Whatever you say, we aren't going to listen

The UK Government would ignore an Irish no and crack on with the Treaty regardless:

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain has told European Union partners it will continue parliamentary ratification of the bloc's Lisbon reform treaty even if Ireland votes "No" in a knife-edge referendum on Thursday, a senior EU diplomat said.

The diplomat said London had reassured key partners it has "no intention to pull the plug on this", despite strong pressure from Eurosceptics demanding a British referendum or the scrapping of the ratification process.

And they are deciding how the new institutions will work behind closed doors (shhh! don't tell the voters...)

According to Bruno Waterfield:

Before setting out Dublin’s detailed and decided position on both the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the role of the “foreign minister, now called a High Representative (HR) for foreign affairs, Ireland’s EU ambassador, Bobby McDonagh, pleaded with his colleagues to keep the Irish voters in the dark.

“(We) have to remain cautious in presenting these issues (referendum)!,” the minutes record Mr McDonagh as saying.

Mr Mcdonagh then went on to set out his Government’s position – a stance that has never been debated in public and certainly not in front of the children during the Irish referendum. These words, from a secret document, have never been published.