Support for the Lisbon Treaty increases to 54%

nesf

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Well I wasn't trying to create a straw man argument. Just seems to me that there's a rather sweeping view about, largely media-driven perhaps, that at the first referendum most No voters didn't understand what they were voting for and that those who voted Yes did understand what they were voting for, and that therefore the original vote can be dismissed more easily.

I didn't say most and I didn't at all say that Yes voters were fully informed or more informed than No voters. You're seeing things in my statement that aren't there mate.

Scofflaw

Zuiderzee wrote: »

I run a fairly popular sport forum so I do understand how tricky the job can be.

As I stated, it was not personal, critical or meant as advice - it was a request -

If you feel that is infractable/bannable then do what you feel is best.

In future I will if I'm not suspended or banned I will use the help desk.

No offence (personal or otherwise) taken! I just wanted to be very clear about the standing answer to questions like that one.

Zuiderzee wrote: »

One question - are any of the mods here against the Lisbon treaty?

There were a couple of very solid No posters who as far as I know were under consideration, but unfortunately they've changed their position since the referendum.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg

I'm declaring the dismissal of the first referendum undemocratic. Let's be honest mate if the shoe was on the other foot you and others would do exactly the same.

When the Gay Marriage laws were repelled in Californjia during the presidential election last year I was pretty pissed, but I didnt call it undemocratic, the people of California voted on the issue I disagree with the result but I wouldnt call it undemocratic, would I welcome another vote, yes of course, but I have not tried to create some imaginary high horse and shout out that it was undemocratic. I would respond the same way with the lisbon referendum.

No matter how many times you say it over and over with your fingers in your ears, it wasnt undemocratic.

I do accept the right of the government to exercise its powers but I can't and won't accept that it is morally justifiable. I don't think I can be blamed for that. I believe it's an affront to democracy.

Oh I see...

If they wanted to return to the issue in a few years that's fair enough, but before the result was even officially announced it was evident they had no intention of respecting the result.

Well by election day, the whole thing was a cluster f*ck thanks to a very weak yes campaign and a no campaign that brought up issues of conscription, chipping babies, state wide abortion and the creation of a Federal EU superstate. If I was to say anything about the *No* result is that with the exception of Sinn Fein they all suddenly disapeared after the result was in. Libertas went off on some pan european backpatting with other euroskeptics, Coir etc I havnt heard anything from them. What the hell was there to respect, there was only one suggestion from the no campaign on what to do next. All the rest just p*ssed off and left the aftermath as the governments mess to clean up.

Scofflaw

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I'm declaring the dismissal of the first referendum undemocratic. Let's be honest mate if the shoe was on the other foot you and others would do exactly the same.

I wonder. I would consider it unfair, certainly, much as this one is. Calling it 'undemocratic', though, is just a piece of propaganda labelling. If you want to vote No again, vote No again. If you want to vote No for the first time, vote No for the first time. It's a free vote, and it will express the will of the electorate. If that will has changed since last year, it's changed - short of claiming the vote is rigged, it's hard to see what makes it undemocratic.

Now if the first vote had been dismissed, I would certainly agree it was democratic. It was suggested that the treaty could be ratified through the Dáil, which would absolutely have been an undemocratic dismissal of the vote. As it is, referendum votes don't preclude or prejudge further referendum votes, and the government has the right to call referendums. Unfair? Sure. "Undemocratic"? Propaganda.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I do accept the right of the government to exercise its powers but I can't and won't accept that it is morally justifiable. I don't think I can be blamed for that. I believe it's an affront to democracy. If they wanted to return to the issue in a few years that's fair enough, but before the result was even officially announced it was evident they had no intention of respecting the result.

You mean they had no intention of accepting that vote as the final word.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Well I wasn't trying to create a straw man argument. Just seems to me that there's a rather sweeping view about, largely media-driven perhaps, that at the first referendum most No voters didn't understand what they were voting for and that those who voted Yes did understand what they were voting for, and that therefore the original vote can be dismissed more easily.

It's as if we are considered to be not as enlightened as everybody else is.

Actually, I don't think either side had a monopoly on not knowing what they were voting on - and it's actually that joint ignorance of the issues that makes a second vote the more worthwhile.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Case in point when some chap on this thread commented 'you people again' after I made my views known. As if I'm some slack-jawed yokel whose views ought not to be taken seriously.

It's more that everything you're saying has been said before, really. Also the whole "respect the vote" thing was pretty much killed by Kathy Sinnot.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg

There were a couple of very solid No posters who as far as I know were under consideration, but unfortunately they've changed their position since the referendum.

I know I brought up once before recently but it is the most lovey dovey happiest thread ever to grace the politics forum: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055311337

ionix5891

that must be a new low in the No campaign

attacking boards.ie moderators

jebus :rolleyes:

ro09

ionix5891 wrote: »

a lot of negativity has befallen this country lately so i am not holding my breath (but i will lodge my vote) and the usual suspect of Libertas, SF and COIR will be out in full force again, flinging mud and lies, and then bringing the debate to new lows :rolleyes:

tough times usually mean nuts get listened to more, so i am really worried, and hope people think objectively before voting and maybe check sites like this where we have some insightful debates and comments.

the fact alone that Europe are still helping Ireland to the tune of a few hundred billion in these tough times, should make people realize that united we stand and divided we fall.

Hold on a minute, I dont support any political party but the fact is WE ARE IN EUROPE AND STILL HAVING A RECESSION. we have fallen even though we are united? So when i hear people saying all the time the recession is bringing home to people the importance of being at the heart of Europe, I don't understand because we are at the centre of europe and still in recession, the recession was already happening at the time of the No Vote to Lisbon? So how could a Yes vote to lisbon make a difference to the current or future situations ? truthfully?

Scofflaw

ro09 wrote: »

Hold on a minute, I dont support any political party but the fact is WE ARE IN EUROPE AND STILL HAVING A RECESSION. we have fallen even though we are united? So when i hear people saying all the time the recession is bringing home to people the importance of being at the heart of Europe, I don't understand because we are at the centre of europe and still in recession, the recession was already happening at the time of the No Vote to Lisbon? So how could a Yes vote to lisbon make a difference to the current or future situations ? truthfully?

There's two bits in that - being part of Europe, and Lisbon. As far as Europe goes, it's an open and shut case - if we were facing into this recession on our own, then we wouldn't have had €120 billion in credit from the ECB over the last year, our currency would have come under assault from currency speculators immediately we entered recession (something that cost us £300m back in the Nineties - about a billion at today's rates), our ability to borrow money on the international markets would be seriously curtailed, we wouldn't have our largest export market, etc etc. So, being in Europe hasn't prevented us having a recession, but it has certainly softened the blow an enormous amount.

Lisbon is a different question. Any attempt to claim that voting Yes to Lisbon would have staved off the recession is obviously codswallop. Similarly, any claim that a Yes vote this time will suddenly reverse the recession is also codswallop. On the other hand, a No vote will damage both the EU (by condemning it to more years of uncertainty and creeping paralysis) and our relations with the EU, at a time when we can afford neither of those things.

cordially,
Scofflaw

molloyjh

Scofflaw wrote: »

Actually, I don't think either side had a monopoly on not knowing what they were voting on - and it's actually that joint ignorance of the issues that makes a second vote the more worthwhile.

I'd just like to add a little bit to that point. I feel the second vote is only worthwhil if there is a serious effort on behalf of both sides to accurately and honestly educate the electorate on the Treaty. There is precious little point in re-running it from the same position of ignorance!

Other than that I'm in agreement....

ionix5891

ro09 wrote: »

Hold on a minute, I dont support any political party but the fact is WE ARE IN EUROPE AND STILL HAVING A RECESSION. we have fallen even though we are united? So when i hear people saying all the time the recession is bringing home to people the importance of being at the heart of Europe, I don't understand because we are at the centre of europe and still in recession, the recession was already happening at the time of the No Vote to Lisbon? So how could a Yes vote to lisbon make a difference to the current or future situations ? truthfully?

See Iceland for an example of what happened to a small European country in the Atlantic that got into alot of debt with nothing to back them, now they are rearing to get into the euro to bring stability.

a pro europe vote (whether lisbon or elections) will send a positive message to our trading partner countries/investors in EU (and outside) and they will keep sending us money to keep our public sector/dole gravy train going for while longer, hopefully that would buy us time to cut the fat and increase productivity

being economically tied to likes of germany had its negatives (in form of low interest rates encouraging reckless lending) but there are more positives (such as the euro preventing our economy from doing an Iceland)

ixtlan

molloyjh wrote: »

I feel the second vote is only worthwhil if there is a serious effort on behalf of both sides to accurately and honestly educate the electorate on the Treaty. There is precious little point in re-running it from the same position of ignorance!

Indeed, of course it's hard to force the electorate to take things seriously and spend a few hours at least trying to understand how the EU works.

Unfortunately often people vote rather ilogically. For example, if we look at any constituency for the Euro elections, the pro-Lisbon parties will probably get 70%+ of the first preference votes? However a referendum will certainly not get 70%, so people are electing representatives to Europe whilst apparently not believing in what they believe. I spoke to a relative strongly determined to vote no to a second Lisbon, while declaring that Brian Crowley was a great guy who would absolutely get her number 1. ???!!! I intend to follow that up, but this scenario is repeated all over the country.

And I have to mention again, since it's come up again, and will in the future, there has always been a re-vote on a yes vote. It's called the next treaty. It comes along every 10 years or so. If Lisbon passes and you are annoyed about that then you need to speak to your EU MEPs over the next few years to get your concerns addressed in that next treaty. Unfortunately what the public and media seem to do is wait until after the treaty has been agreed to raise issues.

Ix

nesf

molloyjh wrote: »

I'd just like to add a little bit to that point. I feel the second vote is only worthwhil if there is a serious effort on behalf of both sides to accurately and honestly educate the electorate on the Treaty. There is precious little point in re-running it from the same position of ignorance!

I would hope that most people here would agree with you and see the need for the electorate to be informed before they vote on an issue as important as this.

ro09

ionix5891 wrote: »

See Iceland for an example of what happened to a small European country in the Atlantic that got into alot of debt with nothing to back them, now they are rearing to get into the euro to bring stability.

a pro europe vote (whether lisbon or elections) will send a positive message to our trading partner countries/investors in EU (and outside) and they will keep sending us money to keep our public sector/dole gravy train going for while longer, hopefully that would buy us time to cut the fat and increase productivity

being economically tied to likes of germany had its negatives (in form of low interest rates encouraging reckless lending) but there are more positives (such as the euro preventing our economy from doing an Iceland)

Just one point to note - We had many good years starting in the late 90s up to now and can you tell me how many home grown manufacturing Industries that are world players have we produced. The answer is none. It is great with all this foreign investment and all these foreign multinational setting up here, but where are they now when they get the sniff of recession? Ireland should by now have its own home grown manufacturing Industries that are world players. We shouldn't be depending so much on foreign investment. Take Germany for example they have loads of home grown Industries that are globally huge. On the other hand the most of our home manufacturing Industry was shut down at the start of the boom.?? The only world player we have is Guinness and that was established well before we even heared of europe.

Scofflaw

ro09 wrote: »

Just one point to note - We had many good years starting in the late 90s up to now and can you tell me how many home grown manufacturing Industries that are world players have we produced. The answer is none. It is great with all this foreign investment and all these foreign multinational setting up here, but where are they now when they get the sniff of recession? Ireland should by now have its own home grown manufacturing Industries that are world players. We shouldn't be depending so much on foreign investment. Take Germany for example they have loads of home grown Industries that are globally huge. On the other hand the most of our home manufacturing Industry was shut down at the start of the boom.?? The only world player we have is Guinness and that was established well before we even heared of europe.

Funnily enough, we had a dozen years of low interest rates and growing prosperity - the best time in the world to start a new business or expand an existing one. Instead, we put the money and the effort into houses, houses, and more houses, while pushing our multinationals and the civil service to give us ever higher wages to pay for them.

The result is a dearth of Irish businesses, an uncompetitive environment for the MNCs, and a civil service wage bill we can't afford. It's all related.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Hitman Actual

Scofflaw wrote: »

Funnily enough, we had a dozen years of low interest rates and growing prosperity - the best time in the world to start a new business or expand an existing one. Instead, we put the money and the effort into houses, houses, and more houses, while pushing our multinationals and the civil service to give us ever higher wages to pay for them.

The result is a dearth of Irish businesses, an uncompetitive environment for the MNCs, and a civil service wage bill we can't afford. It's all related.

cordially,
Scofflaw

A situation made all the more irritating as we've never been more educated as a nation, in regards to R&D. From this Irish Times article yesterday:

wrote:

The combined force of university and industry research is leading to improved healthcare, communication, food quality, and much more. The work of our researchers is increasingly recognised on the global stage. This can be seen in our research output and its scientific impact. For example, the number of papers produced in the EU increased by 25 per cent since the 1990s, whereas Irish research output grew by 200 per cent. In citations per paper, Ireland has moved from 36th in the world in 2003 to 19th in 2008. These advances are reflected in the growing standing of our universities in the international rankings.

ionix5891

Scofflaw wrote: »

Funnily enough, we had a dozen years of low interest rates and growing prosperity - the best time in the world to start a new business or expand an existing one. Instead, we put the money and the effort into houses, houses, and more houses, while pushing our multinationals and the civil service to give us ever higher wages to pay for them.

The result is a dearth of Irish businesses, an uncompetitive environment for the MNCs, and a civil service wage bill we can't afford. It's all related.

cordially,
Scofflaw

some of us did start a business

and are the ones paying the brunt of the taxes now

as for the no homegrown industries point raised, there are plenty of small to medium sized companies in Ireland that are "homegrown"

and large ones that where just on the business news few mins ago such as Ryanair

hell ive a friend in Germany and when I told her about issues here in Ireland, she said they are not doing much better with huge factories being shut, we even had a joke that they love our "kerry-whatever" butter


yes alot of money was squandered and went into useless sectors such as construction, but we should be proud of the cheap third level university system we have for example, as graduate/postgraduate and later research engineer i got to meet alot of very bright people, and got to work for companies ranging from ESB to small startups, there are plenty of smart people in this country and they did make the best of the boom, and are the ones still employed now and paying taxes.

the language of this new poster (we have loads of them lately here) sounds alot like SF spiel, whose interest is to make things appear much worse in order to gain power, lets remain objective here people and not rewrite history without some facts

.

nesf

ionix5891 wrote: »

hell ive a friend in Germany and when I told her about issues here in Ireland, she said they are not doing much better with huge factories being shut, we even had a joke that they love our "kerry-whatever" butter

As an anecdotal aside, I've heard from people working with the Irish Dairy Council that they've had great success exporting Irish foodstuffs and intermediaries like whey to the Far East. Ireland has an excellent international brand with respect to dairy. Christ, Irish butter has had that reputation since the 19th century when Cork was the export port for huge quantities of it internationally!

I'd concur that too much money was squandered in the Irish housing market but it's inaccurate to say that Irish business in other sectors hasn't been doing well during the Tiger years.

sink

ro09 wrote: »

Just one point to note - We had many good years starting in the late 90s up to now and can you tell me how many home grown manufacturing Industries that are world players have we produced. The answer is none.

Ever so slightly wrong there, Ireland has some very major global players in a multitude of industries. I can name quiet a few off the top of my head.

CRH - one of the largest construction supply companies in the world with revenues of over $20bn. With 92,000 employees worldwide it is by far the biggest Irish owned multinational

Kerry Group - one of the worlds largest food ingredient suppliers, it's retail product division (e.g. Kerry gold) is dwarfed by it's ingredients supplies division, supply many of the worlds leading food manufacturers. It's has a annual global revenue of almost €5bn and employs over 20,000 people worldwide.

Elán - A major drug manufacturer

Fyffes - A leading brand of bananas

Ryanair - Europes largest airline

C&C - A major drinks manufacturer

And they are just some of the largest. There are many small - medium exporters in the country with markets globally. I didn't even include Guiness as it is no longer Irish owned, it's owned by Diageo which is British.

Kickaha

People need to remember were not actually voting on whether to accept or reject the Lisbon treaty.
People actually voting on such things is bad let the literate ones decide we just put in our "X".
Were voting on whether we should change our constitution to allow the lisbon treaty to be ratified.
It took me awhile to get hold of the wording prior to polling day last time but in essence what I read was "Do you accept a change to the constitution to enable the lisbon treaty to come into effect AND to allow any further amendments to the constitution that may be deemed necessary".
Sort of a cover all catch all.."Hey you elected us,we decided this was good,just sign yes and we wont have to rerun anymore brain taxing referendums on yas and remember super Bertie managed to cobble together a version of the same thing people across europe had already rejected,wow they must be as dumb as you guys"

There is no "If you vote yes theres a pot of EU structural funds just waitin to be picked up"..
or the implied "Vote yes n be at the heart of Europe er like theres a load of cash for Ireland again.. no there isnt "
We get what were entitled too, Yes or No.
Im not even sure why there is there is this push for a united Europe .EEC was fine Economic cooperation oh and no border controls and price equalistion across Europe .Worked really well eh.
We vote yes to constitutional change or we vote no to constitutional change.
The good news is we can dispense with the Dail since 80% of our legislation comes from Europe already .Pass the constitutional change and we should be able to get that to 95%+ and we can leave one guy with a rubber stamp in the dail since the rest would only be generating greenhouse gases.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Kickaha wrote: »

It took me awhile to get hold of the wording prior to polling day last time but in essence what I read was "Do you accept a change to the constitution to enable the lisbon treaty to come into effect AND to allow any further amendments to the constitution that may be deemed necessary".

What's your source on this?
FYI here is the actual wording of the constitutional change
link

Kickaha wrote: »

The good news is we can dispense with the Dail since 80% of our legislation comes from Europe already .Pass the constitutional change and we should be able to get that to 95%+

That is not true, as has been discussed to death in this very forum.

Please either back up your statements or retract them.

Kickaha

FYI here is the actual wording of the constitutional change

link

My source was reading it.. there are no real "opt outs"..anything thats in the lisbon treaty can be enabled if both houses decide its good the Irish people have no further input .Once we change the constitution, its "go back to looking at the pictures" we and the other politicians know whats best'



That is not true, as has been discussed to death in this very forum.



My source on the "80% of our legislation comes from Europe" was a direct quote from a fat guy from the Green party who is running as a euro candidate in Munster,on prime time, today.

He could be exaggerating his own importance.. who knows.

Admittedly Im not 100% sure that passing the constitutional change to allow the lisbon treaty to be ratified will allow even more of our legislation to come from Europe but it seems reasonable to expect it on past experience.

Hence we could do away with the surplus running around in the dail,I think thats what they are styled as "Lawmakers"?

The maths seems simple enough .If we had no legislation coming from Europe 30 years ago and a slighly lower population we could add 10% to the number of Dail representatives for a population increase.

Then subtract 80% of that number as surplus to requirements.

Think of it in terms of car manufacture.

If there are robots performing 80% the jobs that previously needed input from people well the car manufacturer isnt going to pay people to stand around chatting all day long.

If the referendum is passed , I cant see why the european parliament shouldnt be able to provide 95-100% of our law making .

Perhaps we would need 2 members in the dail and 2 members in the very important seanad house so that the removal our opt outs could be seen to be done democratically?

Scofflaw

Kickaha wrote: »

FYI here is the actual wording of the constitutional change

link

My source was reading it.. there are no real "opt outs"..anything thats in the lisbon treaty can be enabled if both houses decide its good the Irish people have no further input .Once we change the constitution, its "go back to looking at the pictures" we and the other politicians know whats best'

It contains the amendment necessary to ratify the treaty and the amendments necessary to allow Ireland to take up the opt-outs (or not) by Oireachtas decision.

To suggest that this simply means "no further referendums" is nonsense. It would certainly mean no further referendums on Lisbon, but that's entirely different.

Kickaha wrote: »

That is not true, as has been discussed to death in this very forum.

My source on the "80% of our legislation comes from Europe" was a direct quote from a fat guy from the Green party who is running as a euro candidate in Munster,on prime time, today.

He could be exaggerating his own importance.. who knows.

Until recently, it appears nobody had ever challenged the 80% figure, but fortunately someone now has, and the figure is 28% of Irish legislation containing any reference to Europe at all.

Kickaha wrote: »

Admittedly Im not 100% sure that passing the constitutional change to allow the lisbon treaty to be ratified will allow even more of our legislation to come from Europe but it seems reasonable to expect it on past experience.

Hence we could do away with the surplus running around in the dail,I think thats what they are styled as "Lawmakers"?

The maths seems simple enough .If we had no legislation coming from Europe 30 years ago and a slighly lower population we could add 10% to the number of Dail representatives for a population increase.

Then subtract 80% of that number as surplus to requirements.

Think of it in terms of car manufacture.

If there are robots performing 80% the jobs that previously needed input from people well the car manufacturer isnt going to pay people to stand around chatting all day long.

If the referendum is passed , I cant see why the european parliament shouldnt be able to provide 95-100% of our law making .

Perhaps we would need 2 members in the dail and 2 members in the very important seanad house so that the removal our opt outs could be seen to be done democratically?

Well, to be honest, we don't actually need the TDs themselves, since they all vote the whip anyway. We could just elect notional TDs, and whoever had the largest number of them could just win the votes. Maybe a reprogrammed e-voting machine could generate occasional random "deaths", "defections", and "scandals"...

...anyway, that has nothing to do with Europe. Also, most of what the EU does produce is regulation - stuff like changing the allowable pesticide residue levels in strawberries. That's not what the Dáil does anyway - all that is produced by our civil servants.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Hitman Actual

Kickaha wrote: »

My source on the "80% of our legislation comes from Europe" was a direct quote from a fat guy from the Green party who is running as a euro candidate in Munster,on prime time, today.

It was actually Raymond O'Malley, from the Libertas Party running in the East constituency. But you got the 'euro candidate' bit right, well done on that.

Edit to add: Here's the source of the <30% figure. Do you believe FG are lying? Or can you come up with a good source for your 80% figure?

View

ixtlan wrote: »

Indeed, of course it's hard to force the electorate to take things seriously and spend a few hours at least trying to understand how the EU works.

Well one letter in the Irish Times had a good suggestion for that - the e-voting machines could be taken out of storage and re-programmed. That way, in order to be allowed cast your ballot, you'd have to get a "Pass" mark on a 30-question quiz on how the EU works. That way any actual voter would be making an informed decision on what they were voting on. The only drawback is that - given the absymal knowledge of how the EU works - the referendum result might hinge on the decisions of only a few dozen voters!

ionix5891

View wrote: »

Well one letter in the Irish Times had a good suggestion for that - the e-voting machines could be taken out of storage and re-programmed. That way, in order to be allowed cast your ballot, you'd have to get a "Pass" mark on a 30-question quiz on how the EU works. That way any actual voter would be making an informed decision on what they were voting on. The only drawback is that - given the absymal knowledge of how the EU works - the referendum result might hinge on the decisions of only a few dozen voters!

hey they stole my idea

P. Breathnach

View wrote: »

Well one letter in the Irish Times had a good suggestion for that - the e-voting machines could be taken out of storage and re-programmed. That way, in order to be allowed cast your ballot, you'd have to get a "Pass" mark on a 30-question quiz on how the EU works...

A few days ago I was phoned and asked if I would take part in a poll on voting for the EU Parliament. I agreed to.

It became clear quite early on that my motives for voting were based on European issues. The pollster was clearly surprised.

View

P. Breathnach wrote: »

A few days ago I was phoned and asked if I would take part in a poll on voting for the EU Parliament. I agreed to.

It became clear quite early on that my motives for voting were based on European issues. The pollster was clearly surprised.

You do realise what you caused, don't you?

Even as we speak, the party Headquarters are in panic as they look for the manifestos of their European Politcal Parties. Suddenly, they need them - suddenly there are voters (or, at least, one voter) who will vote on European issues, rather than on the In-da V's Brian Punch-n-Judy issue.

How will they cope?

O'Morris

Hitman Actual wrote: »

Edit to add: Here's the source of the <30% figure. Do you believe FG are lying? Or can you come up with a good source for your 80% figure?

The 30% figure does not represent the percentage of our laws that are being made by the EU. It represents the total that have been made over the past 15 or 16 years. It's possible that the percentage has increased during that time and so to get an idea of how many of our laws are currently being made by the EU we would need to analyse the most recently available data i.e. for only the last 4 or 5 years.

The fact that the people who calculated this 30% figure didn't do this, even though it would have meant less work for them, is an indication that the more recent data probably shows a higher percentage of our laws originating outside our national parliament.

P. Breathnach

View wrote: »

You do realise what you caused, don't you?

Even as we speak, the party Headquarters are in panic as they look for the manifestos of their European Politcal Parties. Suddenly, they need them - suddenly there are voters (or, at least, one voter) who will vote on European issues, rather than on the In-da V's Brian Punch-n-Judy issue.

How will they cope?

They can rest easy: I also said that I had decided on my voting intention.

P. Breathnach

O'Morris wrote: »

The 30% figure does not represent the percentage of our laws that are being made by the EU. It represents the total that have been made over the past 15 or 16 years. It's possible that the percentage has increased during that time and so to get an idea of how many of our laws are currently being made by the EU we would need to analyse the most recently available data i.e. for only the last 4 or 5 years.

The fact that the people who calculated this 30% figure didn't do this, even though it would have meant less work for them, is an indication that the more recent data probably shows a higher percentage of our laws originating outside our national parliament.

It matters not a bit to me that some proportion of our laws and regulations comes from the EU (which, let us remember, is ourselves in a wider context, not a foreign power). And I don't care whether it is 30% or 80% -- although the 80% is a daft estimate.

What matters to me is that we have good laws to which we can assent.