Anthony Coughlan in The Mayo News writes: "Five points should determine any informed and rational person’s vote on the Lisbon Treaty.
"Firstly, are people happy to be made real rather than symbolic citizens of a post-Lisbon Federal European Union which would for the first time be constitutionally separate from and superior to its Member States, with the new EU’s Constitution having primacy over the Irish Constitution?
"How can it be in our interest to vote for a Treaty which would give Germany 20 times Ireland’s vote and France, Britain and Italy 15 times each? How can former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his Foreign Minister Brian Cowen have agreed to such an obvious bad deal when they signed up to the EU Constitution in 2004?
"Thirdly, how can it be in Ireland’s interest that the Irish Government should lose the right to decide who would represent us on the EU Commission, the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws?
"Fourthly, Lisbon would abolish the national veto which we have at present in some 30 new policy areas by handing over to the EU the power to make laws binding on us with regard to public services, policing, crime, justice, the harmonisation of legal procedures, immigration, transport, tourism, sport, culture, public health etc.
"Fifthly, it will not be the end of the world if Irish voters reject Lisbon again. If we vote No, the Czech Republic and Poland will not ratify the Treaty. It may be that Germany itself will not have ratified it by the time we vote. And by next May there will be a new Government in Britain which will be pledged to withdraw the UK’s ratification of Lisbon on its first day in office, put the Treaty to a referendum and recommend a No vote to it – as long we do not clamp this undemocratic Constitution on the whole of the EU first." Read the article here.
