Three Cheers For The Irish "No" Voters!

A big thankyou - from all lovers of real democracy and opponents of the arrogant European elite - to the Irish voters who torpedoed the Lisbon Treaty today!

In the face of an almost united political establishment (only Sinn Fein, non-parliamentary elements of the Greens and tiny fringe parties associated themselves with the No Campaign, whilst the Yes Campaign had the support of both opposition and Government - including the increasingly treacherous parliamentary leadership of the Irish Greens) a majority of voters decided to vote in favour of Irish independence and neutrality and against the nefarious plans of the European Business elite, their paid political agents and the useful idiots dreaming of a continental "social democratic" utopia.

The immediate response of representatives of the European political elite in both EU structures and the supine governments that have refused to give their voters a say on the re-badged Constitution has been illustrative of the arrogance and contempt for democracy that is becoming ever more evident to ever wider swathes of the European population. If the elites try to soldier on with the treaty ratification process in national parliaments and upper houses they will hopefully face a rising tide of anger.

The duplicity of the framers and promoters of this Treaty and its' previous incarnation as a Constitution are now legendary. Within the Green movement we have recently witnessed the contempt of the bureaucrats and "celebrities" of the European Green Party for views that contradict their dangerous mix of opportunism, bureaucratic utopianism and barely concealed desire for a new "Euro imperialism" to rival that of other power blocs. The appalling self indulgent sell-out and ex-radical Cohn Bendit apparently called the Irish "No" side "losers". I could not think of a better description of that vain, ageing egotist, perhaps now better described as "Danny the Brown" rather than "Danny the Red" given his support for creeping authoritarianism and corporatism.

Fortunately the majority of the English and Welsh Greens are on the same side as the majority of people in both Britain and Ireland and are resolutely behind ex Green MEP McKenna and the Irish No campaign. Green Left will continue to support demands for abandonment of the Treaty, and will continue to link with those radical and left elements in European Green Parties that wish to depose the bureaucrats, warmongers, timeservers and sell-outs that have brought our movement into disrepute.