User:Jnestorius/National Platform

<National Platform

The National Platform for EU Research and Information Centre shortened to National Platform is an Irish Eurosceptic lobby group which campaigns against greater European Union integration, and against a Federal superstate. It is a member of the Europeans United for Democracy.

Its motto is For a Europe of Independent Democratic Co-Operating Nation States and has used phrases like Citizens for a Europe of independent democratic co-operating countries, and against the development of a single EU State. The secretary of the National Platform research and information group is Anthony Coughlan, senior lecturer Emeritus in social policy at Trinity College Dublin. The group has made submissions to various government forums on EU policy such as the National Forum on Europe Its members also issued press releases, submitted articles to various publications and contributed to debates on radio and television prior to the referenda on the Nice Treaty and for the Lisbon Treaty as well as sharing platforms with other like minded groupings.

On Friday 21 November 2008 National Platform head Anthony Couglan addressed the Oireachtas committee examining the fallout from the Lisbon NO vote. At the same time, they also pledged to campaign against a re-run of the referendum.

History
The Wolfe Tone Society founded in Dublin in 1964 provided a forum for Irish Marxists and physical force republicans to share ideas and formulate policies and campaign strategies. Members included economist Anthony Coughlan and Raymond Crotty, an agricultural economist and farmer. After the Republican Movement split at the turn of 1969–70, Coughlan and Crotty left the Wolfe Tone Society and started the Common Market Study Group (CMSG), which published a series pamphlets opposing Ireland's proposed membership of the European Communities. Piechnick asserts that the CMSG was a front for the Wolfe Tone Society intended to avoid alienating potential supporters sympathetic to the CMSG's Euroscepticism but opposed to the Wolfe Tone Society's Marxism and republicanism. In May 1971 the CMSG announced the formation of the Common Market Defence Campaign as a mass-membership sister organisation to campaign against the 1972 European Communities accession referendum. After the referndum was passed and Ireland joined the European Communities, the Common Market Defence Campaign was renamed the Irish Sovereignty Movement (ISM). The ISM made a presentation to the New Ireland Forum in October 1983. In 1986 in Crotty v. An Taoiseach the Irish Supreme Court ruled that the Oireachtas's ratification of the Single European Act (SEA) was unconstitutional as it impinged on national sovereignty. The SEA was ratified after a 1987 referendum against which the ISM campaigned unsuccessfully; nonetheless the Crotty ruling means that later treaties deepening the European Union must be ratified by referendum rather than merely by Oireachtas. In 1986 the ISM was renamed the National Platform for EU Research and Information Centre, usually shortened to "National Platform".

Publications

 * Common Market Study Group:
 * Irish Sovereignty Movement:
 * Irish Sovereignty Movement:
 * Irish Sovereignty Movement:
 * Irish Sovereignty Movement:
 * Irish Sovereignty Movement:
 * Irish Sovereignty Movement:
 * Irish Sovereignty Movement:
 * Irish Sovereignty Movement: