Over the weekend I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about the Lisbon Treaty referendum. In fact, until I found out that Willie Randolph had been let go late yesterday it was pretty much all I'd been thinking about. I watched the European Championships each night with a newspaper in my hand reading analysis (what happened?) and speculation (where now?).
As I wrote last week I was a pretty soft 'No' voter. I even hesitated before making my mark on Thursday evening. Even after casting my own vote I was pretty sure it would pass. Again, I was surprised when it failed. I was more surprised by the turnout than the margin of the 'No' victory. A high turnout was presumed a plus for the 'Yes' side. In the end, turnout was 53%, which is pretty high (higher than the 50% who approved the Nice Treaty in 2002) and can't be easily dismissed.
I've been sorting through so many thoughts on this vote and the EU generally that I'm figuring on writing a bunch of shorter posts rather a confused book-length post.
