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Saturday February 09, 2008 19:14
by Jack Russell
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30What were the percentages for and against, who were the speakers and what was the attendance?
I must say, this is disappointing. LY have signed up to privatisation, water charges, militarisation and a race to the bottom in terms of wages. The EU have just pased a ruiling meaning foreign companies can pay the minimum wage of their own country. Thid now comes to you in association with 'Labour' Youth.
Last piece of respect for labour youth just gone out the window. Absolutely pathetic decision. Supposedly a party with labour values as in worker solidarity, yet they are campaigning in favour of a treaty that will undermine workers rights. smacks of contradiction. Shame on them.
Can't wait to hear the arguments about how this reflects the democracy within the organisation - this may be true but its a reflection of the pitiful politics of the majority of the organisation. Tell us folks LY is socialist how?
......
Debate Begins
Brian Duggan (EPLP) -for
Brian Denny (TUAEUC) -against
Roger Cole (PANA) -against
Joe Costello (Lab) -for
....
Studying the 'Reform Treaty'
Labour Youth -these two against.
Man with pencil -against.
Proinnsias De Rossa MEP (Lab) -for.
Yes, was boring.
The Results were:
First Round
-------------------
18- For
7- Against
13- No Stance
Second Round
--------------------
19- For
18- No Stance
.
.....
Brendan being heckled by De Rossa -against
Des Derwin (DCTU) - against.
....
Another Cross Man - against.
Michael Youlon (IAWM) -against.
In the First Round 38 people voted.
In the Second Round 37 people voted, which looks like one of the people with No Stance decided to vote Yes, and all those with No votes decided to have No Stance.
What happened to the other person?
Mark.
Can anyone explain why there was a 'First Round' and 'Second Round' of voting?
It wasn't two lots of voting - it was a transferable vote (same as in an election). So what it means above is first count and second count. One vote was non-transferable (i.e. the person just wrote down a 1 or X and nothing else) which is why the numbers add up differently.
Total number of votes cast : 38 (all were valid)
First count:
No 7
Yes 18
No Stance 13
No is eliminated and transferred
Second count:
No 0 (-7)
Yes 19 (+1)
No Stance 18 (+5)
Non transferable 1 (+1)
How dissapointing!
The Labour Party has betrayed the extreme left fringe yet again.
Don't these Labour fellows realize that the fringe (whom just about nobody actually votes for) knows what is best for everyone?
Another wonderful EU referendum is in store with the centre ranged against the people (on both fringes) who always have and always will say NO to everything. Some things are so predictable.
If this Referendum is defeated it will have nothing to do with the irrelevant fringes. It will be because a sufficient number of ordinary people (holding their noses in the policitically malodorous company they will have at the ballot box) see that voting NO is the best way to send a message to the Eurocrats that the EU is already too big and too intrusive.
By voting No they will be eloquently telling their EU "betters" that they don't want Turkey or a socialist superstate!
There were only 7 delegates that stood for a No vote. That's only 18%! Yet we regularly get lectures from LYers that Labour are left wing etc. etc. But 82% of LY membership will not oppose the Lisbon Treaty and similar numbers in LP are in favour of coalition. If any real lefts are in Labour/LY now is the time to leave.
Well FF,
Some math might enlighten you.
The entire voting strength of the fringe is about 2%. It is an irrelevancey in the real world. It will have a commensurate bearing on the outcome of this referendum.
The preoccupations of the left fringe (militarism and the supposed imperialist and capitalist direction of the EU) are not shared by the vast majority. The preoccupations of the even smaller extreme right - the erosion of national rights and immigration - are shared by many in the centrist majority, in substance if not in style.
It is the centre - the overwhelming majority of voters - and it's preoccupations, which will determine the outcome. These preoccupations are the feeling that the EU has already become too big, and that statist Eurocrats might threaten Irish fiscal independence. Voting NO will be a message to the Euro-nabobs that their political ambitions for the EU are in cognitive dissonance with the ordinary EU citizens.
The only effect the fringes will have will be negative. Many in the centre will decide that if the nutters are against the treaty/constitution it must be a good thing. "Guilt by association" may well fatally damage the anti-treaty prospects if the vote is close.
BTW, the reference to the working class is "nonsense". The classical working-class is almost non-existant in Ireland, and anyway it votes FF, such as it does exist, or vote. The only substantial group of people who vote even as far left as Labour are our over-paid, over-abundant public-sector workers who see Labour and its TU connections as the best way of ensuring that the rest of us continue to have the right to pay for their privileged pensions and unsackable sinecures. The small social-welfare underclass doesn't bother to vote.
......I have in my hand a small flyer that was given out at the debate and LY gathering. It's advertising the forthcoming 2nd? Connolly Festival. Its a neat little number with the famous image of the Man himself on the front and the Starry Plough in the background. Not much text; Labour Youth ...web address....2008 Connolly Festival....22-23rd February @ Liberty Hall.
There's one piece of text missing though, instructions on how to wipe their backsides with the flyer! Yes, all they are short of doing (they have done everything else, -including Joe Costelloe saying in the debate that Connolly and Larkin would endorse this capitalist comic), all they are short of doing is marching up to Arbour Hill in a single line and defecating on the man's grave.
I thought having got to know some of the 'new' Labour Youth in recent times and that there might be some hope of undoing the damage done by the 'sellers out' over the years, but this vote is the future of the Labour Party.
This 'Connolly Beer Fest' will be packed to the rafters with the new LY, how many were at the debate vote? Thirty seven and eighteen decided not to vote. The numbers are too neat for my liking.
Roll on the revolution...in the Labour Party!
The photos ain't bad either.
Aristotle hits the nail on the head when he points out that rhetoric about the working class is irrelevant to debating the Lisbon Treaty. It is obvious that members of this class have radically diminished, there is little or no class consciousness in the mainstream Irish society and lower income unskilled workers and poor farmers have historically voted Fianna Fail. He is quite right too to remind us that the fringe left between them cannot muster more than 2 per cent of votes in national elections. The electorate are simply not on their ideological wavelength.
This referendum is going to be won or lost at the doorstep. Arguments that will decide how the uncommitted citizens vote concern democratic accountability of EU institutions, impact of one-size-fits-all tax policies, EU directives that cumulatively reduce possibilities of state intervention in national economy, disproportionate influence of bigger, excolonial, states in EU foreign policy orientation, lack of a coherent EU patriotism, the cultural identity question, the impact of tarrif policies on poor countries in the third world.
Go to the doorsteps, armed with coherent arguments.
Well to answer who will vote no, perhaps one of the best ways is to look at the constitution vote in France. Which is of course largely (95%) the same treaty as Lisbon. It's hardly an identical comparison with Ireland but we are not as exceptional as we make out and it is instructive to learn that the no vote was, in the vast majority, a class vote against the treaty.
As French trade justice expert Susan George explains below, the majority of the no vote consisted of "working class and lower middle class people" While "The only social category that voted a majority for the yes was the mid to upper managers and professionals.”"
Almost 60% of the socialists membership voted no in France.
http://www.voteno.ie/resources/?C=S;O=A
The French ‘No’ vote of 29 May 2005 in the referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty [ECT] was often misunderstood outside France [particularly in Spain]. Many thought it was a right-wing, regressive, anti-immigrant, anti-Turkish or anti-Chirac protest vote.
Probably 18-20 percent of the No vote could be attributed to such motivations, but even our worst enemies--and I say “our” because I campaigned vigorously for the ‘No’--admit that it was a progressive, pro-European rejection of a deeply flawed proposal. We wanted Europe--but not that Europe. The ECT was a triumph of anti-democratic, anti-social, neo-liberal legislation which would have been nearly impossible to change. The media, political and corporate elites voted massively for the ‘Yes’ [in the rich Paris suburb of Neuilly 85 percent voted in favour] whereas ordinary working people saw through the constant propaganda and mostly voted No [85 percent in one working class suburb of Rouen, for instance]. Turnout was 70 percent--up by more than half from the mere 46 percent that had bothered to vote in the European parliamentary elections a year earlier.
http://www.village.ie/World/Europe/Interview_with_Susan...orge/
Speaking about shock defeat of the EU Constitution by the French electorate in 2005, trade justice expert Susan George, who led the ‘No’ campaign, attributed the victory to “the spirit of the French revolution, the spirit of the republic”. She said the defeat of the Constitution “was in the long line of French movements on the left towards human emancipation. Once people found out what was actually in the treaty, which was the hard part to get across, then it was quite natural for them to vote no.It was a popular decision and it was a class vote...working class and lower middle class people voted no. The only social category that voted a majority for the yes was the mid to upper managers and professionals.”
When asked why France voted ‘no’ Susan George explained; “Well they found objectionable the fact that the economy practically took up all of the space in the Treaty. Maybe it was there before in different laws, but it was all spread out and this was the first time that people became aware of what was already there and they didn’t like what they saw. It was a blueprint for neo-liberal economics. It favored privitisation. It gave no protection to public services. It didn’t even call them public services but services of general economic interest and subjected them to competition. The word ‘market’ appears 78 times in the text. The phrase ‘free and undistorted competition’ was there many times also, the free movements of goods, people, capital and services across the borders was repeatedly emphasised, and this was expanded into trade issues with a very heavy free trade bias. A lot of people don’t agree with that.”
There seems to be another Susan George.
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=AaKZC0OFw_U&feature=related
Professional politicians with their sleazy door-speak are largely identifiable by their
lily white skin and palaver. i don't buy.
LY have shown themselves incapable of dealing with the issues both political and fiscal
that come with this treaty and like SDLP youth seem really incapable of understanding
the idea of:-
1. looking at issues that will create the social structures for the next ten years.
2. Listening to the concerns of emergent kids with problems that are attributable to
globalised economies.
= they will be run off the estates.
face it LY are a urban party of professional spinners that have lost any ground they stood
on and its time for other groupings to take the issues on board and dump the urbanites.
pathetic-
""The entire voting strength of the fringe is about 2%. It is an irrelevancey in the real world. It will have a commensurate bearing on the outcome of this referendum.""
Are you aware of the figures?
On average roughly 25% of Irish citizens turn out to vote in elections. Thats ONE in FOUR!!
Most working class people couldnt be bothered, and are purposefully alienated from the "democratic" process. They are not to be seen on the political arena, nor the media for that matter.
You expect ordinary working people to participate in something which is riddled with corruption, liers, cheats and careerists. They are well aware of what a sham the system is. Working people are forgotten for four years, then asked to press a button of which personality they like best.
The system is a SHAM, and driven by money. Something the left is very much short of, unlike those who attend the tent at the Galway races.
You know, bragging on about electoral performance would ultimately show how much a person has been indoctrinated into a ruling class system more than anything else. A system where the working class are not seen or heard on the cultural and political scene.
Just look at the US for christ sake. Its a single party system. Those who wrack up the most votes dont necessarily have "the best ideas", more like the best bank balance, or facial features maybe.
Dont judge a political force by its numbers, but by its ideas, because ultimately, its ideas that win in the end - and the "extreme fringe" left are in abundance, unlike Labour, who would rather 'fit' in, waffle and compete for how many hospital beds theyll introduce if voted into power.
What a horrible political organisation Labour is. All it has left is a facade of roses, socialist songs and ties to a bunch of equally horrible sellout unions.
The decision of Labour Youth is disappointing. A great pity.
Great pics Michael. I did not really know your work before.
BTW the DCTU is not against the Treaty, and is unlikely to take a position, whatever about facilitating debate. I didn't speak on Saturday, but, Michael, you're a mind reader altogether.
See y'all (for and against Lisbon) in Liberty Hall at six this evening for the Health Service public meeting.
This is disappointing though I've come to expect little from Labour Youth other than smugness.
Btw, there are a lot of fairly elderly 'youths' in the above photos aren't there???
not one bit surprised. at the outcome of the conference.
LY made a democratic decision to support this treaty after a open and fair debate, both side of the argument were represented and respected (at least in the closed debate with only LY members (the public debate wasn't so civil)) many other groups right and left didn't have such a process and just assumed their positions immediatly often getting their information from campaigns already on one side or another.
I supported this treaty as a socialist and i think it is a step forward for social progress, I do not think it is a victory for privatisation or militarisation or the race to the bottom, I know most here disagree with me and I won't argue the pro's and con's of the treaty here as I think it would be pretty unproductive as we've already taken our various stances.
I don't like the fact that I'm now on opposite fronts on this issue with people i've stood beside in anti-war, Palestine solidarity and other campaigns. I can only hope that this split in the Left will be contained to the treaty and we can continue to work together on other issues.
(PS. Aristotle I don't know who you are but you don't speak for the general attitude in LY at the moment, you're comments are shameful )
"I supported this treaty as a socialist and i think it is a step forward for social progress, I do not think it is a victory for privatisation or militarisation or the race to the bottom"
DM, please explain how you came to this conclusion.
Have been studying with interest this thread re:last Saturday's LY meet on Lisbon.
A number of comments are, in my opinion, necessary:
(1) LY's endorsement of the YES position was anything but "ringing" as mistakenly stated above. Check the figures and we may need an explanation of what percentage of participation of the total LY membership.was there at the meeting - and an 19:18 vote can be qualified by a number of epithets but 'ringing'?
(2) If one excludes the interventions of activists from Tara and the gentleman from Malta who used the meeting to promote their own (justified) grievances, the pro-YES speakers did not impress with either their knowledge of the Treaty or their argumentation. Joe C, for example, spent 2/3 of his presentation arguing how wonderful the EU has been to us and Europe and went as far as to suggest that the 3 dictatorships in southern Europe (Portugal, Spain and Greece) fell because of the EU!! This is plain nonsense as it completely undermines the protracted, painful and bloody anti-military/anti-fascist struggle of the working people in those countries, some going back two generations and long long time before those States became members of the European Union.
In this Joe was simply echoing the Fianna Fail line that opposing the Treaty and arguing for a NO vote was somehow "anti-European". Check in today's Irish Times how Minister Roche, heading the FF YES cabal, agrees with Joe.This won't wash - it's a fallacy and an outright slander.
(3) DM's remark above that (s)he hopes the Left will unite after this adventure is off the point. The Irish Left is not divided.....the Campaign Against the Lisbon Treaty has the following organisations affiliated to it: Communist Party, Socialist Party, Sinn Fein, ISN, SWP, People Before Profit, Peoples Movement, Community Workers Action Group, Eirigi, Workers Party and the IAWM as well as the support of a numberr of Trade Unions and non-affiliated activists. This is one of the best examples of progressive and Left unity I have witnessed over the last twenty or so years. DM should reflect well on the identity of the absentees and the 'ringing' implication of that absence.
(4) I will not say anything about the militarisation aspect of Lisbon. Roger Cole outlined pretty well that aspect of the Treaty. As Irish rangers are getting ready to go and protect French (uranium and political) and US (oil) interests in Chad, under the guise of 'humanitarian aid', I just hope we won't have Irish families shedding tears over 'Dead heroes' coming back.
(5) Finally on some lies: Joe's and Proinsia's responses to my point that the 'Charter of Conditional Rights' u n d e r m i n e s the right to strike were disingenuous. While he read the first paragraph of the relevant Art 52 , he skipped cleverly the second paragraph which states clearly that the ECJ (European Court of Justice) has the absolute power (over and above irish courts or the Dail) to limit any such right in order to (and I quote verbatim) "meet objectives of general interest recognised by the European Union or the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others"!! In plain English, and I'm really sorry Joe missed that point, by ignorance or design, 'objectives of general interest' could include the movement of goods and capital; "others" could mean employers or scabs - as demonstrated by the Vaxholm case.
My only hope, and wish, is that after careful study of the 450-odd pages of the Treaty, and some internal reflection, those LY members who see themselves as part of the Left reconsider their position and join us in our struggle to reject this Treaty.
VOTE NO TO LISBON !!
After having studied all the rhetoric of the No brigades, my mind
is now made up that the only possible vote is YES.
Yes to the Lisbon Treaty, even if it means handing over power to Europe, because it is obvious from the comments made here;
that the No voters do not appreciate the benefits, that Ireland has obtained from being in the EU.
Yes to a united Europe and YES to an eventual World Government.
Yes but Voter you should have added to the last sentence "where I'll never have to bother voting again!"