No voters – ignorant. Yes voters – no such suggestion.”

The funny thing is that presuming you make some effort to understand it, and still can’t understand it, that sounds like a perfectly good reason to vote ‘no’. Legislators should honestly try to make things understandable to people. The ‘yes’ people have a hard time making a positive case for it because they don’t understand it either.

So if neither side can really understand it, voting ‘no’ makes sense. You shouldn’t postively vote ‘yes’ on a law that no one seems to understand. That is especially true when there is a suspicion that the allegedly governed bodies are going to be the ones defining the terms.

Would anyone like to agree to a contract with me whereby you agree to adlk kjvbhsvshsig a;onasss rh onivslkn in exchange for my promise to adlkfasdkre aca;lknrsvsoin ae;lan;lkareoi eelkagha;oih if I get to define the terms later? If you are likely to be bound to that contract unless you take the positive act of voting no, shouldn’t you vote no?

This beautifully describes much of the debate around the evolution of the economic, social and political system in a globalized world.

I don’t know about what the rest of the media are saying, but I suspect they’re both ignorant in that they didn’t make a judgement on the treaty itself, but on the presentation of issues – true or untrue – by the campaigns.

No, there are good and bad reasons why people vote No – just as there are for the opposite vote, or indeed for abstention. But I think a lot of people’s gut reaction is to be pleased when people who treat them as morons don’t get what they want. See for instance this BBC report with its ought-to-be-amazing line:

Our correspondent says that many voters seem to have voted No for the simple reason that they did not understand the treaty

No voters – ignorant. Yes voters – no such suggestion.

I’m sure (and I can see in the comments above) that a fair number of Yes voters don’t much like this attitude either. But it’s really widespread and I’m afraid I think it largely consists of a lot of well-off metropolitan people with good education and promising careers supporting things that suit their interest and assuming it’s axiomatic that everybody else should do the same.

Which is, in itself, another sort of ignorance.

I believe that the main reason for the swell of support for the ‘NO’ position is a growing belief that power is being skewed towards a population basis and in favour of large states and that there will be an even greater flow of European Court directed unacceptable social and adverse regulatory and competitive policies hitting small business and industry.

Unfortunately none the larger countries pushing Lisbon have strong democratic traditions and all seem to be biased towards de facto rule by strong ‘efficient’ centralised bureaucracies directed by self selecting political ‘elites’ c.f. centralised candidate selection,list system etc.

It is the fate of all such elites to come to believe that they are smarter, better intentioned and more far-seeing than their predecessors and will thus avoid the usual mistakes of expansionism, over regulation, stagnation, militarism, authoritarianism and civil strife. History says otherwise.

While this was not a great problem for sovereign states in a common trading area it becomes a major problem in a forced political union dominated by such states.

A deliberately incomprehensible treaty signed as blank pages by European politicians afraid of the will of their own people is being advocated by those self same ‘elites’ on the basis of TRUST US.

It is for such reasons that I will be voting NO.

And when the EP stops being not so much a gravy-train as a Saturn V rocket loaded with hollandaise sauce, we can talk about the value of codecision.

Actually, the Lisbon Treaty increases the power of both the European parliament (codecision procedure) and the national parliaments (principle of subsidiarity).

EU states appear to be willing to centralise and coordinate their administrative ability to impose burdens on their citizenry, but curiously reluctant to examine harmonisation of the elective legitimation of their own existence and practices around any form of agreed optima. I wonder why?

Better than no referendum at all, as far I am concerned. I would have favored a European referendum held on the same day in each member states (that allows this mode of consultation). Representative democracy is OK, but is problematic when there are suspicions that the representatives hold very different view from the electorate on one particular issue. This is exactly the case here. Beside, I personally laud a constitution that requires a referendum for constitutional change.

And if the French really felt that this was such a life or death issue, they should have taken to the streets, announced a national strike or elected candidates from the far right or left, who were against it. Instead they elected Sarkozy, a vocal proponent of Lisbon.

For most of us (French), it is not a life or death issue, it is an issue, just like any other. When I vote for someone, I generally agree with some of his positions and disagree with some, that should come to you as no surprise. Still, it is a bit annoying to see the way the French and Dutch referenda are considered, as you would undoubtedly understand in the symmetric eventuality (the side you favored in a referendum wins a decisive victory yet the opposite choice is implemented by the next elected parliament).

Thanks for the reply – as I expected it is a pro-EU rather than a pro-Irish stance. If our politicians had shown a shred of integrity(hah) that’s exactly what they should have said. I’ll be voitng yes later but the treaty could be in real trouble.

Mind you, Novakant’s idiotic notions of democracy (if we don’t ask them they must be in favour) leaves a lot to be desired. Not least is the point that we HAVE to hold a referendum as elements of the Treaty affect our consitution – does hesheit really think the politicians would have voluntarily put this forward if they had a choice?

…raises hand

(Although an unenthusiastic Yes, largely because of Henry’s fifth point above. A (narrow) defeat might teach our political class a small lesson about involving the public from the beginning.)

That seems odd, but I guess it is self-coherent.