It’s a stitch-up. But don’t say you weren’t warned. Politicians are determined to get a Yes vote to the Lisbon treaty. It’s all there in the leaked memo detailing conversations between the mandarins in Iveagh House and the British government.

We now know that the referendum was brought forward from October to the summer because the Irish government was worried that after June there would be “unhelpful developments during the French presidency — particularly related to EU defence”.

The memo also revealed that the European Commission had said it was “willing to tone down or delay messages that might be unhelpful” until the vote was safely out of the way.

In other words, the treaty needs to be passed before people realise what they have agreed to. This is the equivalent of asking the voters to sign a blank cheque.

If that seems undemocratic then so is the whole process. As Bertie Ahern and others acknowledge, the Lisbon treaty is basically the old EU constitution repackaged under a new name.

That in itself is shocking, because it was only a few years ago that a majority of French and Dutch voters said no to the constitution in their referendums. In fact, nearly two thirds of Dutch voters rejected the constitution but now they are being ignored by Europe’s politicians.

All across Europe, political leaders have run away from referendums on the treaty despite previous promises to put this document to a public vote. Only in Ireland are politicians unable to wriggle out of holding a vote — thanks to Bunreacht na hEireann, the Irish constitution, and the Crotty case of 1987. So Ireland will effectively be voting on behalf of millions of people all over Europe who have been denied their say.

It is striking that politicians are not really arguing for the treaty itself. Instead, the Yes camp has two basic arguments, which are contradictory.

Firstly there are grim warnings about the “disaster” that would befall the country if a No vote were delivered. Clearly, this is not true.

Nobody called for France or Holland to leave the EU when they voted against the constitution four years ago. Nor did smaller countries such as Denmark or Sweden leave the EU when they voted No to the euro (despite exactly the same dire warnings before they voted). All these countries continue to exert considerable influence in Brussels.

At the same time politicians across Europe have done their best to play down the importance of the treaty, claiming it is just a minor set of technical changes, almost patting voters on the heads, saying: “Now, now, nothing for you to worry about.”

So which is it? It is either a supremely important treaty, so important that all manner of misery would hit Europe if Ireland dares to reject it; or, it is a mere “tidying-up exercise”. Politicians can’t have it both ways.

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