COME ON YOU IRISH....

On Thursday, the good folk of the Emerald Isle go to the polls to vote on the ratification or otherwise of the discredited Lisbon Treaty. The Lisbon Treaty is, of course, the Janet and John version of the original EU Constitution which was rejected by the French and the Dutch what now seems a lifetime ago.

There was a time when I was a bit in favour of the coming together of the sovereign states of Europe not just for trading reasons (although I`m not sure that did much good for our trading relations with New Zealand, for example) but also for the collective security it might have provided in the face of the former `Eastern Bloc.` There may still be some validity in these `benefits` but they have been overtaken by the `European Project` which aims for a unified European State, which is what the original Consitution was aiming for. We`re half way there already, of course, with the edicts coming out of Brussels coming down like tablets from on high from a largely unelected, expenses-claiming, self-serving elite.

We in Britain were promised a referendum in the Labour Party manifesto and indeed there is a case coming before the High Court this week challenging the government`s decision to deny that very same referendum. I`m not holding my breath on that one though. Instead, I`m pinning what hopes I may have left on the voters in the Irish Republic who have the right by their own enlightened constitution to have the referendum we have been denied.

So, come on you Irish - don`t worry about the fact that even if you vote `No` the political cheating will probably insist that you keep voting until you give them the answer they want - we may be deep into injury time, but many a game has been decided on penalties.