By Jim McConalogue of The European Journal
The Conservative Party, as you well know, would benefit greatly from a No vote in the Irish referendum. It would give the leadership an opportunity to work with European partners to ensure that Lisbon was rejected and that Westminster could look towards a new constitutional settlement on Europe and a new renegotiation in Brussels. In a letter recently published in The Irish Times, I look to our immediate position:
I am glad The Irish Times points to the fact that Germany has supposedly reinforced domestic parliamentary and court supervision over EU legislation (Editorial, September 9th), but this has direct political implications for Ireland and the rest of Europe which are not mentioned. The Czechs, the Poles and the Germans have still not yet ratified – with the first two awaiting the outcome of the Irish referendum and the third, awaiting this new national law before ratifying the treaty.
The next UK government is also waiting to pounce after Ireland’s vote. If there is a No vote in Ireland, there will be no overall ratification of the treaty by all the EU member-states. Therefore, the treaty would be abandoned. This would mean that the UK’s Conservative Party commitment to a referendum on the treaty, if the ratification process is not completed across the Union, would create intense pressure for a UK referendum. While the UK has already ratified, a Conservative government would undo this by easily winning a No vote in a UK referendum, and withdrawing the UK’s ratification. The treaty will be dead – as it should have been after Ireland first said No.
I think it is worth pointing this out not only because political ‘isolation’ is a concern for the Irish people voting in the upcoming referendum, but that it is an obvious task for a new Conservative administration.
