The intriguing thing about the trompe l’oeuil Euro referendum is the No that lies beyond the official No; beyond political reason. This is the No that resists. There must be something very dangerous about it to have mobilized all the authorities so determinedly behind the Yes. Such defensive panic is a sure sign of a corpse in the wardrobe.
This No is clearly an instinctive reaction to the ultimatum that the referendum has been from the start. A reaction to the complacent coalition around an infallible, universal Holy Europe. A reaction to the Yes as a categorical imperative whose backers did not dream for a moment that it might be seen as a challenge, and a challenge to be met. It does not therefore say No to Europe, it says No to the unquestionable Yes.
There is always something galling about the arrogance of a victory assumed a priori, whatever the reasons. The outcome has been decided in advance, and all that is sought is a consensus. ‘Say Yes to Yes’: this now commonplace formula conceals a dreadful mystification. Yes no longer means yes to Europe, or even yes to Chirac, or to the neo-liberal order. It means yes to Yes, to the consensual order; it is no longer an answer, but the content of the question itself.