LABOUR AND Fine Gael MEPs have criticised Socialist MEP Joe Higgins because of his unlikely allies in the European Parliament in his campaign against the Lisbon Treaty.
Speaking in Strasbourg yesterday, Proinsias De Rossa (Lab) and Maireád McGuinness (FG) said that Sinn Féin and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), led by Nigel Farage, also opposed the treaty.
“It will be something to see Mr Nigel Farage dressed in a Union Jack and leprechaun hat, arm in arm with Gerry Adams, the former leader of the IRA, and Joe Higgins, my colleague up here in the back, calling for a No vote on the Lisbon Treaty,” Mr de Rossa said.
Each group had its own “lemming-like contradictory agenda”, he claimed. “I’m confident the Irish people will tell this particular circus what they told Libertas: ‘Get lost’.”
Ms McGuinness said the extremes of the right and the left were proposing a No vote. “I think that should be reason enough for the rest of us to vote Yes to the Lisbon Treaty.” She urged voters to reflect on what those who were urging them to vote No stood for.
“We will continue to remain at the heart of Europe by supporting this treaty.”
However, speaking outside the parliament chamber, Mr Higgins shrugged off the criticisms. “Look, if you are on the train to Cork, you’ve no control over who’s in the next carriage,” he said.
Speaking for the first time in the hemicycle earlier, Mr Higgins invited European Commission president José Manuel Barroso and the new European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek to “come to Ireland in September, debate with us in front of audiences of workers”.
He later held a small press conference to launch his No to Lisbon Treaty campaign, where a Spanish journalist asked him if he had been “abandoned” by Irish voters as he was now the only Irish MEP opposed to the treaty.
“In no sense should the international media take it as read or as granted or as decided that because a majority of right-wing parties were returned in the European Parliament that that’s an automatic Yes vote in October,” Mr Higgins replied.
Fianna Fáil MEP Pat “The Cope” Gallagher said the guarantees obtained by the Irish Government addressed the concerns of citizens. “But securing these legal guarantees in itself is not enough. We must sell the merits and benefits of these guarantees in a clear and forthright manner to the Irish people,” he said.
Mr Gallagher said the ratification of the treaty would help the Irish economy to recover.
Sinn Féin’s only remaining MEP, Bairbre de Brún, said the treaty was exactly the same as the one that 53 per cent of voters had already rejected. “We need a new treaty for a new modern time,” she said.
UKIP leader Mr Farage told the parliament: “I hope the Irish tell you all where to go in the second referendum on October 2nd, and they just might.”
Fine Gael MEP Jim Higgins was yesterday elected one of the parliament’s five quaestors, who deal with administrative matters affecting MEPs. The position involves an extra assistant but is unpaid, a spokeswoman for the parliament’s office in Ireland said.