According to on-line reports on RTE and the Irish Times today, Declan Ganley will announce his return to “lead” the No campaign in the referendum. Most commentators see him and his movement Libertas as the main contributors to the No vote in the first referendum. He did announce after the European elections, when he failed… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray

I spent much of last week in Dublin and helped organise yesterday a well attended Europe for Ireland press conference in the European Parliament for the eleven Irish MEPS supporting the Lisbon Treaty. The mood is not very optimistic and there is clearly a lot of work to do for the Yes campaigners. Polls show… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray

I said the No side would take Ireland out of the EU. Take “Ireland’s Biggest Free Paper” a Catholic newspaper distributed at the entrance to churches in Ireland. (http://www.alive.ie/ – in case you think I am making this up.) In a long feature piece entitled The Lisbon Treaty Your Right to Know, the paper lists,… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray

I should explain what I mean before words like lies, half-truths, slanderous, gutter politics, a new low (all much used in the current campaign) are levelled at me. I don’t accuse all No voters of wanting to leave the EU. Many support membership, but not the Lisbon Treaty. I can have a good, and mutually… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray

One of the arguments of the No side in Ireland is that Ireland will suffer economically if we vote Yes, and will prosper (relatively ) and create more jobs if we vote No. I’ve looked across the No websites (I do this a lot) to see the basis for this argument – by what mechanism… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray

Now, big (I hope) news! A group of Irish people in Brussels and elsewhere in Europe have joined together as “Europe for Ireland” to promote a Yes vote. We have been signalling our presence virally, through a website and through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Today we issued our first press release announcing our presence – see… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray

On the assumption that this blog is read (?) by people outside Ireland I thought I should say something about recent developments on the No side. In the referendum last year a group called COIR played a significant part and have now launched their campaign for a No vote in the coming referendum. According to… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray

With less than five weeks to go, the debate on the Lisbon Treaty gathers momentum. In Ireland, two very big companies, INTEL (Ireland) and Ryanair, have announced that they will be promoting a Yes vote. Having been a consumer advocate for so long, my reaction was a bit mixed. I am not anti-business, quite the… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray

I said earlier that I might do an occasional post on the theme of “With Friends like this, who needs enemies?” I hoped I would not have to. Unfortunately Commissioner McCreevy joined the debate. The No websites are giving great prominence to the Commissioner’s statement in June that 95% of the member states would have… » read more

Posted by Jim Murray