Most people on this forum probably have never even heard of the Lisbon Treaty. It was basically an overhaul of the European Union's constitution that was deliberately made so complex that hardly anyone knew what was in it. Even organisations created to explain it to people were stuck on some questions asked. One famous instance was when the chairman of the Referendum Commission, Justice Iarfhlaith O’Neill, was asked about one of their press releases "What are ‘arrangements for the control of implementing powers’?" He shuffled through papers for about 5 minutes and then finally said "Well, there certainly isn’t a precision about that... one couldn’t say that it means A or B or C..." It was ridiculous.The governments of every EU country instantly agreed to the treaty except Ireland because our constitution demands that we hold a referendum on matters like these. Imagine that, in a union comprising of 27 different countries with a combined population of half a billion people, only 1 country of 4.5 million people got to vote on a radical change to the constitution. The Lisbon Treaty was basically a reworking of the Nice Treaty, which was defeated when referendums held in the Netherlands and France both rejected it in 2005.Our government were telling people to vote yes, telling us that it would be better for Ireland and Europe yet they never explained how. Nobody explained it, everyone was just confused and had no idea what the treaty really said, opposing sides were spewing opposing arguments and many of them were contradictory. And the problem was that they were both right. The Lisbon Treaty was carefully worded so that much of it was open to interpretation, a very dangerous thing. We had to get it right because if we voted No then the EU could shun us and if we voted Yes then we would lose the right the hold any future referendums should the EU try to change the constitution again. When the polls opened, the people decided and rejected the Treaty. The EU responded immediately, "Wrong, try again!"They are currently reworking the treaty AGAIN and we will have to go through all of this again and again until we vote how the EU wants us to vote.
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The Lisbon Treaty
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God knocked up a poor innocent girl, that bastard should be paying child support!Where's the child now? As far as the Lisbon Treaty is concerned, you should be very, very scared. The wording is intentionally ambiguous for a sinister reason.
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Oh it certainly seems so and thats why we're probably gonna keep voting No until everyone else realises this. I was just surprised that we were the only ones who got to vote on it.