"Ireland risks splitting EU, says adviser to Sarkozy"

I said back in March that an Irish "No" might be The Beginning Of The End. Going by the tone of this article*, perhaps history will prove me right.**

I like this paragraph best:

He said it was a mistake for the Government to hold a referendum on Lisbon and described such plebiscites as "tools for dictators" as evidenced by European history. "If you hold 10 or 12 referendums and in every state there is 80 per cent support for an idea there is still only a less than 1 per cent probability that the measure will pass everywhere," he said.

Wot?

"Dictatorships"? Like Switzerland, Norway, Ireland ...?

The maths is out. What he means is "if there is an 80 per cent probability of each referendum resulting in a 'yes'", in which case, the probability of all 12 referenda resulting in a 'yes' is just under 7% (+0.8^12).

And where does this "80 per cent" come from? IIRC we've had three referenda so far*** (France, Netherlands, Ireland) and all three have resulted in a 'no'.

* Via Denis Cooper.

**^TMSigue Sigue Sputnik

*** Update, oops, I forgot about referenda in Luxembourg and Spain, who both voted 'Yes'