They STILL Don't Get It!

Ireland's "masters" in Brussels still don't seem to be getting this whole idea of democracy; indeed they seem to be so confused about the meaning of democracy that it might be worthwhile for President-Elect Obama to consider redirecting efforts at democracy promotion from the Middle East to Western Europe when he enters office in a few week's time.

We refer, of course, to the news, broken by The Irish Times, in the week before Christmas that Taoiseach Brian Cowen has apparently agreed to hold a second referendum on the EU Constitution Reform Treaty Libson Treaty, despite the fact that the Irish people voted NO to it just a few short months ago.

According to the report, Mr Cowen had secured an agreement with his fellow EU national leaders who had given him "legal guarantees" on "ethical issues," taxation, neutrality and the retention of Ireland's EU commissioner - all issues that were used to good effect by the NO Campaign and, as a result, he was "prepared to go back to the Irish people next year."

To some of our readers this may seem like good news, allowing the EU Constitution Reform Treaty Libson Treaty to move forward and be ratified by all the governments of the European Union and, in the unlikely event that the YES Campaign wins this time, this will be the case.

Of course, given the previous behaviour of the European Union, these guarantees may not turn out to be worth the paper that they're written on.

After all, just before the Summit that pleased Mr Cowen so much, the European Parliament voted to remove Britain's opt-out from the 'EU working time directive' which makes it illegal for a worker to spend more than 48 hours a week on his or her job.

Note, Britain did not decide to remove its own opt-out from this directive, European Parliament members from other European countries decided that the British were working to hard...

It is easy to see a situation where European leaders make promises to throw Ireland a few bones to get the "right" result in the referendum only to see the concessions removed at a later date, when it would be too late to back out of the treaty.

Also indicative of the contempt that European politician hold the people of Europe was the comment of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, an ardent supporter of the EU Constitution Reform Treaty Libson Treaty, who said he is "greatly pleased" that the Lisbon Treaty will go forward.

We don't want to be pedantic here Mr Sarkozy, but the Irish first have to vote YES in a referendum before the treaty will move forward.

Of course, it's pantomine time, so we hope that Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin was just getting intop the spirit of the season when he claimed that the decision to hold a new referendum referendum was proof that the Irish government was "listening" to the will of the people of Ireland.

"What we're endeavouring to do is reflect the wishes of the people as expressed through the ballot box and through the democratic process in a new situation and reflect that into agreements with the other countries because I'm convinced that Irish people don't want to hold up 26 other countries in Europe if we can get satisfaction on the issues that are important to the Irish people," he said.

Of course, by suggesting a second referendum, just months after the first, it could be seen that he is doing just the opposite of listening to the Irish people, since they already shouted NO quite clearly.

As the lead editorial in the London Times put it, "Mr Cowen could have disgraced himself more thoroughly by ignoring Ireland's first referendum on the Lisbon treaty altogether. But his decision to heed European blandishments rather than his own citizens' ballots still shows, as the leader of the Irish 'no' campaign has said, contempt for the democratic process."

"If a second Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty does take place, it deserves to be resoundingly rejected once again."

We couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, the lessons from recent history show that the Eurocrats in Brussels don't care what the people or the free press think. If they don't get the right result in a vote they'll either force the people to vote again and again until they vote the 'right way' or, as has happened more often, they will simply not let the people vote at all - as has happened in the Netherlands and France.

It's time that these undemocratic autocrats were put in their place and sent off to the trash heap of history where they belong.