The Memo, the Strom and the Teacup

According to Libertas and the Irish Daily Mail a recent memorandum leaked to the latter shows a conspiracy to deceive the electorate over the Lisbon Treaty. The reality of the memo is a bit difficult to distil from such blatantly biased, scare-mongering coverage but it seems to boil down to the following much more mundane points:

1. The memo states that most people will not read the treaty but instead go along with a politician they trust.

This is really just a statement of (perhaps unfortunate) fact. Most people won’t read the treaty and many will just go along with someone they trust. What’s missing here is that that person could just as easily be from the no side as from the yes side. The spin on this is that the government somehow hope that most people won’t read the treaty and see its supposedly adverse contents. I hope people will read the treaty. They would then see how little there is to fear from it.

2. The government fears what Sarkozy might do during the French presidency of the EU and have scheduled the referendum before it begins.

Who wouldn’t? M. Sarkozy can’t say anything that could change the treaty. He can just obfuscate the debate by mouthing off about defence and taxation. Ireland keeps its vetoes on these subjects, Lisbon or otherwise. The government would be right to be alert to these distractions. If they are, or just prefer to have the referendum in the Summer, is anyone's guess.

3. The government has, allegedly, asked the Commission to “tone down or delay” any announcements “that might be unhelpful”, with particular reference to farmers' concerns over the latest world trade round.

Just another of the typically depressing occurrences during your average EU referendum campaign is the intrusion of politics as usual. You can vote no in opposition to CAP reform, the latest world trade round, privatisation, enlargement, trade liberalisation, protectionism or to save the post office. No one ever has to worry that it won't make even one iota of a difference to any of these issues whether the treaty comes into force or not.

Given the liability of these issues to adversely affect the campaign which has, in reality, little to do with them, it’s not surprising that the commission might want to avoid or delay making announcements that could be misused by opponents of the treaty. Both the government and the commission have denied all of this.

4. The memo apparently gives 29th May as the referendum date.

This is apparently an attempt to wrong foot the no side which seems a little strange given that most of the yes side don’t know the date either. The government are required by law to give at least thirty days notice, so it’s hardly going to be sprung upon us.

If the referendum were going to be on 29th May, it would have to be announced before Ahern leaves office on 6th May. A much more likely sequence is an official announcement of the referendum date after the election of the new Taoiseach and a cabinet reshuffle.