While Sinn Féin may be doing their best to play down their membership of the European Parliament group which supports open borders – a group which Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan also belong to – their comrades in the European left have been happy to place that stance front and centre of their manifesto for the elections.
The manifesto outlines how the Left, and one presumes their members such as Sinn Féin, Daly, Wallace, Ming, and their comrades, will continue to fight against “Fortress Europe” which has “been waging a war against migrants and refugees for decades” It has pledges to stop “the externalisation of borders,” “the relocation of detention centres to non-EU countries,” and the Left also “demand” the “abolition of the Dublin Agreement.”
The Left’s lead candidate in the upcoming European Parliament election, Walter Baier, is himself a member of the Communist Party of Austria which supported Stalin’s occupation of that country until 1955.
Lest I be accused once more of “McCarthyism” in highlighting the communist roots of much of the Left’s constituent parties – which also includes Die Linke, the reinvention of the former ruling SDS (Communist Party) of East Germany which gave the world the Stasi and the Berlin Wall – the group itself is open about the fact that it is “united by their similar left-wing to far-left ideologies.”
So when you vote for Sinn Fein or Independents for Change here, you are also, presuming they plan to vote with their party, voting for the “Left’s master plan for Europe.” Mmmmm. Why does that remind me of something? Anyway, I digress. So what is the Master Plan for Europe that the Shinners, Daly, Wallace and Flanagan share with the Communist Parties of Austria, Spain, France, Finland, Italy, Portugal and Slovakia, not to mention the Party for the Animals of the Netherlands?
Front and to the fore is the Left’s opposition to what it claims have been the forces “waging a war against migrants and refugees for decades.” For that reason the Left wants to “dismantle Frontex, the EU’s border security agency.”
Frontex is the agency which as Gript has reported previously was responsible for detecting 330,000 illegal border crossings in 2022 alone. Presumably therefore, if Sinn Féin and Daly, Wallace and Flanagan are part of the Left group which wishes to do away with Frontex the the question must be asked as to what would take its place and ensure that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants aren’t free to enter Ireland and other EU states without impediment?
And yet Sinn Féin would have you believe that they are opposed to “open borders.” The Left instead wishes to create “enhanced protection, rights, and assistance for migrants and asylum seekers.” Without one mention in this section of their video manifesto to any of the concerns voiced by ordinary workers and communities in Ireland or in any of the other EU member states.
Their other policies include more radical and speeded up targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Interestingly, in the light of Sinn Fein’s recent love bombing of their wealthier friends in the American corporate sector the Left supports tackling “tax havens” and “standardising some income tax rates.”
Among their more Pollyanna proposals are the abolition of entrance exams to universities, which naturally would also apply to “Non-EU and Non-European” students. They also demand “strong anti-discrimination measures and hate speech definitions.” But, but, but, didn’t Sinn Féin say they opposed the Hate Speech legislation here? After voting for it, of course, but such fine distinctions matter not a pinch in the world of the far left.
As for the Shinner’s claim that they are opposed to EU centralisation their own group wants to give the European Parliament even greater powers over national governments and parliaments. This would entail giving the Parliament the power to “draft laws, select the European Commission, manage the EU’s budget and supervise the European Central Bank’s actions.”
That is what you are voting for if you vote for any of the Sinn Féin candidates on Friday or for Daly, Wallace or Flanagan.
