We Irish love to give it to the man – a hangover from the colonial days when "the man" was Britain. We certainly shafted the EU Thursday and as we sit back with a self righteous smirk we should stop and think for a moment about the consequences of our actions.
Ireland has benefited from EU membership more than any country in the Union. The growth of the Celtic Tiger was a direct result of EU money taking the burden of infrastructure capital development off the country's shoulders. As a result many Irish people have enjoyed a huge growth in their standard of living.
The truth is few people have read the Lisbon Treaty (why Lisbon as opposed to naming it after the Welsh town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll?) and as a result nobody knows what it says. As a result the “sky is falling” crowd – those who want to stick it to the man and are afraid of change – won the day, pedaling ignorance and arrogance to an audience of voters who lapped it up in these changing economic times.
The “no” vote was not based on knowledge or a thought out logical-fact based strategy; it was an Irish reaction to an Irish problem. We as a people don’t like change and we’re afraid of becoming a cog, nobodies, in the machine of Europe - those are the fears that the “no” proponents worked on.
Thirty years ago, people from more advanced countries would have smiled at our lack of worldly ways and put it down to the fact that we were a nation of bog-trotters. Not today, not after taking the EU's cash, not after wading in the diplomatic and cultural pool with those who reached down and pulled us out of the primeval ooze. No. Because of our ineptitute and gross irresponsibility at handling this matter and not complying with the EU's request that we pass this Treaty that nobody read, we instead bit the hand, nay hands, that have fed us so well and for so long.
As we awake today with the hangover of our success, we may realize that something is amiss; on the world stage we’re about as welcome as fart in a spacesuit (to quote the great Billy Connolly). We Irish are immature as a culture and immature as a people aptly demonstrated in our sheer demented joy in rejecting the treaty (see photo above) - you'd think we'd won the lottery as opposed to losing our respect.
The Irish government deserves nothing more than a collectively arse-kicking for their incompetence in handling this referendum. They were too busy, too distracted, watching our former Prime Mininster tell a tribuneral, investigating his alleged ill gotten gains, that he had won these relatively large amounts of cash betting on the horses. And he told it with a straight face. Rumor has it one of the judges pissed his pants he was laughing so hard.
The government also had few - very few - in their midst who had read the wording of the treaty and as a result didn’t have a leg to stand on when trying to persuade voters to cast a positive vote. Be assured that their honey-covered nuts will be dangling in the beehive that is Brussels next week.
Past experience should have shown that voters need to understand what they’re voting about – a website, a booklet should have been produced to simplify the understanding of the treaty so that even a gob-shite with mind of child could understand it. But the gob-shites didn’t do that and proved, once again, that perhaps the governing of Ireland may well be more effectively done by foreigners (as we refer to anyone from outside of Isle) than from within.
There will be a reaction from the EU in general and some large member states in particular in the coming week. France and Germany are threatening war. What's the worst that could happen, you ask?
First, the Irish vote may be ignored and the treaty implemented anyway as Ireland represents a paltry 1% of the EU population. Second, Ireland may be invited to leave the EU – unlikely – but we’re off the Christmas list for some time to come. Many in the EU see this Treaty rejection as a slap in the face - and rightly so - for the enormous finger that Ireland has waved in the face of EU financial and diplomatic generosity. Third, Ireland could lose it’s voice in the EU and be tacitly ignored when it comes our turn to express our needs. A direct effect would be in a rejection of Irish funding requests, a direct and focused initiative to remove our preferred corporate tax status which we enjoy at the pleasure of the EU, and without which we teeter back into the toilet bowl of economic stagnation. Ireland could well be shunned as the pariahs we have proven ourselves to be. We are in the eyes of Europe...what's the word I'm looking for...ah yes, fucked.
It wasn’t too long ago when young people left Ireland in droves sooner than the ink had dried on their exam papers – myself included – to find a better life elsewhere, anywhere. Ireland, for most of the last century, languished in the molasses of banana republicdom as Sir Bob Geldoff so rightly sang about in the 1970s (he wasn’t a knight back then). We were a poor desperate nation on the verge of drowing right up to 1997. Ireland constantly pestering Brussels with a begging bowl in hand. They came through for us. Sadly we didn't return the favor.
There's a saying that when you kick a lion in the balls you'd better remember where his teeth are. Ireland is about to find out.
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