Incoming FUD
15/05/08 22:47 Filed in: Politics
| Lisbon
Treaty
The current Lisbon
Treaty referendum campaign is turning out to be one
of the dirtiest in years. On the one side we have all
of the mainstream political parties, IBEC, Alliance
for Europe, etc. On the other side we have all the
perennial anti-EU treaty stalwarts like Sinn Féin,
the Socialist Party, various trade unions; alongside
newer and slicker organisations such as Libertas.
Whichever side of the argument you are on, it's going to be a hard sell. Few people are going to go to the trouble of actually reading the treaty itself, and those that attempt to do so will probably give up after page 2 or 3. It's not a page turner, it's a complex legal text, that is also an amending treaty to other already established treaties.
Now that the campaign proper has gotten underway, it would appear that both sides are trying to use FUD as a tactic to get their message
across. The Yes
campaign is trying to frighten us into believing that
a No vote will isolate us from the EU beltway. their
themes include threats to jobs and investment. All
utter crap. If we reject it, the worst we will face
is having to vote on it again, à la Nice.
The No side are tripping over themselves to paint the Doomsday scenario of an Ireland at the heel of a Euro superstate. There are posters and leaflets out there that are frankly disgraceful. Here's a selection, collated by blogging solicitor Simon McGarr. (The one used to illustrate this page is from that stream, published under a Cretive Commons licence.) Why bother trying to argue against what's in the treaty, when it's so much easier to spread the FUD with what's not in the treaty?
It's going to be a long few weeks, I think.
Whichever side of the argument you are on, it's going to be a hard sell. Few people are going to go to the trouble of actually reading the treaty itself, and those that attempt to do so will probably give up after page 2 or 3. It's not a page turner, it's a complex legal text, that is also an amending treaty to other already established treaties.
Now that the campaign proper has gotten underway, it would appear that both sides are trying to use FUD as a tactic to get their message
The No side are tripping over themselves to paint the Doomsday scenario of an Ireland at the heel of a Euro superstate. There are posters and leaflets out there that are frankly disgraceful. Here's a selection, collated by blogging solicitor Simon McGarr. (The one used to illustrate this page is from that stream, published under a Cretive Commons licence.) Why bother trying to argue against what's in the treaty, when it's so much easier to spread the FUD with what's not in the treaty?
It's going to be a long few weeks, I think.