Last week, Virgin Media ran a very fair documentary about the immigration crisis called “Is IrelandFull” – a play on the popular slogan of many immigration protestors. I was interviewed for that documentary, and one of the things I said on air is that if the Irish Government was actively trying to create a “far right” movement in Ireland, they couldn’t do a better job.
The last few days, I think, have validated that position. The sight of hundreds – if not thousands – of people in Ballina coming out to speak their mind to their local TD, Dara Calleary, was followed up by the dystopian scenes in Newtownmountkennedy, County Wicklow, yesterday afternoon, as the full force of the state was deployed to force the beginning of works on a new migrant centre in the town, over the passionate and at times openly desperate objections of locals. I do not use the word “desperate” there, for the record, as an insult: I use it because desperation is one of the few words that can accurately describe the depth of feeling that Government policy is provoking in otherwise peaceful, law abiding, moderate people. A Government inspiring desperation in its own people is playing with fire.
Yesterday afternoon, I got in some trouble on social media for pointing out – entirely accurately – that local protests in Newtownmountkennedy were bolstered by the arrival of external activists to support and reinforce the locals. My twitter replies might not be a perfect barometer of public opinion, but once again the sheer wall of anger that was evident is telling of something, I think: The Irish public, or at least a substantial part of it, is substantially rejecting the Government’s long-term framing of immigration issues as “local planning matters”. The issue has been well and truly nationalised.
Last week, a fairly moderate person used, in conversation with me, the phrase that is my headline above: “It feels like the Government is at war with its own people”. I use it above, without the quotation marks, because it is true: To many people, that’s exactly how it feels.
The people of Newtownmountkennedy are, of course, taxpayers. They fund the very Gardai used yesterday to confine them to their own town and bulldoze through construction workers to commence a migrant centre they do not want. The state is using their own money to radically alter their community, against their will.
This reminded me of another ongoing battle between the state and the public: For more than a decade, the Irish Government has been trying to build a North/South electricity interconnector, which would traverse the farmland of counties Meath and Monaghan, amongst others. For more than a decade, that project – which the state says is vital – has been stalled because of a lengthy battle by landowners to stall it. It has not been built.
Surely anybody with a brain can see the injustice? That on the one hand relatively well-off farmers and landowners in the northeast (full disclosure, some of my own family members amongst them) can delay a hated project for years, while the voters of Newtownmountkennedy have no recourse of any kind to object to the transformation of their town? Everything we have come to believe and understand about how the country usually operates is being turned on its head to accommodate migrants.
Last week, it was revealed that Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of the opposition, had objected to the construction of 1,593 homes in her constituency.
Jesus Christ. Mary Lou objects to 1,593 apartments in her own constituency. pic.twitter.com/lqXPVGPpyi
— Garreth McDaid (@garrethmcdaid) April 12, 2024
The population of Newtownmountkennedy, according to the most recent figures, is just under three thousand. The proposed migrant centre is to accommodate – in tents, no less – another 160 people, and that is just for starters. This is a significant and likely lasting alteration to the makeup of their town, and yet they are not only given less right to object than the leader of the opposition is, they are actively trampled by the forces of the state.
That this is insanity should be clear to anybody with a brain. That it is unfair is obvious. That it will prompt a backlash is something a blind person can see.
We hear much in Ireland about the rise of misinformation and disinformation and conspiracy theories. Indeed, my own social media these days is depressingly full of abject nonsense ranging from falsely blaming the Jews (“the Kalergi plan”) to falsely blaming the European Union (this is not happening in Denmark) to falsely blaming a fellow called Klaus Schwab and his “WEF young leader” programme (Simon Harris is not a WEF young leader, and believes in this stuff just as much as anyone else).
But take a step back here, and ask: Can you blame people for looking to that kind of nonsense for answers? Really?
Irish people rarely wish to think the worst of their own Government, and indeed they have been conditioned not to do so. The whole effort of Government communications, indeed, is aimed at blaming others: “Our international obligations” is nothing more than an effort to pin the blame for Government policy on some vague, overseas, other.
Yet the raw truth is that this is, 100%, absolutely and irrevocably, Irish Government policy. There is nobody else to blame. The trampling of Newtownmountkennedy was a decision made by the Irish Government, and nobody else: Not the Jews, not the Europeans, not the lads with the funny secret handshakes.
Somewhere along the line, Irish policymakers decided that accommodating as many migrants as wish to come here is more important to them, politically, than bowing to the concerns of the public on this issue. They have done so in the face of the opinion polls, public protests, and genuine horror by the voters. Why?
The answer, believe it or not, is simple: Because they believed, and many still believe, that the cartel-like nature of Irish politics will allow them to get away with it. Who are you going to vote for? Sinn Fein? As we have seen, they have been for many years if anything more pro-immigration than the Government. Labour? They think Government is not cracking down hard enough on the locals. The Soc Dems, People before Profit? They’d abolish border controls altogether.
Set against the opposition, FF and FG believe they can do this and still be the relative moderates on immigration. And, they believe, nobody will vote for “the far right”.
That’s the why of all this: Because they believe it is doable, without real cost. And thus far, the opinion polls do little to dissuade them. It is also, it should be said, simply less work. The entire system of the civil service is set up to accommodate more people. Hundreds of jobs rely on it. The whole thing works without too much oversight from politicians. Changing the policy, by contrast, would be the work of months, and not only for Government. For the civil servants, too. It would mean hard meetings in Europe and tough conversations with NGOs and likely protests from the highly organised left. And all for what? They think they can win re-election as things are.
But the danger there is simple enough: At some point, people may well decide enough is enough. At some point, you vote for the only person who represents you.
After all, the only countries in Europe that take a different view on immigration are those in which a genuine “far right” party has broken through: France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy, and many others. If you want to change Government policy on immigration, the lesson from Europe is very clear: Vote for those guys, even if you – a relative centrist on everything else – think they’re loonies.
This is the fire Government is playing with.
When it feels like the Government is at war with its own people, electoral options that were once unthinkable suddenly become very thinkable indeed. And the country, in the end, becomes ungovernable. Oh what a happy place we’re building for ourselves.