Democracy?

Interesting result from the Four Courts today. A farmer from Tipperary called John Burke had challenged the Government's right to stage a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, claiming the result had already been achieved during the referendum on Lisbon One. Reasonable claim, you would think. Not according to Mr Justice McKechnie.

The judge threw the case out of court and, for good measure, awarded costs against the unfortunate Mr Burke. It seems the powers-that-be take a dim view of mere mortals having the temerity to challenge their diktats in this matter.

The judge, in his ruling, seemed to suggest that none but eccentrics and misfits would presume that running a massive, costly and divisive referendum was anything but reasonable and natural. He went further, and described Lisbon Two as: "democracy working at its most fluid."

Strange that; considering that the governments of every other EU country were adamant that there would be no referendum on this issue, and the only reason we had one at all was due to a previous ruling of the Supreme Court, which ruled against an early attempt by the Irish Government to also deny us the right of voting on European treaties, back in the 1980s. If this is "democracy working at its most fluid" it is a fluid that the European Council has shunned en masse in relation to this treaty.

As I have said before, the Lisbon Treaty is probably harmless. Indeed, ratification of the treaty by Ireland would surely do us a power of good at a time when we stand desperately in need of support from the European Central Bank. Nevertheless, arguments of convenience must not be allowed to obscure the fact that a democratic decision of the Irish people was rejected by the EU because it did not accord with their settled plans.

Perhaps democracy has now become an anachronism? Maybe a federal Europe has to be formed by crushing every dissident viewpoint for the greater good? If this is the case, I wish someone in power would just come out and tell us that straight, instead of dancing around the central issue (whether we have the right to halt the plans of the European elite) and laying a massive guilt trip on us for spoiling the party. It would be the courageous thing to do.