Latest 28.04.2008
WE CAN WIN

A Sunday Business Post poll has shown that the No side in the Lisbon Treaty debate are on course for victory. If campaigning intensifies in the coming seven weeks, the political establishment will receive their greatest political defeat.

The poll shows that the Yes side has fallen to 35 percent of the electorate while the No side has risen to 31 percent. 34 percent of people are undecided.

What must be particularly worrying for the Yes side, is that they have begun to lose the argument once the details of the treaty have become known.

Their strategy up to now has been to try to frighten people and bore them with banalities about how they should be grateful to Europe. The No side has already scored one victory when it demolished the argument that foreign investment would flee Ireland if the Lisbon Treaty was rejected. This old scare story is constantly used by the political elite to herd people into line.

But the No side have shown that foreign investment in France actually doubled after the population rejected the treaty. The No vote did not, of course, cause a rise in Foreign Direct Investment – the figures merely indicate that there is no connection.

The Frighten and Bore strategy was designed to keep a focus away from the actual articles in the Lisbon Treaty. But through websites like Voteno.ie and countless local meetings, the NO side are succeeding in telling people about the real implications of the treaty.

This is all the more worrying for the political elite because they have been able to dominate the airwaves up to now. They delayed calling the referendum for as long as possible, in order to avoid rules about balance.

Once a date is officially set for the referendum, the NO side will be able to demand equal airtime and will have an even greater opportunity to present their case.

Against this background Voteno.ie makes an urgent appeal to everyone who wants to reject the Lisbon Treaty to get involved now.

In the last two months, we need to double and treble the number of local meetings we are organising and to get out on the streets distributing literature.

One or two individuals can organise a meeting in their local community. For example, 60 people turned up to a Voteno.ie meeting in the small village of Kilmore Quay in Wexford after a group of young people put a few posters around their community.

One individual has organised another Voteno.ie meeting in Newcastle West in Limerick this week. VoteNo.ie will provide you with a speaker, a standard poster and some leaflets to get you started. You simply need to text our hotline number or e mail us with your contact details and we will get in touch. We will give you simple advice and back up on how to organise.

We are on track to win but only if our campaign intensifies. In the coming weeks we will face the power of big money as they spend millions of euro on posters to dominate our streets. Our weapons will be the commitment and enthusiasm of many people who have learnt to say NO.