In a previous life, yours truly worked on the campaign to defeat the Lisbon Treaty, all the way back in 2008, and then again in 2009. In that second referendum, almost all hope of success was gone, because the country had just begun to experience the financial crisis, and the Irish public were in no mood whatsoever to further “rock the boat”. If things were going belly up, the country was going to cling to Brussels like a limpet, and do nothing at all that might imperil our chances of financial support.
Chief amongst the supporters of the Treaty, both in 2008 and 2009, were the Irish Farmers Association and the various other farm bodies. The refrain from all of them was the same: Europe is good for Ireland. The actual merits or demerits of the treaty got very little attention from campaigners for its ratification, who – in the best traditions of political campaigning – wanted the referendum to turn on a simple, if entirely unrelated question: Do you like the EU, or not?
Voters, in the backdrop of crisis, decided that they did. And it probably did not hurt that our previous 2008 effort, which saw the treaty rejected, led to concrete gains for Ireland like the retention of our permanent seat on the European Commission.
But, and let’s face facts here: The farm organisations out protesting the Mercosur deal at the weekend have nobody but themselves to blame: They succeeded in getting the Government to use its votes to block the deal. But in 2009, they campaigned for the very outcome they are now suffering: For Irish votes on trade deals for Europe no longer to have the power of Veto.
Except, and this is important, they lied about it.
The Irish Farmer’s Assocation misled its own membership in those campaigns. It did so explicitly. I remember, because I worked for Libertas, which was opposing the treaty. Here is then RTE Europe correspondent Sean Whelan, reporting on a dispute between Libertas and the IFA, at the time. Emphasis added:
Can Ireland veto a trade deal after the Lisbon Treaty is signed?
This issue has become hugely controversial in the campaign – thanks to the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) and Libertas – though both take different views on the existence of a veto.
Libertas says there is no power to veto a trade deal, and demands the Government show where in the Lisbon Treaty such a veto exists. It says there is no veto right.
The IFA says there is a veto power and has called on the Government to use it. It cites the French (who have ratified Lisbon) as threatening to use the veto in the current WTO trade talks. If the veto doesn’t exist, how can the French be threatening to use it?
And then, the kicker:
The Government insists there is a veto right, but has not pointed out in detail, or in writing, how it works.
Who, dear reader, was right?
This was not, by the way, some interesting side issue in the campaigns over the Lisbon Treaty: It was a front and center issue that was motivating voters, which is presumably why such pressure was applied to the IFA to come out and tell Irish voters that they need not worry, and that a trade veto existed.
That same IFA would now, presumably, like to forget that any of this ever happened. The problem is, it did.
I am not an IFA member, and never shall be. But if I was one, I think I would quite like answers and an explanation and perhaps a re-appraisal of the organisation’s approach to working with government. Because it was clear to me then, and remains clear now, that the IFA at the time was more concerned with maintaining good relations with the political class than it was in examining the details of the Lisbon Treaty to uncover any threats to Irish farming that might be contained within it.
If we take the present leadership of the IFA at their words, then the Mercosur Trade Agreement is not simply a threat to Irish farming, but an existential threat that may spell the doom for Irish farming. That being the case, it is imperative that we all understand the root of that threat: It began with Ireland abandoning any and all right to veto trade deals, as the Irish farm associations insisted to their members that there was nothing to see here.
Innocent Irish farmers do not deserve this outcome. But they also need, in my view, to be asking very serious questions of the powerful lobby groups they long ago established to represent them.
Democracy, as they say, has consequences.
When you think about it, what was transferred to Brussels in 2009 was a fundamental principle of sovereignty: The Irish people’s right to decide what goods come into our country, and on what terms. That decision has now been taken for us by 22 or so other governments, in complete contravention of the wishes of our own. And we voted for it. By a considerable margin.
Nobody, it’s true, likes the guy who says “I told you so”. But it still requires saying: We told you so.