Lisbon Treaty referendum

Madam, – Patsy McGarry’s article (Opinion, August 21st), entitled “Strange bedfellows of the anti-Lisbon campaign” contains …

Madam, – Patsy McGarry’s article (Opinion, August 21st), entitled “Strange bedfellows of the anti-Lisbon campaign” contains a diatribe of abuse against the Left who are opposed to the Lisbon Treaty and not a single reasoned argument either in favour of the treaty or responding to the opposing arguments. One wonders if it is worth using up precious time responding to such gratuitous and lightminded vilification, but in the interests of raising the quality of debate here goes.

Mr McGarry refers to my recent visit to Cuba to make a TG4 documentary.

He goes on to say, “Sometimes it seems as if Joe and his friends on the outer edges of the Left would prefer if Ireland became a Cuba or a North Korea. Yes we should model ourselves on two of the largest open-air prisons for ordinary people in the world”. Had he watched the documentary in question, we might have been spared Mr McGarry’s ignorant rant. He would have seen my trenchant criticisms of the Cuban bureaucratic regime while defending the massive progress made as a result of the Cuban revolution in areas such as health and education.

His reference to North Korea is a cynical attempt to smear genuine socialists with the gross crimes of Stalinism perpetrated by that monstrous regime. Socialism by definition means real democracy and control of society and the key sectors of the economy by working people.

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The debate about Lisbon should be focused on what the treaty means for people in Ireland and across Europe. Instead of spurious attacks on No campaigners, Mr McGarry should address our claims that the Lisbon Treaty represents a serious attack on the ability of the European people to exercise democratic control over political institutions and would result in an intensification of the neo-liberal economic agenda which has landed Europe in the current economic mess at great cost to ordinary working people, as well as giving a major boost to militarisation and armaments production. – Yours, etc,

JOE HIGGINS,

MEP Socialist Party,

Briarwood Close,

Mulhuddart,

Dublin 15.