Workers Solidarity Movement

A number of weeks ago, a member of the INTO (Irish National Teachers Organisation) submitted a letter for publication in the union magazine ‘In Touch’. This was in response to a request in the previous issue of the magazine for members to write letters for publication.

A series of anarchist posters in Cork have begun to make a dent on the deluge of Vote Yes posters that appeared in Cork just over a week ago courtesy of Fianna Fail and the business organisation, IBEC.

Imagine that, leaving the pub on Saturday night, you find a fight outside. The Gardai turn up, grab a load of people, including you, and drag you off to the station, and throw in a beating in the back of the van. Next morning you are taken to an interview room and an old garda gives you a cup of tea, apologises for the “mix-up” earlier and says you can go as soon as you’ve signed a 6 page statement he’s prepared for you.

Last year, the EU Constitution was defeated in referenda in France and the Netherlands. Europe’s governments quickly got together and rewrote the constitution as an incredibly complicated list of amendments to existing treaties. Together these amendments make up the “Treaty of Lisbon.” Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the president of the Convention on the Future of Europe which did much of the ground work in drafting the constitution, has concluded that “the difference between the original Constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach, rather than content”.