If at first you don't succeed..

The Irish will vote again. Yes, less than six months after the government supported treaty was rejected by the Irish people, the ever benevolent Brian Cowen has commited to offering them another chance. Cowen and his allies within Fianna Fail are of course casting the event as a triumph. Minister for foreign affairs Micheal Martin declared that the new referendum recasts the wishes that the Irish people expressed through the ballot box in June. Pardon my scepticism, but this seems like a rather explicit distortion of reality.

The reason that we will return to the ballot box some time in 2009, has far more to do with the European vision espoused by Sarkozy and other european leaders, than it has to do with the democratic perogative of the Irish people. Indeed Sarkozy was quoted as early as July saying that the Irish would vote again. The EU is effectively consigned to a state of lmbo without profound legislative reform, a state many countries are not willing to accept. The fundamentals behind the reform are an attempt to reform a decision making process that is as restrictive as it is outdated, a fact illustrated by the current situation in which a country with a population of approximately 4.35 million has stalled the reform across the EU, an area comprising almost 500 million people.

The rejection of the Lisbon treaty in June was a result of a number of factors prominent among which was a sanction of the governments handling of the corruption scandals involving the former Taoiseach Bertie Aherne. While several questions pertaining to mysterious bank lodgements remain unresolved, other issues which were at the forefront of the 'No' campaign have been adressed. Brian Cowen declared today that he has secured provisions safeguarding the autonomy of Irish taxation law, a guarantee that the current statute regarding Irish defence and security policy and Ireland's policy of neutrality would not be prejudiced, and the primacy of the Irish constitution concerning the right to life, education, and the family.

So, with the major concerns of the Irish public supposedly catered too, Mr Brown satisfied that these guarantees don't imperil his “red lines”, and Sarkozy adopting his smug told-you-so face, should we all be jumping for joy? Critics will say no. Pointing to the cost of referendums, castigating the compliance of Brian Cowen, and denouncing the governments willingness to trample on the democratic declaration of the people whom they are supposed to represent, the 'No' campaign will march again. The 'Yes' campaign freshly armed with retorts to the oppositions headline slogans will implore an Irish people to reembrace the Europe which has given it so much.

The backdrop has changed. The financial crisis has burst the irish people's mythical conception of their own invincibility. The second referendum may well find a rather contrite electorate, an electorate whose desire for a financial safety net overrides any previous ideological apprehensions.