Press statement: October 3, 2009

Electorate bullied into Yes vote

Call cynical Labour and trade union leaders to account

Resist cuts — break the Stability & Growth Pact rules

The victory of the Yes campaign in the Lisbon referendum is the result of sustained bullying, threats and lies by the Government, the Opposition, the leaders of the EU and the majority of the Trade Union leadership.

While we accept the outcome of the referendum, we think that the ratification of an anti-democratic Treaty has been achieved by anti-democratic means.

Rather than creating jobs, the Lisbon Treaty will drive cuts in public spending and make the recession worse — particularly for the poor.

The betrayal by the Labour and trade union leaders was particularly cynical. Only three days ago, Jack O’Connor of SIPTU and Shay Cody of IMPACT publicly pledged resistance to the Government’s proposed social spending cuts in front of a big demonstration outside the Dáil. Yet they know that the proposed cuts constitute the Government’s willing implementation of the EU’s demands last April for spending cuts to comply with the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact — and that the power to enforce these rules is strengthened by Lisbon.

They also know that control of speculative financial trading — the root cause of the financial crash — in made more difficult by Lisbon. Yet they concealed these facts and supported the Government’s call for a Yes vote.

This referendum battle may be over, but the struggle to resist neoliberalism, and the militarism which is an intrinsic part of it, will continue. We will campaign to build the broadest opposition to the proposed Bórd Snip cuts and future betrayals by the leaders of the trade union movement in Ireland

Further information visit http://www.sayno.ie