Ganley ‘Comeback’

Irish Daily Star

Declan Ganley may be about to launch a comeback campaign on the Lisbon referendum – three months after vowing he would quit politics when he failed to win a Euro seat in Brussels.

The English-born businessman gave an interview to the prestigious Wall Street Journal earlier this week, labeling the repeat referendum ‘profoundly undemocratic.’

Libertas Campaign Launch
Libertas Campaign Launch

The paper described Ganley as the ‘driving force’ behind the No vote last year.

And on Friday Libertas communication director John McGuirk sent out a twitter message declaring he was ‘preparing to unveil the Libertas campaign over the next few days.’
Libertas Campaign Launch

The message was later deleted from twitter.

The self-made millionaire quit dramatically after failing to win a seat in the European parliament elections in June.

‘The people of Ireland North West, I applied to them for a job. I didn’t pass the application,’ he said.’

Within weeks, a website called bringganleyback.com appeared on the internet, registered to a ‘B.G.B’.

The site encouraged visitors to download a petition and collect signature asking Ganley to re-enter the political field.

But as late as last month, Ganley was insisting on his Twitter account that he was not interested in politics.

Asked if he planned to get involved in the second Lisbon referendum, he answered: ‘No plans, I gave it my best, if there’s a No, with the cross party ‘leadership’ we have in Ireland they’ll just make us ‘vote’ again anyway.’

‘In short, no plans to be involved, waste of time,’ he wrote.

‘I tried, I’m back in the business world and enjoying it a lot more, lots to do, straight forward logic and less nonsense.’

‘Business is a challenge and quite often a pleasure, politics a duty and sacrifice, or at least it should be. I prefer business.’

And finally, in case anyone was in any doubt about his intentions, Ganley wrote in reply to one query: ‘Too busy with work to Twit much. Not in the Lisbon debate. As ever I want the EU to succeed and this little citizen to get on with business and life.’

On Friday Mr Ganley was reported to be ‘in back-to back meetings’ and was to available for comment on reports that he would take an active part in any campaign.