New poll suggests the Irish might vote No on the EU Reform Treaty

Faceless Bureaucrat

The Irish Farmers' block 'Yes' vote will be telling here, but perhaps enough of the 'Don't Know' vote can be persuaded to remember that Ireland did not earn the name 'Free State' by voting to subjugate itself to a foreign Master.

Max Kaye

Having managed to leave the British Empire, I can't imagine that most Irish really want to be subsumed by a Continental one.

Plus plans for an 'EU Army' will certainly not appeal to Irish neutrality. See Mark Mardell's perceptive comments

Laura

Go Ireland, go!

This will be like David slaughtering an expense-fiddling Goliath.

Austin Barry

The ruling elites in Dublin are in a paroxysm of despair as the Great Unwashed moves towards kicking this nonsense into the Irish Sea. The op-ed hacks on The Irish Times seem on the verge of tears this morning. Excellent.

PJ

Please please please be true. Please please please.

Perry

Ah, begorrah (if that is suitable), + other appropriate Irish exclamations. ‘Tis is a good news day for the Irish. May the Leprechauns, elves, and pixies be bountiful and helpful. Keep it up, and prepare to celebrate well my friends.

Victor, NW Kent

Hardly credible but very, very welcome if it happens.

dave, surrey

'throw Brussels into confusion', er no, Brussels will simply ask Dublin to re-run the referendum and keep rerunning it until they get the correct answer.. this is how the EU works

David Lindsay

They have never really grown used to not being part of something bigger.

They only went into the Eurofederalist project because we were doing so, and the subsequent thirty-five years of Brussels government by proxy have been, and remain, a seamless continuation of the preceding fifty years of London government by proxy.

Yet they rejected Nice.

We can only hope that the penny is almost literally dropping: £50 billion in EU largesse is only one third of the £150 billion that their fisheries have lost as a direct consequence of EU membership.

And the whole thing, both in itself and because it is an integral part of globalisation, has homogenised Irish culture and society to within an inch of being totally indistinguishable from the culture and society of anywhere else on earth.

Neil Turner

The Irish Referendum is the most important event of the last 10 years.

The Irish have the future of the UK in their hands. I pray that they vote a resounding "No" and reject the EU Superstate

Denis Cooper

"Brussels will simply ask Dublin to re-run the referendum and keep rerunning it until they get the correct answer ..."

I think the President of the Council would have to convene a meeting to discuss how to proceed. I doubt if many of them would want to tell Ireland to re-run its referendum, until next June's EU Parliament elections were out of the way. It would be too much of a rush to go through the pretence of negotiating concessions and additional safeguards etc, and then hold a repeat referendum, before the winter had set in, and then in the spring it would be too close to those elections. That was one reason why Angela Merkel pressed to have the new treaty in force by January 1st, well before then.

Commondog

Tricolor down theory?

Commondog

Sorry.

Pete F

Don't apologise Commondog, I've just read your pun and it made me chuckle.

Joe Bloggs

The popular view against Lisbon (in particular, each state losing a commissioner for five years) is represented in this poll. Britain should push for a referendum now - I can't see how anyone in their right mind would accept not being at the decision-making table for five years. Would you trust Berlusconi or Sarkozy to look after your interests for five years? I certainly wouldn't and am looking forward to voting No tomorrow.

Stephen

There is no way I would allowed a treaty to be pass if every voice it applied to was not heard and for this reason I voted NO and will vote no again and again and again and again…………