Knife-edge lead for Yes campaign in Irish referendum
It was an extraordinary scene outside Dublin’s Pearse station this morning. The Irish prime minister (or Taoiseach) Enda Kenny just stood there, making no attempt to engage with hundreds of commuters as they walked right past him.
Most politicians in most countries would have dived in and started shaking hands, engaging in small talk, and trying to sell their case – in this instance Kenny’s arguments for a ‘Yes’ vote in Ireland’s referendum tomorrow on the the EU fiscal treaty.
Perhaps Mr Kenny was nervous about upsetting things while the polls still give him a narrow lead ahead of tomorrow’s vote. Perhaps the fear was he might get the worse of a confrontation with a voter expressing anger with what the Irish have had to suffer over the last five years. The Irish economy has shrunk by an extraordinary 20 per cent since 2007. Property prices have fallen by fifty per cent, with a large chunk of mortgage holders now suffering negative equity, and ten per cent of them in arrears. One in seven of the working population is out of a job, whilst the entire population has been hit by stiff spending cuts and a whole raft or increased taxes and new levies. The pain suffered by British voters has been puny in comparison.
All three of the traditional main parties in Ireland are campaigning for Yes – Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael together with Labour, their main partners in the coalition, as well as Fianna Fail, the main opposition party.
The ‘No’ camp is a ragbag coalition of socialists, trade unionists, Sinn Fein republicans and maverick businessmen such as Declan Ganley. But if the Yes camp has the big mainstream politicians then the Noes have the humour in their campaign, and well as the more colourful, eye-catching posters. Angela Merkel’s face is displayed on a poster outside Trinity College, while a protestor in army uniform stands outside the Dail each day denouncing the Irish parliament as a branch of the German Bundestag. I was also amused to see that a socialist No poster has lifted the famous fake dole queue from Margaret Thatcher’s famous 1979 “Labour Isn’t Working” ad, only this time to proclaim “Austerity Isn’t Working”.
Rejection
For the Yes camp it’s the stability treaty. It’s important they say to have access to the new european stability mechanism if Ireland needs a second bailout. Rejection of the treaty, they say, would be bound to push up the interest rates on the government’s next bond issue, create more economic uncertainty, and put foreign investment at risk.
The Noes, in contrast, are fighting what they denounce as the Austerity Treaty, which they see as leading to further cuts, higher taxes and retrenchment. It’s important, says the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams , for Ireland to seize back control of its economy.
The Irish government expects to win, but fears the result might be quite close. Those voting No are probably more determined to get to the polls than Yes people are. In the end, however, the Irish may approve this treaty in a mood of resignation, rather than reject the EU measures with the kind of anger we’ve seen in Greece in recent months.
What if Ireland does vote No tomorrow? Unlike previous formal EU treaties such as Nice and Lisbon, this treaty (which was vetoed by Britain and the Czech Republic) only requires ratification from 12 of the 17 members of the eurozone, so an Irish No would not cause a wider crisis. And if there’s a No this time, Enda Kenny repeated to me today that unlike the referendums on Nice and Lisbon, Irish voters won’t be given a second chance to change their minds.
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