Last night I attended a public meeting about the missing water referendum. It was hosted by Joan Collins TD and the speakers were Lynn Boylan and John Douglas.
As Co-Ordinator of the Right2Water campaign I spoke from the floor and reminded the meeting that the campaign was launched 10 years ago amid an atmosphere of ‘intra-left’ sectarianism, rivalry and even hate. That’s no exaggeration and, despite a massive win abolishing charges and a campaign that was hard to keep together given the sectarianism and political egos at play but that we did unify, 10 years on things are as fractious as ever. Maybe worse in ways. I can attest to that!
If we are serious about getting our Referendum the path is clear:
1) We must stick to the clear placement and wording in Joan Collins bill. If recent weeks have taught us anything it is that the hubristic Government and Senior Civil Servants know bugger all about properly wording referenda. Take no lectures from them.
2) Sinn Fein, who have a real chance of leading the next Government, must give a clear manifesto commitment to give us our Water Referendum within the first 100 days of any Government they lead.
3) the rest of the left, PBP, Solidarity, Right2Change, Soc Dems and even Labour must be pressured to support this too and to back that Government in doing so. To do otherwise and to continue to engage in attacks on each other and base left sectarianism will only result in what it always results in — IT WILL GIFT TACIT SUPPORT TO FG & FF & DELIVER YET ANOTHER RIGHT WING GOVERNMENT!
Is that what people want?
I thought we wanted CHANGE!
I thought we wanted a WATER REFERENDUM!
Let’s see people act as if they mean it.