Let the mud slinging begin, who's fault is it that the YES side lost?

PH01

Now that the Treaty has been defeated, at who's door can we lay the blame for the Yes side losing the referendum.

I'll get the ball rolling with...

1. Those personalised Yes Posters:
I reckon the Yes side got it so wrong with those personalised poster. OK, if they kept them to 10% to 20% it would have been alright, but 80% of the Yes posters were some politician looking for re-election next year in the European or local elections. The NO side seemed more focused on message rather than personal advancement.

Zube

Spoiled gobsh!ites who have no clue how good they have it and how much of it they owe to the EU.

mikemac

Not so.
Sinn Fein were the party opposing it and they had plenty of posters with pictures of their politicians too.

They were no different in design to the posters used by FF/LAB/FG

dresden8

Zube wrote: »

Spoiled gobsh!ites who have no clue how good they have it and how much of it they owe to the EU.

You mean we're bought and paid for.

sink

Largely it was the tribunals and the corruption and questionable financial positions of our former leader. It had two effect the first one was it caused a delay in the Yes camp getting under way giving the No camp a running start and the yes camp having to play catch up. Second people lost faith in politicians and did not trust them, amazing they turned to Declan Ganley for guidance and all he spouted was lies. In my opinion it was all down to the tribunals.

seamus

2. Libertas
Unaccountable mud-slinging with blatant lies and misinformation. Complete unwillingness to be transparent and honest.

ShooterSF

Again I loathe this post-vote ignorance as if it was the treaty's divine right to be passed only the yes people messed up. Can you take your f'n blinkers off please.

CrowdedHouse

sink wrote: »

Largely it was the tribunals and the corruption and questionable financial positions of our former leader.

+1 Without a doubt

TelePaul

IMO, Sinn Féin took advantage of the insecurities of those of a certain demographic make-up. For their part, the 'Yes' side seemed incapable of explaining the treaty in terms acceptable to a large number of voters, giving rise to the ridiculous "If you don't know, vote no" mentality.

It's a sorry day for Ireland and a sorry day for Europe. We've really shot outselves in the foot on this one.

Sleepy

Most (though certainly not all) no voters seem to be voting that way due to the lies spread by Libertas...

Sinn Fein probably deserve some of the 'blame' for their pushing of the farcical notion that a 'better deal' can be negotiated if we reject this one.

drunkmonkey

Zube wrote: »

Spoiled gobsh!ites who have no clue how good they have it and how much of it they owe to the EU.

Turn the other cheek and we'll slap that as well..

Loser!!

seamus

ShooterSF wrote: »

Again I loathe this post-vote ignorance as if it was the treaty's divine right to be passed only the yes people messed up. Can you take your f'n blinkers off please.

Anything can be passed, so long as you make a good enough effort to convince people.

So if the vote doesn't go your way, it's an indicator that you didn't make a big enough effort to convince people (or your opponent made a better effort). It's not an indicator that the right decision was made.

Without a crystal ball, there's no such thing as the "right choice", only the choice that you can convince people to make.

force eleven

Personally I blame Jim Corr.....

BlitzKrieg

1.)the government is at fault.

The lisbon treaty was an international treaty between 27 states, hence it was required to leave the vast majority of its policies in vague terms to allow each state to individually approach them on their own terms. The government failed to outline its approach to these issues in the lisbon treaty.

Most prominant being what role they wanted in the areas of security and defence.

We should not and can not rely on the EU to tell us what our place in the treaty is, we should have done that and the government failed to do so.

Also applies to peoples unwarranted fears over abortion and corporate tax, a clear confirmation that the government will veto any attempt to bring them in would have killed those lies being spread by certain groups.

2. Misinformation from certain *no* groups.

In all honesty I had no issue with the Sinn Fein campaign or with a number of independent and international campaigners.

But the Libertas campaign and a number of other groups, poured into the campaign with points that were not only fearmongering but outright lies.

Its one thing to debate what could happen or how a treaty could be abused, but outright lies with no ground in reality should have no place in a referndum and no matter how many times they were debunked here or on television or in the newspapers they kept coming back.

A line should have been drawn at some point. It wasnt that is the fault of eeveryone involved in this campaign both Yes and No.


Those are the 2 points I think caused the end result.

As you can see I felt there was a fault on both sides, so any pathetic mudslinging will be simply ignored.

snickerpuss

The government for not countering all the "There'll be conscription / abortion / euthanasia" / "We won't be allowed to make our own laws / taxes"

vandermeyde

TelePaul wrote: »

It's a sorry day for Ireland and a sorry day for Europe. We've really shot outselves in the foot on this one.

I voted yes and whilst it's disappointing to be on the losing side I don't think its a sorry day at all for this country.

Living in a democratic country and having the opportunity to vote is not something to be sorry about.

If any other country/institution has a problem with the democratic will of the Irish people, fcuk them.

red_ice

Zube wrote: »

Spoiled gobsh!ites who have no clue how good they have it and how much of it they owe to the EU.

You're the gobsh!te for thinking that everyone should do what you want. Idiot.

ShooterSF wrote: »

Again I loathe this post-vote ignorance as if it was the treaty's divine right to be passed only the yes people messed up. Can you take your f'n blinkers off please.

+1

Spook_ie

TelePaul wrote: »

IMO, Sinn Féin took advantage of the insecurities of those of a certain demographic make-up. For their part, the 'Yes' side seemed incapable of explaining the treaty in terms acceptable to a large number of voters, giving rise to the ridiculous "If you don't know, vote no" mentality.

It's a sorry day for Ireland and a sorry day for Europe. We've really shot outselves in the foot on this one.

How can you say that it's a ridiculous notion, the referendum commission itself said that a no vote means things stay the same, until such a time as people understand the ins and outs of the treaty the only sensible vote was a no vote if you didn't know, or would you prefer it that people who didn't understand the treaty were disenfranchised of their voting rights....Democracy pah!

Zube

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Loser!!

I voted for Nice 1 and lost, I voted for divorce in 1986 and lost, I voted against that idiotic abortion amendment in 1983 and lost.

I'm used to it.

TelePaul

Spook_ie wrote: »

How can you say that it's a ridiculous notion, the referendum commission itself said that a no vote means things stay the same, until such a time as people understand the ins and outs of the treaty the only sensible vote was a no vote if you didn't know, or would you prefer it that people who didn't understand the treaty were disenfranchised of their voting rights....Democracy pah!

Living in a democracy incurrs responsibilities as well as rights. Yes, you have the right to vote, but you have a responsibility to educate yourself to the utmost. The Lisbon treaty certainly wasn't the most accessible piece of legislation to come to terms with, but it was by no means impossible to comprehend.

That's why I can say it's a ridiculous notion.

TelePaul

vandermeyde wrote: »

I voted yes and whilst it's disappointing to be on the losing side I don't think its a sorry day at all for this country.

Living in a democratic country and having the opportunity to vote is not something to be sorry about.

If any other country/institution has a problem with the democratic will of the Irish people, fcuk them.

I have no problem with democracy, but I do think that there will come a day where our decision to reject the E.U's proposals will cost us. That's all.

mcquaid2007

maybe now they'll sit up and take notice.....if u treat ur own people like sh*t what do u expect

themont85

mcquaid2007 wrote: »

maybe now they'll sit up and take notice.....if u treat ur own people like sh*t what do u expect

Ye cos thats got lods to do with this treaty if your talking about our Govt. If your on about Europe ye they should sit up and take notice-Forcing our country to have proper Equality Legeslation, CAP, the SEM, Leader plus, EU Structural Funds, ye they should really cop on its given us something:rolleyes:

Spook_ie

TelePaul wrote: »

Living in a democracy incurrs responsibilities as well as rights. Yes, you have the right to vote, but you have a responsibility to educate yourself to the utmost. The Lisbon treaty certainly wasn't the most accessible piece of legislation to come to terms with, but it was by no means impossible to comprehend.

That's why I can say it's a ridiculous notion.

Not so, the job of educating the voting populace was and always will be the job of the referendum commission and political leaders, the referendum commission failed miserably to produce a document that explained in clear and unambiguous terms the YES/NO arguments and the political leadership were conspicuous in their inability to educate people and answer critisms from the No camp.

Given the fact that Brian Cohen hadn't bothered his arse to read the full treaty why on earth would you expect the voters to do so..

seamus

Spook_ie wrote: »

Not so, the job of educating the voting populace was and always will be the job of the referendum commission and political leaders, the referendum commission failed miserably to produce a document that explained in clear and unambiguous terms the YES/NO arguments and the political leadership were conspicuous in their inability to educate people and answer critisms from the No camp.

Just to be clear, the job of the referendum commission is not to set out the two arguments and weigh them against each other. That's the voters' job. Refcom's job is to set out the meaning of and impact of the referendum in clear and unbiased terms. The arguments on either side are irrelevant to refcom.

Refcom did its job perfectly but unfortunately refcom themselves were given far too little time in which to produce it.

SkepticOne

PH01 wrote: »

1. Those personalised Yes Posters:
I reckon the Yes side got it so wrong with those personalised poster. OK, if they kept them to 10% to 20% it would have been alright, but 80% of the Yes posters were some politician looking for re-election next year in the European or local elections. The NO side seemed more focused on message rather than personal advancement.

Have to agree with that one. Either there was arrogance on the part of the TD in the picture in assuming that because they were on the poster people would vote "Yes" (in fact when people vote for a TD they are in a lot of cases voting for the best of a bad lot) or else they did not care about the treaty as such and just wanted to get their picture on posters.

2. Patronising attitude of some of the Yes supporters.

There seems to be some among the Yes supporters that don't simply argue their case but in addition, seek to define the very parameters for the debate. Anyone going outside those narrow parameters does not understand the issues. There is also the view that if you don't fully feel you understand the issues you should not vote at all.

TelePaul

Spook_ie wrote: »

Not so, the job of educating the voting populace was and always will be the job of the referendum commission and political leaders, the referendum commission failed miserably to produce a document that explained in clear and unambiguous terms the YES/NO arguments and the political leadership were conspicuous in their inability to educate people and answer critisms from the No camp.

Sorry, but that's incorrect. The job of the referendum commission is not to produce clear Yes/No arguments. It produces the facts, and relies on the voters to familiarise themselves with such and then vote accordingly.

In any and all debates I watched between the Yes and No camps, I found that the political leadership and their representatives were more than capable of answering the oppositions criticisms by dismissing them, for the most part, as erroneous.

TelePaul

seamus wrote: »

Just to be clear, the job of the referendum commission is not to set out the two arguments and weigh them against each other. That's the voters' job. Refcom's job is to set out the meaning of and impact of the referendum in clear and unbiased terms. The arguments on either side are irrelevant to refcom.

Refcom did its job perfectly but unfortunately refcom themselves were given far too little time in which to produce it.

What he said.

nesf

1) I think the Ahern situation hamstrung the Government to a large extent. The Lisbon campaign couldn't start so long as Ahern was in office, it would risk making it into a referendum about Ahern's rapidly diminishing credibility.

2) It was naturally a hard sell. The treaty is complicated, lacks a unifying theme that captures the public's interest. The nature of the document makes arguing for a Yes in a broad way rather difficult. Most of the good reforms that I saw were far too technical to fit into a slogan. The idea that the Government could inform everyone on the entirety of the treaty is naive, it's not a document that you can explain fully while holding the interest of the average person.

3) It was an easy treaty to campaign for a No against. It's very easy to lie and misrepresent the truth when the man on the street has no real idea what's in the treaty. Whenever an argument was shown to be false, it continued to be up on sign posts. It makes no difference if the politically informed people know something is untrue if groups continue to lie to the general public.

vandermeyde

nesf wrote: »

2) It was naturally a hard sell. The treaty is complicated, lacks a unifying theme that captures the public's interest. The nature of the document makes arguing for a Yes in a broad way rather difficult. Most of the good reforms that I saw were far too technical to fit into a slogan. The idea that the Government could inform everyone on the entirety of the treaty is naive, it's not a document that you can explain fully while holding the interest of the average person.

This is the key argument I think, it's an unwieldly largely technical document that can't be sold via short sound-bites or slogans. Against this the counter-slogan "If you don't know, vote no" became a very powerful one.

The accusations of distortion and mistruths against the No campaign is counter-balanced by the arrogance of the Yes side.

Add in a healthy dose of good old Irish rebelliousness and it was always going to be up against it

nesf

vandermeyde wrote: »

The accusations of distortion and mistruths against the No campaign is counter-balanced by the arrogance of the Yes side.

I completely agree. It's very hard to dismiss No points and argue that because you understand it and agree with the treaty other's should vote Yes, without coming across as arrogant.

Fortunately I came to terms with me being an arrogant bastard a long time ago, so I'm not overly bothered about it.