapable of distinguishing a Scrap Saturday script from the real world.
Bertie Ahern appointed Liam Lawlor to the Dáil ethics committee; Ray Burke was made Minister of Foreign Affairs and most recently P.J. Mara was appointed the director of the Fianna Fáil Yes to Nice campaign. At some stage the people are going to wonder about Bertie's judgment.
He told the people in the 1990s that it would be fundamentally "undemocratic" to join NATO's PfP without a referendum. He was elected Taoiseach and Ireland joined NATO's PfP without a referendum.
He fought this year's election on promises there would be no cutbacks. He got elected and there have been nothing but cutbacks with more promised. At some stage the Irish people are going to wonder about his ability to tell the truth.
So when Bertie Ahern decides to force the Irish people to vote again on exactly the same treaty they rejected a little over a year ago, at some stage in the next few weeks, the Irish people are going to wonder about his commitment to Irish democracy.
By forcing the Irish people to vote again on the Nice Treaty, the people are being told that they can only vote if they vote Yes. Irish democracy is based on the right to vote Yes or No. That right is now been taken away.
The Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat government is the party of the rich. In the last five budgets, the richest 10 per cent of the Irish people received 25 per cent of the budget giveaways and the poorest 10 per cent received under 5 per cent.
Together with the rich and powerful, Fianna Fáil is spending massive amounts of money they hope will intimidate the people into reversing their original democratic decision.
The problem for the rich elite is that their party has a credibility problem. Being "economical with the truth" is about the only core value left to Fianna Fáil, so when it threatens and bullies, promising a doomsday economic scenario, apart from their diehards, nobody believes a word it says.
In fact, the Danish elite attempted the same bully-boy tactics in their referendum on whether Denmark should join the euro. The Danish people, like the Irish today, were threatened with economic disaster if they voted No. Despite all money and intimidation, the Danish people voted No. Denmark has not been covered over by the North Sea and its economy is doing fine. In short, all the dire warnings of the elite turned out to be lies.
And it will be no different if we vote No on October 19th. While some multinational corporations seeking cheap labour might like to invest into a country where the people have been crushed into submission, others would consider that a people who voted No to defend their independence, their democracy and their neutrality are also the kind of people who are creative, independently minded and capable of real wealth-creation.
Forelock-touching gombeen men just is not up to it. While all the people living in Kingstown will vote Yes, all the people living in Dún Laoghaire will vote No.
The Peace And Neutrality Alliance campaigned against the Nice Treaty because we opposed the militarisation of the EU through the creation of the European army known as the European Rapid Reaction Force.
PANA had meetings with the ambassadors of most of the applicant states to assure them that we had no problem with enlargement providing it was done in an open and democratic manner.
However, having had the experience of being part of a militarised union, the British union, we do not believe that the Irish people shared the enthusiasm of the Irish elite for Irish soldiers to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with members, for example, of the British Paratroop regiment in "peacekeeping" military operations.
PANA seeks a legally binding protocol, similar that already achieved by the Danes, which would exclude Ireland from paying for, or involvement with the Rapid Reaction Force.
The recent military exercises by the Army here suggest that there will be no difference between "peacemaking" and "war-making". The military hardware to be used by the ERRF includes F16 warplanes, military helicopters, nuclear aircraft carriers etc. So when the government says the ERRF is concerned with helping people with earthquakes, it is just maintaining its core value.
When it says the Seville declaration protects Irish neutrality while allowing Shannon to be used as a military air force base, it is just maintaining its core value. The only absolutely sure way the Irish people can defend their neutrality is to vote No so that a new treaty can be negotiated to include a protocol to exclude Ireland from involvement with the EU army, the ERRF.
The Irish people voted No to Nice last year for a variety of reasons and not just because they opposed the militarisation of the EU and the destruction of our neutrality.
While PANA does not claim to know why they voted No, maybe it was because they knew none of the other people in the states of the EU were to be given a chance to vote, maybe because they did not agree with Ireland losing its right to appoint a Commissioner.
Maybe it was because enhanced co-operation will give the right to some countries, using EU institutions, to make agreements to increase integration even if the others do not agree. Maybe it is because they know Nice was no legally necessary for enlargement. Maybe they just don't like Empires.
Whatever the reason they voted No. Thus the real issue now is Irish democracy. The people voted No. Either they are sovereign or they are not.
The only real question is do the Irish people still believe all power derives from them or does all power derive from IBEC and the rest of the rich elite? If they decide that they are still a sovereign people the elite are in for a hell of a shock on the October 19th. Roll on the day.
Roger Cole is chair of the Peace And Neutrality Alliance, a member of the Labour Party and a resident of Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin