Ireland's Eurosceptics unmasked

Published on 8 June 2009 at 15:18

Peter Murtagh in the Irish Times remarks that the European elections fell on the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landings, when “people of decency began to wrest back from fascists a continent they had plunged into barbarity.” The EU, he argues, is “in many ways a living monument to what was achieved” that day.

A Eurosceptic right now exists that considers the EU “a dictatorship.” The cleverest, he argues, “cloak their supposedly commonsense credos in reasonableness.” During a recession, however, such groups show their true colours and “identify foreigners as part of our problem and suggest we should brand them with coloured cards.” No-one has been fooled, however, argues Murtagh, in what, to an Irish readership, is a clear allusion to anti-Lisbon treaty Libertas’ failure to win seats in Ireland.

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