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IRELAND HAS become a battleground for several conflicting political currents in the European Union as voters prepare to decide on the Lisbon Treaty on October 2nd. That is to be expected in this emergent transnational political system, notwithstanding electoral sovereignty. Less expected and worth more discussion than it has had so far is the fact that the most prominent intervention of this kind comes from the hard Eurosceptic and Europhobic wings of British conservatism who want to weaken the EU radically or withdraw from it altogether. Their objectives are altogether at variance with Ireland’s vital interests as a small state in a well-functioning EU system.

The scale of the intervention will be brought home next week when every household in the State will receive a set of leaflets from the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European Parliament, whose dominant member is the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The group’s 30 members are right-wing nationalists brought together on an anti-immigrant and frequently racist programme, but they have no Irish MEPs. The leaflets deal with jobs, immigration, taxation, democracy, values and rural Ireland. They say wrongly that Lisbon gives the EU full control over immigration and that Turkey’s accession would lead to a mass migration of cheap labour, along with crude anti-Islamic illustrations. Other arguments are made with a similar farrago of false claims or legal half-truths.