Gulliver, indeed, just like with Nice. The chicanery and stage-managing is believably unbelievable (if you know what I mean). That's one of the worst things about the direction the EU is going in - 'one size fits all'. there's nothing to stop Germany cutting its corporate tax rate if it wnated to, they would then just have the same problems as us funding proper health care etc., and I wonder how long the Germans would put up with that.

They claimed there would be no plan B', which was an obvious lie. What did they think? That we would believe in the event of a No vote they would all just retire and fade away into obscurity? There's always been a Plan B and it's just push the same agenda again, more forcefully and more sneakily. But at least Ireland has shown the way, the next step is for voters in other EU countries to kick up a stink and demand their own referendums. To do that, they need to start preparing for the next elections now and putting skids on the delinquents that currently inhabit their parliments.

In relation to that one group that has been a new success here has been ''People Before Profit Alliance" a kind of coalition of various groups that have camapaigned at street level over the years against privatistaion, stealth taxes, democratic unnaccountability and so on. they have managed to finally plug a recurrent weakness of the left: fragmentation. Maybe branches could be set up in other countries? (I think there's one in the US already)