The Lisbon Treaty has passed.  A big swing to the Yes side was recorded in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.  I am already looking forward to the more detailed analysis of the results to see the demographics and geography of the vote, but so far it seems to be very good news with just 2 constituencies out of 43 returning a No vote, and in those cases just a very small margin, where as the rest of the country gave a resounding Yes which is reflected in roughly a 2:1 preference for Yes.

The campaign was a divisive and bitterly fought one with scare mongering, fear and negativity dominating the messaging.  I’ll wait for the analysis before I start opining on what I think happened, but for the most part it seems that the electorate felt more informed this time around.  I wonder whether that is a result of a better Yes campaign, or the fact that having been rejected previously, and given the dire economic circumstances, this time around people paid more attention to the treaty and the campaign.

Either way I’m very pleased with the result which moves Europe one step closer to full implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon which will bring in much needed reforms and ready Europe for the challenges of the coming decades.

There are a few things to take away from the campaign:

Electorate are educated and politicised

It is no longer sufficient to merely tell the electorate what way a particular party want’s you to vote and expect them to fall in line.  The electorate are aware, engaged and opinionated.  They demand that issues are explained to them in a way they can understand.  The first campaign for Lisbon failed to achieve this, it seems the second campaign the Yes side put more effort over a longer campaign to explain it and it paid off as the voters felt more informed and were able to make up their own minds.  Better and sustained communication of policies and institutions should be introduced to keep that electorate informed rather than running crash-course education programs in the event of a referendum / election.

Right wing politics have come to Ireland

Cóir and Libertas are now established politically  in Ireland and it seems that they are representing a grouping of society.  I would not be at all surprised to see these parties now running in local and general elections.  Right wing politics have been on the rise in Europe for many years but we didn’t really have that problem in Ireland, now it has come to Ireland with the emergence of Cóir and Libertas as two right wing parties.