Compare and contrast the following news reports:
Green Party members have voted by over 86% to go into Government with Fianna Fáil. Of the 510 members who voted, 441 voted to accept the deal after studying the draft programme for government. 67 voted against and there were two spoiled votes.
Green Party members have voted in favour of supporting the Lisbon Treaty in the forthcoming referendum, but fell just short of the required two thirds majority. Of the 318 delegates eligible to vote at today’s conference, 195 voted to support the Treaty, while 117 were opposed.
The Green Party has voted by exactly two thirds in favour of campaigning for a Yes vote in October’s Lisbon Treaty Referendum. The vote was 214 to 107 in favour out of an electorate of 321 members.
Green party membership is pretty much stable since they last voted on Lisbon 18 months ago. Back in 2007, over 500 party members were motivated to turn out midweek to vote on entering coalition government. Yet only 60% of that number bothered to turn up on a Saturday to vote on Lisbon.
So where have the Greens gone?
It would have been pretty incredible if there was a higher vote for Lisbon than our first entry into Government
On the contrary. For many in the Green party, EU membership was a key issue.
I find it remarkable that in the Lisbon treaty decisions, about 40% of the party membership went missing, not once but twice.
Can it really be a coincidence that this happened after the conference voted to join Fianna Fáil in government?
Or maybe they weren’t disenchanted, they just all have weekend jobs?