The Workers’ Party have said that the Yes side in the current referendum campaign has been utterly hypocritical in its attacks on all those who oppose this undemocratic treaty.  In particular the Workers’ Party dismissed charges of being “anti-European” as beneath contempt.

Speaking at a public meeting in Cork last evening (Thursday), Workers’ Party campaign director Padraig Mannion stated, “the Yes side is populated almost entirely by politicians whose hallmark has been parochialism and parish pump politics. They have spent years dumbing down politics and only see Europe as a gravy train and an opportunity for junkets”.

“A core principle of the Workers’ Party is our Internationalism.  When Fianna Fáil and their ilk were locked in frugal isolationism, the Workers’ Party was to the forefront in opening up Ireland to the progressive social and political ideas sweeping Europe. At a time when Irish politics was characterised by the chicken supper circuit and brown envelope deals, we were celebrating the overthrow of fascism with the workers of Spain, Portugal and Greece”.

“The No side speak for all of those across 26 countries in the European Union who have been denied any democratic input into the fate of this treaty. We speak for the majority of the 500 million people who are being dictated to by a coterie of bureaucrats and time servers. If there is to be a Constitution for Europe, then the Workers Party and indeed the broad No campaign, demands that it is truly a people’s constitution, drafted in consultation with the people and voted on by all of the citizens”.

“If the Yes side have their way, the citizens of 27 countries will have a virtual constitution thrust on them, into which they had no input and in which they have no confidence. Such a travesty of democracy is truly anti-European and will not succeed”, concluded Mr. Mannion.

Issued 23rd May 2008