Why the Irish Republic rejected Lisbon, pt II
Fear of conscription. Yes, really:
"Alarm that Irish children could be conscripted into an EU army featured high on the list of reasons why people rejected the Lisbon Treaty, research commissioned by the Government has found".
Neither the Irish Times nor pollsters Millward Brown deign to give any detail, which is annoying.
A June Eurobarometer poll examined the Hibernian 'no' and included this:
6% - To safeguard Irish neutrality in security and defence matters
I cannot imagine that a Euro army would be a particularly agile beast, what with the dozens of languages spoken, and one that included universal (hello girls) conscription would be a behemoth. Based on back of an envelope calculations, a conscription force that served for 12 months would be about 5 million strong. Our Irish chums would make up circa 0.8% of the force.
"Alarm that Irish children could be conscripted into an EU army featured high on the list of reasons why people rejected the Lisbon Treaty, research commissioned by the Government has found".
Neither the Irish Times nor pollsters Millward Brown deign to give any detail, which is annoying.
A June Eurobarometer poll examined the Hibernian 'no' and included this:
6% - To safeguard Irish neutrality in security and defence matters
I cannot imagine that a Euro army would be a particularly agile beast, what with the dozens of languages spoken, and one that included universal (hello girls) conscription would be a behemoth. Based on back of an envelope calculations, a conscription force that served for 12 months would be about 5 million strong. Our Irish chums would make up circa 0.8% of the force.
Labels: EU fun and games, matters military, Republic of Ireland
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on Saturday, September 06, 2008 at 10:03 am.
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Interestingly their is a surge of people from the Irish Republic joining the British Army.
Who'd have thought it ?
Has to be said that our Hibernian neighbours have rather lacked opportunities to be the fighting Irish under their own colours in some years.
That countless Irishmen signed up in WW1 (No conscription on that side of the water) and in WW2 is to their undying credit.
An EU army would be a waste of time simply because we can't agree on farming subsidies, let alone going to war.
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