Thursday, September 17, 2009

Irish 'Yes' side loses the plot

Micheál Martin, the Irish Foriegn Minister seems to have been channelling the unpleasant Dick Roche in today's press conference in Dublin.



Attacking the Freedom and Democracy Group's flyer,

he described it thus,

A new dimension to the extreme anti-EU campaign will be seen by every household
in the country in the coming days as the UK Independence Party begins a full national delivery of a 12 page colour publication. This is quite the nastiest, most deceptive piece of literature every distributed in an Irish referendum. Every page is designed to paint the EU as an organisation which is out to destroy all that the Irish people hold dear. It tries to import the extreme anti-foreigner rhetoric of the British right and scare a wide range of interest groups on issues like tax, euthanasia and property rights.

The most extraordinary thing about this publication is that its true origins are missing. It does mention a parliamentary group which no one will have heard of, but this is purely and simply the UK Independence Party trying to distort our referendum to forward their own agenda. This is the party which has an extreme British nationalist agenda, yet it is now distributing a leaflet with our tricolour and claiming to promote our interests.

As I have said before, people are welcome to express but this type of deeply cynical behaviour should have no place in our debate.

To anyone who receives this publication I say, don't be fooled and don't take anything on its face value. This is a dishonest attempt to promote an extreme anti-EU agenda which would do great damage to Ireland if it succeeds. I appeal to people who are concerned to avail of one of the many neutral sources that are available to clarify the situation.

The vitriol by which he spouts this stuff suggests to me that the partisans of the Yes are badly rattled by something. My guess is that their private polling is making the vote look closer than they fear.


1 comment:

Budgie said...

I sincerely hope the polling in Ireland is closer than the europhiles would like. Indeed it would be best for Europe if the Irish, like the French and Dutch, rejected the wretched Lisbon treaty. If the French can vote 'No', why can't the Irish?

In any other circumstances, requiring a second vote because the first was not to the EU government's liking would be laughed at as typical of a banana republic, or worse the USSR.

However, what concerns me more about the Irish vote is that we in the UK are looking to another country to save us. This is shameful as well as impolitic. We must recover our own country.

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