DUBLIN: Light drizzle is falling as Sean Cowen pounds the pavements in the Dublin suburb of Tallaght, clutching leaflets and canvassing support for a No vote when Ireland holds its crunch European referendum next week.

Suppertime clatter can be heard on the doorsteps where the street-smart Sinn Fein member of parliament (MP) lambasts the EU’s Nice treaty for undermining the country’s democracy, neutrality and independence. “It’s the bigger states now that are going to have a bigger say in Europe,” he explains doggedly.

“I don’t fully understand it, like most people,” admits one young mother. “I feel we’ve been ripped off by the euro,” complains another woman. Privatisation of public services is the main concern of the middle-aged man next door.

Encounters like this are taking place nightly in an edgy, bitterly fought campaign that has become a crucial test for both Ireland’s identity and Europe’s future. A Yes vote is vital to allow the historic expansion of the EU to go ahead.

Failure, warns the Yes camp, will marginalise the country, batter its economy and delay enlargement to the east, fuelling disenchantment among Poles, Czechs and Latvians already angry they have waited too long to join.

Every current member of the club has to ratify the treaty reforming the rules to preserve the dominance of the large countries and prevent gridlock as ten newcomers arrive. But for domestic constitutional reasons only Ireland has to hold a referendum. The rest of the continent is holding its breath.

Critics of Nice had their say in last year’s referendum when they rejected the treaty by 54 per cent to 46 per cent on a paltry turnout of 34 per cent blamed on arrogance and a feeble campaign by the pro- treaty side.

So being asked to vote again because the government did not like the first result has created enormous resentment: “What part of No don’t you understand,” asks one of the many anti-Nice posters plastered on lamp-posts and hoardings across the country.

This time round the Yes camp is deadly serious. Political parties, business, trade unions and civil society are estimated to be spending US dollars 1.5 million — more than ten times more than their opponents — a motley crew of Greens, Sinn Fein, the Catholic right and the far left.

This is an uncomfortable alliance, agrees Deirdre de Burca, a Green councillor from Wicklow, in eastern Ireland, embarrassed by rightwingers warning of a flood of immigrants. In the town of Drogheda, north of Dublin, No voters said their aim was to keep black people out.

“I am not a racist,” insists Sinn Fein supporter Seumas Doyle, “but I don’t want these people coming here and taking our jobs.” Opponents of Nice portray the question as one of elites versus ordinary folk. With all but 11 members of the 166-strong Dail and most of the media in favour, this carries some weight.

“Respectable Ireland is on the side of the Yes campaign,” Sean Cowen says at one Tallaght door, “but they’re totally out of touch with how people feel.”

The sheer complexity and density of the treaty makes it a soft target for misleading simplifications. “This is not easy to sell,” confesses Tom Kitt, a junior minister of the ruling Fianna Fail party canvassing in the middle-class area of Baltanteer. “It’s not very user-friendly.”

Brigid Laffan, a Trinity College political scientist, calls it a “total distortion of reality” to ignore the benefits that 30 years of EU membership has brought Ireland, transforming its peripheral economy into the famed Celtic Tiger that has overcome its backwardness and modernised its relationship with Britain.

“If it is the Catholic right, we’re going to have abortion and euthanasia,” she says. “If it’s the Greens its anti-capitalism. I’ve been barracked by Sinn Fein for comparing Gerry Adams to the Tory party. If they win, the dark forces of Irish society win.”

Scaremongering is rife. A Yes vote, warns the No side, will mean Irish troops fighting imperialist wars in the EU’s rapid reaction force. The truth — that Ireland remains neutral, would only fight with UN authority, and that the force barely exists — is not allowed to spoil the argument.

There is more to the pro-Nice claim that a No vote could drive away investment, harm exports and leave many Irishmen weeping into their Guinness.

Last year’s debacle has instilled caution in the Yes camp, but there is mounting confidence that it will prevail next Saturday. “No smacks of I’m all right, Jack,” says pro-Nice businesswoman Lorraine Sweeney. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.