Get out and Vote!

The day to vote is finally here. Hopefully we get a good turnout today, whatever the outcome.  There are almost 400 million people around the EU who have been excluded from a vote and there are also thousands of Irish all around the world who this treaty will affect when/if they come home and they won’t get a say either, I’m one of them.

I’ve read through the full Fiscal Compact Treaty and the ESM Treaty and I’ve drawn my own conclusions about the issues involved.

There has been a lot of noise and fear coming from both the YES and NO camps, but I believe people voting today are voting for or against the treaty based on these two issues:

 

• The risk of not having access to further funds in the event that we need them in the future; and
• The risk of handing over a large proportion of our self determination and democracy to Europe.

It’s been clearly established that the economics of the treaty do nothing to address the causes of the crisis and won’t prevent another one. Therefore, people are essentially voting on which of the two scenarios are less risky.

While I believe the scenario of not having access to ESM funds has been fashioned deliberately to coerce a YES vote, the risk is there nonetheless. We may not get access to this funding. We may have to go to the markets and seek a loan at higher interest rates. However, I believe it is highly unlikely that the EU, ECB and IMF would let us fall. They need Ireland to be able to pay back their loans in order to save the European banking system. I’ve covered this in yesterday’s blog.

The second risk is to hand over another proportion of our democracy, sovereignty and self-determination. The articles in the treaty clearly illustrate the penalties that can be imposed on us and how ‘partnership programmes’ can be forced upon a country if they’re not meeting targets. We’d do well to remember that the last partnership programme forced our government to cut the minimum wage, introduce the household tax and pay back unsecured, unguaranteed bondholders billions of Euro.

Let’s face facts; we’re a small fish in a big pond to the EU and the other countries in it. Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkosy had no accountability to Irish voters in 2010 when they decided to load the European banking debt onto Irish taxpayers. They did so to preserve their own people from suffering because that is who they are supposed to represent - they have no allegiance to us.

This is entirely likely to happen again, maybe not to us, but to future generations of Irish people. Also, if we do need another bailout from the ESM in 2014, you can be certain it will come with more strings attached.

For me, I understand the risks involved. I also understand that people are genuinely afraid of where we’ll get the money from if we vote no. This has been a travesty of Irish politics - fear has been deliberately used to influence one of the most important decisions in Irish history.

I know that it’s not as easy as writing NO for some people because the risks involved are so enormous. However, I believe the risks of voting YES are substantially higher. We can vote YES for the sake of cheap credit for the next few years, but can we really trust unelected, unaccountable people to look after the interests of Irish people in the future, particularly when they have such a shoddy track record.

I believe that credit will be given to Irish people if we vote no. I also believe that our hard fought for sovereignty and democracy is too precious to be diluted any further. I would vote NO. 

"In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme." Aristotle