7 Good reasons to say NO to Nice 2

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday August 01, 2002 22:57 by Stop the European Superstate Independent Ireland

NATIONAL PLATFORM CAMPAIGN BULLETIN No.1- The Nice Re-run Referendum

THIS BULLETIN: We will be sending this bulletin occasionally from now on to a wide range of activists on the No-side in the Nice Re-run Referendum. We did this also in the lead-up to the Nice referendum in June last year and were told that many found that useful. The National Platform is a research and information group that seeks to provide information on EU-related matters to whoever wants to use it. We seek to ensure that our material is legally accurate so far as facts go, and can draw on experts in EU law for that purpose. People are free to make whatever use they wish of the material we send out. We have no more strength than the merit of our arguments, and it is for you, the recipients of this bulletin, to judge of these.

NATIONAL PLATFORM CAMPAIGN BULLETIN No.1 - The Nice Re-run Referendum

Saturday 27 July 2002

THIS BULLETIN:

We will be sending this bulletin occasionally from now on to a wide
range
of activists on the No-side in the Nice Re-run Referendum. We did this
also in the lead-up to the Nice referendum in June last year and were
told
that many found that useful. The National Platform is a research and
information group that seeks to provide information on EU-related
matters
to whoever wants to use it. We seek to ensure that our material is
legally
accurate so far as facts go, and can draw on experts in EU law for that
purpose. People are free to make whatever use they wish of the material
we
send out. We have no more strength than the merit of our arguments, and
it
is for you, the recipients of this bulletin, to judge of these.

_______________

E-MAIL ON THIS BULLETIN TO OTHERS:

If you have friends or acquaintances whom you know are concerned about
Nice
and who might like to receive this Bulletin, please copy it and e-mail
it
to them. That way others can be encouraged to get active. If you are
certain they would like to get actively involved in defeating the Nice
Re-run and you think it might be useful for them to hear from us
directly,
you can let us have their e-mails addresses. But it is easier for us
if
you pass this on to them directly yourself, and urge them in turn to
pass
it on to others. That way our message can spread out to large numbers
across the country.

______________

GETTING ORGANISED:

The Nice Re-run will probably be in mid-October. We will not know the
exact
date until the Dail is recalled on 4 September to vote through the
Referendum Bill. August is therefore the key month to lay the basis for
the
vital work of canvassing, leafleting and postering that will be
required
for the campaign proper in September and October. If you want to defend
Irish democracy in face of the Government's attempt to overthrow last
year's Nice referendum result, the next five weeks are a crucial
period.
This is the time for you to get together with your friends, neighbours
and
others you can influence to form the nucleus of a campaigning group in
your
neighbourhood that can gear up to undertake canvassing and leafleting
in
September and October. If you are in touch with a political party or
non-party group on the No-side, this is the time when you should ask
them
what they are doing locally, and help them to get active in your area.
We
shall send you information on the various No-side parties and groups
in a
later bulletin.

______________

THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE: DO THE PEOPLE CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT OR THE
GOVERNMENT THE PEOPLE?

This is the central issue of the Nice Re-run. By re-running the Nice
Treaty
without a comma in it being changed, the Irish Government is in effect
siding with other EU governments against its own people, in an attempt
to
overthrow last year's perfectly valid referendum result. That is why
the
issue of whether the Irish people control the Government or the
Government
controls the people is the most fundamental issue of the Nice Re-run.
It is
the reason why all democratically minded Irish citizens - whether they
were
Yes-side or No-side voters in 2001, or did not vote at all - should
vote
on this second occasion to make the Government do the constitutional
duty
it failed to do last year, and foil the democratic outrage it is
currently
engaged in. That is the key message we need to get out now.

A re-run referendum of this kind has never happened in Ireland before.
When
related constitutional referendums were held previously - on abortion,
divorce and proportional representation - the referendum proposition
was in
some way different on the second occasion from the first. Nearly ten
years
had also passed between each referendum.

That is not the case here. The two clauses in the constitutional
amendment
to ratify Nice will be identical in October to what they were in June
2001,
as indeed they must be. The extra clause inserted by the Government to
the
effect that we must have a referendum if we wish to join an EU defence
pact, has nothing to do with the Nice Treaty and is meant to give the
impression that it has somehow been changed, when it has not been. If
the
EU were ever to propose such a pact, a referendum would have to be held
in
Ireland anyway if we wished to join it.

If the Irish people are pressurised or deceived into voting this autumn
for
exactly the same Nice Treaty as they rejected last year, it will
devalue
referendums not only in Ireland but in every European country. For it
will
show that a people's democratic decision counts for nothing in face of
the
pressures from the Big EU States. It will also demonstrate that Irish
voters are willing to give away their constitutional rights in return
for
absolutely nothing. The supposedly politically sophisticated Irish will
be
laughed at in many circles. When the Danes voted No to the Maastricht
Treaty in 1992, they at least got legally binding opt-outs from key
provisions of a later Treaty. We did not even get that.

________________

QUESTIONS, NOT STATEMENTS:

Below is a list of 7 questions on Nice, which may give people ideas
for
campaign leaflets etc. Our Danish friends strongly recommend using the
question-and-answer technique as a way of getting information across to
people in a referendum, rather than pushing flat statements or
assertions
at them dogmatically. Questions can be put in a particular way and at
the
same time, if they convey factual information, they can have the effect
of
encouraging positive attitudes in those at whom they are directed. The
Danes swear by this technique and rely on it virtually completely in
their
publicity material in referendums, in which the No-side people there
have
had a good record of success. These questions are only suggestions of
course. It is easy to think of other ones and you may wish to make up
your
own. These should fit on one A-4 size sheet of paper.

SEVEN QUESTIONS

1. Do you want an EU where Ireland periodically loses its EU
Commissioner
and could be unrepresented on the body that proposes all EU laws for
as
much as a quarter of the time?

Yes Please. . . . .No Thanks . . . . . .

2. Do you want a two-class two-tier EU where Ireland loses its veto on
the
Big Member States being able to establish an inner-core EU State, with
its
own Constitution, Army and harmonised taxes for the eurozone, and use
the
EU Commission, Council, Court and Parliament to call the shots for the
rest
of us?

Yes Please . . . .No Thanks . . . .

3. Do you want an EU where the Irish Taoiseach and Government can no
longer
decide who is Ireland's Commissioner, but where that is decided by
majority
vote on the EU Council of Ministers, where the Big States have the
decisive
say?

Yes Please . . . . . . No thanks . . . . . .

4. Do you want an EU where the national veto is abolished in 30 new
policy
areas?

Yes Please. . . . . .No Thanks . . . . . .

5. Do you want an EU which takes over the running of the 60,000-soldier
Rapid Reaction Force, to which Ireland has pledged 850 men, and which
is
empowered to undertake offensive operations outside the EU area without
a
United Nations mandate?

Yes Please . . . . . . No Thanks . . . .

6. Do you want an EU in which Ireland loses her place as an equal
partner
at the heart of Europe because of the unwillingness of the Irish and EU
Governments to respect Irish voters' rejection of the Nice Treaty by
54% to
46% in the June 2001 referendum?

Yes Please. . . . . No Thanks . . . . .

7. Do you want an EU where the Government seeks to overthrow last
year's
decision of the Irish people to reject the Nice Treaty, under pressure
from the Big EU States, so that it is no longer the people who control
the
Government, but the Government which controls the people?

Yes Please . . . . . No Thanks . . .

_______________

Sent to you for your information by the National Platform, 24 Crawford
Ave., Dublin 9; Tel: 1-8305702; Fax:1-8827448; nationalplatform.org
Secretary, Anthony Coughlan