Otto von Bismarck had one suggestion as to how to deal with the Irish Question, that burning issue of Irish independence that dogged Britain throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. If the Dutch were kind enough to come over to Ireland, they would turn it into an immaculate field of greenery and efficiency. If the Irish were good enough to go to the Netherlands, they would let the dykes fall into disrepair and drown.

Before Ireland went to the polls to determine the fate of the Lisbon Treaty last Thursday, another Irish Question was emerging.

Things looked dire for the pro-Lisbon case. Those favouring the treaty were diminishing by the day; those against it, multiplying like E. coli on an abandoned petri dish. The undecided voters remained a sizeable bloc till the day of the election.

On paper, the line from Brussels on the treaty was this: it would further limit the veto power of states in more policy areas, assist the expansion of the EU into eastern Europe, and enhance institutional efficiency. The Lisbon document had been a desperate attempt to rework the Constitutional treaty so unceremoniously terminated by French and Dutch voters in 2005. This particular arrangement now awaits another reworking, though EU member states admit to having no ‘Plan B’.

The results were devastating for the treaty backers. 53.4% voted to reject it. All but 10 constituencies came out against it.

The rural and urban working classes turned out in force for the “No” case. Declan Ganley, founder of the lobby group Libertas, was thrilled with the outcome, calling it “a great day for Irish democracy.” Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was not quite so jubilant, and spent the next few days assuring European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso that the vote had not been against the EU.

The “No” case came in various guises, using a whole umbrella of arguments. One was an admission of voter ignorance, though it was an ignorance Brussels had done little to dispel. Voters simply did not know what they were getting themselves into. The treaty remained inscrutable in its scope and implications.

Other forms were, at least symbolically, more violent and at times irresponsible. The EU leviathan, it was said, would promote abortion in conservative Ireland; Irish neutrality would be scuttled in favour of military obligations. Dublin’s generous corporation tax regime might be altered by meddlesome bureaucrats on the continent.

The problems this negative vote throws up are not insurmountable. But that’s proving hard to tell. Europe may well want its democratic structures tuned and perfected, but what sort of form will that take?

The Irish protest is no exception: they have their own ideas, and many on the continent aren’t having a bar of it.

Indeed, the Irish are the problem children of the EU class. When they repudiated the Nice treaty referendum in June 2001 with a solid 54%, the French paper Liberation cursed them: “The best pupils in the European class have spat in the soup.”

The only way the Irish state got Nice past an ever wary public was through a campaign of scolding and chiding. The school children relented, passing it with a “Yes” turnout of 62.89 percent. EU officials and commentators in favour of the treaty have been keen to give the Irish not merely a dressing down, but a re-education.

After all, it was the EU who boosted a lethargic, impoverished agricultural country; the EU that improved the country’s income from 60% of the original European Economic Community average of 60% to 120%. Some £40 billion in subsidies has been put into the country over 35 years, but to no avail. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have tried restraining themselves, taking “note of the democratic decision of the Irish citizens with all due respect even though we regret it.”

For the Lisbon treaty to take effect in January 2009, all states must ratify it. Hence this new Irish Question. The result makes the acceptance of the treaty doomed, unless there is a re-run of the Nice referendum. In most instances, countries have avoided an election altogether, their parliaments fearful of an unruly and suspicious voting public. The log of countries to have done so is 15, with 11 taking steps towards ratification.

The signs are ominous, and don’t augur well for democratic sentiment (“We like democracy, as long as you vote for our platform.”). An assortment of British publications and correspondents, displeased with the bureaucratic octopus that is Brussels, have come out to bat for the Irish.

An editorial in The Times gushed, suggesting a toast to the Irish “in lager, Sancerre, slivovitz or ouzo.”

“This whole process”, argued one letter to The Scotsman, “demonstrates a disturbing deficit within the EU, between its citizens and Brussels, with concerns over further European integration.”

A contributor to the same paper argued that a truly democratic Europe — one “for the people, rather than a Europe for the Euro-elite in their ivory towers in Brussels” had to be built.

The EU has an image problem amongst its citizens, suspicious of the “gravy train” stacked by self-indulgent, invisible Eurocrats. The process of re-invention will works both ways, and Brussels will do well to heed the truculent Irish. A Bismarckian solution in the twentyfirst century is hardly on offer, and the Irish are unlikely to be taking flight to the Netherlands anytime soon.