The Lisbon Treaty Vote – What’s the Story?

Having just become a resident of Dublin, although still waiting on a bank account, I’m a little at a loss to understand the whole deal about Lisbon. I haven’t moved in time to vote. The posters all around for the yes and no campaigns certainly don’t help with an informed decision. From the yes campaign promising jobs to the no campaign scaremongering about the loss of freedom, the European defence agency (despite Ireland’s protected neutrality), and reduction of minimum wage to €1.84 none if it inspires confidence. Michael O’Leary backing the yes vote also doesn’t exactly inspire. So I was excited to see one politician (Gay Mitchell MEP)  had produced a handy guide to the treaty, promising a reasonably fair overview. All ready to get tucked in over a cuppa, I was then appalled to discover that said politician’s booklet had been distributed with a catastrophic print error. Over twenty pages of the 72 page booklet were missing. Now if you can’t even print your own booklet properly, never mind check it before you distribute probably a few thousand copies, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. So is there anyone out there who can give me a fair synopsis of the issues?

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