EU treaty opponents eye Irish vote

High Court review to start on UK referendum over Lisbon reforms as Ireland prepares to go to the polls

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor The Observer,
Sunday May 18 2008 A

Peter Mandelson has become the secret weapon of Irish campaigners hoping to vote down the Lisbon EU reform treaty next month, an outcome that would throw the entire European project into crisis.

The image of New Labour's original spin doctor is plastered on billboards, posters, websites and newspaper advertisements across the Republic of Ireland as a loose alliance of treaty opponents campaign for a No vote. Even Ireland's normally pro-European farmers look ready to vote No, and according to their leaders it is all down to Mandelson, whom they blame for trying to wreck the country's agricultural industry.

Ireland is scheduled to vote on the Lisbon EU deal on 12 June, three days after the opening of a High Court review, won by Tory millionaire Stuart Wheeler, into whether the UK government should hold a referendum on the treaty. Gordon Brown has ruled out a public vote on the treaty, saying that it does not alter the UK constitution, but opponents say a vote was promised on the EU constitution and that the Lisbon treaty is virtually identical.

The bill - which is now in the Lords - will ratify the Lisbon treaty, which was drawn up to replace the EU constitution after that was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. Ireland is obliged by its own constitution to hold a vote on the treaty. All of Ireland's four main parties are in favour of a Yes vote, but this weekend the powerful Irish Farmers' Association warned that most of its 85,000 members are likely to say No to the Lisbon document.

Padraig Walshe's family has been farming in Co. Laois since the Forties, but now the IFA's current president has claimed he may be the last of his line to work on the land. Walshe, like so many of his members, has blamed the EU's Trade Commissioner for all the doom and gloom surrounding Irish agriculture.

'If the EU doesn't rein in Mandelson, then half of all the farms in Ireland will be sold. If he gets his way and opens up our markets to Brazil and other countries, the dairy and beef industry in Ireland is finished. It's that bloody serious,' said an angry Walshe.

The IFA is a highly influential lobby in Ireland and over four decades has used the EU to garner billions of euros to assist Irish agriculture. It is concerned that Mandelson's proposals to free world trade and open the EU's markets could result in 50,000 job losses in farming, agribusinesses and other jobs reliant on farmers. Mandelson has vehemently denied his plans to liberate markets - resulting in an increase in imports of beef and dairy products from South America and other parts of the world entering Europe - will cost Irish jobs.

Walshe, a dairy and beef farmer himself, pointed out that since the Sixties the IFA has been in favour of the European ideal. Now all that has changed, he said and added: 'I don't like making predictions, but if there is no change in EU trade policy then I can't see our members voting Yes.'

The Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC), the Irish equivalent of the CBI, has warned that a No vote would be a disaster for Irish jobs. 'It would create uncertainty for business and throw the EU into a crisis. It could ultimately lead to a more fragmented Europe. So it is important that the EU concludes the debate about the institutions and gets back to what it does best: creating jobs and new opportunities for its citizens,' said Brendan Butler, IBEC's director of EU and international affairs.

One of the most tenacious of the No forces to emerge out of Ireland's latest referendum on Europe has been the pro-free-market ginger group Libertas. The organisation, founded by the Watford-born multimillionaire Declan Ganley, opposes the treaty on the grounds that it is undemocratic. The son of Irish parents who returned to settle with them in the west of Ireland, Ganley is arguably one of the Yes campaign's most dangerous foes. Libertas was the first to deploy the Mandelson imagery.

'I am not a Eurosceptic, I want Ireland to stay in the EU, but having lived and worked in the old Soviet Union I have seen how rotten and dangerous unrepresentative government is. That is exactly the place where the EU is planning to take us via the Lisbon treaty,' he said.

The polls indicate that the public is evenly split, although many voters are undecided. Defeat for the Irish government would be a body blow to Ireland's new Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, who only took up office earlier this month.

The Observer has also learnt that, if Ireland votes No, Libertas, which is well funded, intends to extend its campaign across the EU, including Britain, where it will support and intensify demands for a UK referendum.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/18/ireland.eu