Breaking News: Ireland sticks tongue out at Europe. Says "Na Na Na Naa Naaa!"
I’m finding this thing increasingly funny. The more I read, hear and think about it, the more surreal it becomes. 110 thousand random Irish yahoos (of which, let me stress, I was one) made an important decision affecting the future of almost half a billion Europeans, and the ‘No’ campaign are gleefully declaring “This is democracy in action”. I love it.
As I mentioned in the comments elsewhere though, I think we here in Ireland — yes, even us ‘No’ voters and even us Bertie-bashers — should maybe feel a tiny bit rueful that we didn’t wait a few months before hounding the (allegedly) corrupt bugger out of office. When it comes to pressing the Irish case in Brussels, Bertie would have been in his element. I’m not sure we can say the same of Brian Cowen.
To be fair, it wasn’t 110,000, it was all 800,000 or so who voted No.
And whilst that’s still a piddling minority of the european population, it’s a majority of those who were given a vote.
Put a referendum out across the entire EU and I’m sure that more than 800,000 would vote No.
June 16th, 2008 | 10:46am
by merrick