Not having an open leadership election in October 2006 is probably the chief mistake by Fianna Fail that has led Ireland - and Europe - to the precipice. For one thing, they wouldn’t have spent 18 months defending the indefensible instead of chipping away at Lisbon.
Now look. Staring into the abyss, fuming in paroxysms of entitlement overload, that they worked so hard on this treaty. What a pile of shite. Fianna Fail had years to start making a compelling case that a stronger, more efficient Europe was necessary, because only that kind of Europe can secure peace and prosperity and promote the general welfare in the 21st Century. They did feck all.

One reason the leadership election would have been a good move is that there would have been a chance - a small one, but a chance - that FF would have chosen a different leader who could make a passionate and persuasive case for Lisbon. Dermot Ahern.

On Sunday’s RTÉ 1 Marian Finucane radio programme, he was the first guy I’ve heard who’s made a case for the Treaty in any terms that was effective. (Passionate, even Sarah Carey thought as she listened while en route to more important radio.) First, what Dermot Ahern said, then why I believe it’s effective:

He starts out badly, threatening to go into abstract eurospeak: “The treaty is about trying to make the EU work better. To get 27 to agree is extremely difficult.” [snore]

Then he gives an example of WHAT THIS MEANS from when he was minister for foreign affairs:

The UN asked us to send troops into Chad and Darfur. The decision was made at a high level — to do that — in the EU; but unfortunately because of the arcane rules, it was delayed. The went out to Chad October in the middle of nowhere, in a desert. I was asked if i would speak to a number of women. I was asked questions through an interpreter. A lady with a child — thankfully they weren’t starving because the UN and the EU were feeding them — they were there because they had been, basically, run off their land, nearby and also from Darfur. And they were there for protection. The first question a woman asked me through an interpreter was, why is Europe taking so long to come here with their troops?
…In my view what we’re trying to do in this treaty is to make those sorts of decisions quicker and better, the difficult issues of the world.

Eamon Dunphy could no longer contain himself at this point, declaring this to be “emotive nonsense”. But unless Ahern is seriously overegging the pudding about his trip to Chad, and admittedly he breaks his own rhythm a few times in trying to get out this anecdote, this seems effective to me, and that this is what’s been missing from pro-European arguments. Here’s what I think was working:

1) DA is telling a STORY, not babbling in eurospeak about process and procedures
2) The story has actual human beings
3) The story isn’t gratuitous - it makes real in human terms why the labourious nature of EU decisionmaking isn’t just an aesthetic or theoretical problem. Ahern’s underlying argument smacks you in the face: the EU could have acted sooner to stop genocide in Darfur, but it was prevented by an unwieldy decision-making process
4) Even though I don’t think it’s a slam dunk that Lisbon actually fixes the problem, DA is at least getting the argument out of airless abstraction and into something a lot of people actually care about

Have you ever notice that when Brian Cowen speaks at microphone, about anything but particularly about this treaty and the EU generally, he never speaks about people or even uses a metaphor? It’s all abstract concepts (”the people” not that Darfur refugee mother), which give you a feeling that, even before being challenged, he’s already on the defensive. More on this some other time, but hasn’t this been the problem when talking about the EU? Nobody cares about the structure of the Common Agricultural Policy. They care what happens to their cousin who grows spuds or used to grow sugar beet.

Why public life in Ireland is so devoid of decent communicators is perplexing to me. But in Dermot Ahern the soldiers had a chance to get somebody who at least seems to be making an effort.

As long as his trip to Chad wasn’t all like this: