New Northern Ireland Environment Minister Sammy Wilson of the DUP has welcomed Ireland's No vote in the Lisbon referendum.
“I have no doubt that if we [the United Kingdom] were given the opportunity to have our say, the UK would have voted as the Republic of Ireland has. Unfortunately we were robbed of our promised chance to let Europe know what we actually think of this treaty.”
Sammy Wilson of the DUP was among those who welcomed Ireland's No vote in the Lisbon referendum
“The people of the United Kingdom were not given the opportunity to have their say on the Lisbon treaty, despite the fact that all parties had promised in their manifestos to hold a referendum."
The result sent a very strong message to leaders in Europe that the European Constitution was dead, Mr Wilson said.
But he predicted EU leaders would try to resurrect the treaty by tweaking it enough so people would be fooled into thinking that it was a different document.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage said the only people to have a public voice on the treaty had “kicked it into the long grass”.
He went on: “I suspect that the EU extremists will simply try to ignore it.” He said the process of the treaty through the House of Lords next week had now to be halted “because the project now has no legitimacy”.
Tory peer Lord Tebbit commented: “Perhaps now both the European Union and the British Government will understand that wherever the treaty or the constitution have been put to the people, the people have rejected it.
“If Brown wants to ratify the treaty, despite the Irish vote, he should hold a referendum here, and as far as the EU is concerned, it should now understand that the people of Europe are not prepared to go farther and deeper into the process of creating a European state,” he added.
But Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies said the European Union would “muddle on” despite the rejection.
“At its heart, the EU is simply a mechanism that allows 27 countries with shared values to work together. The process is slow, confused, and occasionally shambolic, but it is the best we have.”
PA