The EU’s troubled draft new treaty is a step closer to coming into effect, with the Irish electorate starting to warm towards the document.
In a referendum today, the Irish delivered Brussels a resounding ‘maybe’ to the reform treaty, softening from the firm ‘no’ delivered in the previous plebiscite in June last year.
A solid 40 percent of voters today ticked the ‘perhaps’ box on their ballot papers: a decisive swing away from the 53.4 percent who said ‘feck off’ last time round. Outright support remained the same, with 46 percent opting for ‘grand, so.’
Jens Smarmo of EU think-tank the European Centre for Chin-Stroking told the ‘Monster:
“On the one hand it’s still not a yes, which is a disappointment.”
“But on the other hand opposition does appear to have dwindled. It may only now need one more referendum, or at a push two, to finally win them over.”
EU lawmongers welcomed the result with largely unusable quotes.
They said they would “study” the results “carefully” and that it was “too soon” and “premature” to “enter into a debate” about the “hypotheticals.”
Others just quacked and limped away.
Pro-Treaty campaigners – both of them – said the “encouraging display of ambivalence sends a clear message.”
That message from the Irish people was interpreted as:
“We’re starting to realise it doesn’t really matter, and we don’t really care, now please stop asking us.”
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