Ireland’s EU referendum will be no walkover

Daniel Hannan says that the vote on the Lisbon Treaty is not in the bag for the ‘Yes’ camp, which has no argument to offer. Meanwhile, the ‘No’ campaign is gaining ground every day

In Brussels, even the smuggest fonctionnaires are starting to look uneasy. After the French and Dutch ‘No’ votes of 2005, EU leaders determined that there should be no more plebiscites. But there was one vote they couldn’t cancel: Ireland’s national constitution requires referendums on any cession of sovereignty. And so, in three weeks’ time, three million Irish voters will cast proxy ballots for 500 million unconsulted Europeans, determining whether the EU gets the Lisbon Treaty, née European Constitution.

The ‘Yes’ side is well ahead in the polls — with 35 per cent to the ‘Nos’ 18 per cent (47 per cent undecided) according to the last survey — but that’s not how it feels. The pattern of all previous Euro referendums has been for the ‘Nos’ to surge in the final week. (‘If you don’t know, vote no!’ is a pretty knockdown last-minute slogan.) While the betting is still on a ‘Yes’ — just — Irish Euro-enthusiasts feel jumpy and baffled. They struggle to explain what is happening and ask — for it is human nature to place yourself at the centre of the universe — how their countrymen can have drifted so far from them.

Their bewilderment is understandable. Pro-Treaty forces — if I can use that loaded term in an Irish context — enjoy every conceivable advantage. The newspapers are unanimously in favour of Lisbon. So are all the parties except Sinn Féin. The Greens, traditionally Eurosceptic, have joined the government and so switched sides, confirming the rule that no party is ever anti-Brussels while in office. The main business organisations — as against actual businesses — have lined up behind the ‘Yes’ campaign, ensuring that it has almost all the money.