On Wednesday, the European Parliament approved ten propositions and a provisional agreement whose passing now mean that the Asylum and Migration Pact will come into effect before the elections for the 705 seats take place in June. Eleven of the current 13 Irish MEPs were present.
Only Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Chris MacManus voted against the final provisional agreement which was carried by 398 votes to 162. All of the eleven voted in favour of the majority of the proposals. The four Fine Gael members of the European People’s Party; Deirdre Clune, Frances Fitzgerald, Seán Kelly and Maria Walsh all voted in favour of the final motion – as did Barry Andrews and Billy Kelleher of Fianna Fáil, and Grace O’Sullivan of the Greens. Luke Flanagan abstained.
All of the FF and FG MEPS also voted for every one of the ten separate proposals. The only Irish MEPs to vote against any proposal, as recorded in the roll call votes, were Green MEP Grace O’Sullivan, and members of the Left group, Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan.
They opposed the proposal on returning illegal entrants and the proposal on checking the criminal records of persons entering an EU state.
The proposal on returns of illegal migrants to third countries led to the closest vote with 329 in favour and 253 voting against. The opponents were made up of most members of the European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) group and of Identity and Democracy (ID) the two “right wing populist” groupings, and members of the left formations.
The right opposed them because they feel that they do not go far enough while the far left and Greens and some centre leftists agreed with the NGO claim that basically any proposal to tackle illegal immigration through deportation or fingerprinting is a breach of human rights. Presumably this is what motivated Daly, Flanagan, Wallace and O’Sullivan to vote against – two of the only propositions that they opposed.
Then there was Chris MacManus of Sinn Féin. Although a member of the same far left grouping as Daly, Wallace and Flanagan, McManus – who along with Daly and Wallace was one of just six Left members who voted against the composite measure – he decided not to show his hand at all on the two motions opposed by Daly, Flanagan and Wallace. He abstained and also abstained on two other votes; one on resettling illegal immigrants and another on the standards of reception for persons claiming International Protection.
MacManus incidentally was just one of 4 of 623 MEPs to abstain in the proposal to re-settle illegal entrants. The other three were Eva Kaili, the Greek socialist who was booted out of the socialist grouping after she was arrested and charged as part of the Quatargate corruption investigation; and two Slovenian socialists.
No doubt MacManus had some profound reason for abstaining but he seems not to have shared them with the rest of us. He has, however, posted a video on Twitter claiming that he had just left the Parliament where had voted “against measures contained in the EU’s asylum and migration pact.”
Just out of the chamber after voting on EU Migration & Asylum Pact. It must be for an Irish government to decide on key aspects of our immigration system. These are not matters for the EU to dictate. We need a well-managed migration system – that is fair, efficient & enforced. pic.twitter.com/avY1GPCphr
— Chris MacManus MEP (@MacManusChris) April 10, 2024
He did not vote against any of the proposals unless he is going to claim that he abstained by mistake or that his abstention was erroneously recorded. He did vote against the provisional agreement, along with 98 members of the For Roysh ECR and ID.
Which happily, and very Shinner like, will allow him and his increasingly strained party, to continue with their current Jekyll and Hyde stance on immigration. In his X movie, MacManus refers to the pact being an “issue of our national sovereignty” and that we need our own “well-managed immigration system” which are “not matters for the EU to decide.”
Well, as myself and others on Gript have shown, this is very much a new stance on the part of Sinn Féin. There is ample evidence including from MacManus’ own voting record on the Pact that they are engaged in a desperate u-turn in order to distance themselves from their well-documented support for many years of ultra-liberal immigration policies.
Which is fair enough, and par for the course for any opportunist establishment party. The problem for Sinn Féin is that it has to ride two horses. Their voters are in the majority hostile to such policies but there is also a cohort of left liberal voters who they are frightened of losing back to their natural homes on the soft and far left.
More to the point, the party has since it began its house training become increasingly dominated at elected representative level and among its staff by people – quite a number from NGO advocacy backgrounds – who favour left liberalism and a sort of infantile veneration of Communism and are antipathetic if not hostile to the traditional roots of Irish nationalism. Some indeed would be highly insulted if you described them as such.
The problem for them now will be how they manage to claim to most of their voters that they are for border controls and even deportations while casting MacManus abstention on criminal checks and other issues opposed by the NGO left as evidence that the Shinners are still with them. They could even plausibly make out that he voted along with “the fash” for that reason.
Will it sell in the sticks, that is the question……