Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will get to that.

Was there any acknowledgment that these people were behind the financing of the hugely resourced "Remain" campaign?

What is their agenda? Is it what is in the interests of the millions across Europe, for a better life for them, to protect refugees, to build a social Europe that Deputy Howlin said he wants? No, the Deputy must have a case of bad amnesia if he thinks that is why those people were resourcing the Remain campaign. These were the same people who inflicted cruel and brutal austerity on the people of Greece, Portugal, Spain and of this country, who insisted that millions of working people, the poor, the least well-off and the most vulnerable bore the brunt of the wild gambling, greed and speculation of Europe's super-rich. These were the people who resourced the Remain campaign in Britain and they did so precisely to preserve their interests, to ensure the European Union continues with policies that protects the 1% of the super wealthy and the financial and corporate elite at the expense of millions of ordinary people across Europe. That is the truth. That is the key reason there has been a revolt again the EU and its policies - this is not uniquely British - which we have seen with the massive mobilisations in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and in this country against the cruel austerity policies that the European Union has imposed on them and that has shown an utter contempt for democracy. That is again manifested today, as we speak, with the European Commission, an unelected body, saying that they do not care what democratic mandate this House has or what democratic decision was made by the Irish people in the previous election on the issue of water charges, they say we are simply not allowed to get rid of water charges. Is this the democratic and social Europe about which Deputy Howlin is talking? He must be joking. He must think the people of this country and Europe are fools.

It was that patronising contempt for the intelligence of ordinary people that produced the exit vote. Does anybody really believe that the majority of people who voted to exit are political supporters of UKIP? It certainly would not be evidenced in the UKIP's election results. It is highly likely that when a detailed analysis is done of from where the vote for exit came it will found that the vast majority of people who voted for exit are Labour voters in the poorest, working class areas in the parts of Britain that were devastated by Thatcher's neoliberal policies that destroyed the steel industry, the car industry and the miners' unions, that inflicted terrible poverty, suffering and alienation on the majority of people in the poorest, working class areas. That was borne out in any of the vox pops, but was not in any way reflected by the media which wanted to go along with the dishonest narrative of what was at stake and which wanted to present anybody who was in favour of an exit vote as a reactionary xenophobe or a disgusting political opportunist like Boris Johnson. Let me repeat, as far as I am concerned, Johnson is a vile opportunist who must be defeated. Farage is a vile racist and xenophobe who must be defeated. It is precisely by addressing the deep alienation, inequality, poverty, unemployment and the disaffection of millions of people in Britain and across Europe with the utterly undemocratic, corporate-dominated, increasingly militarised and increasingly racist European Union that we will deal with the xenophobes and opportunists like Johnson and Farage and, for that matter, the far right wing and Nazi manifestations of them in other parts of Europe, to which the European Union's own political failures have given birth. If we show contempt and if we insult the English people for the decision they have made, we are more likely to drive them back into the hands of the right, the racist and xenophobes rather than direct their justified anger where it should be directed, against an increasingly undemocratic European Union, against the policies of austerity that are not by any means unique to the European Union, that were also championed by the Tories in Britain for decades, instigated by Margaret Thatcher, and carried on by David Cameron. Who started the anti-immigrant narrative of the exit campaign? David Cameron.

These are the people with whom Deputy Brendan Howlin and anybody else who was in the Remain camp are associating themselves. Is that a fair argument? It is as fair as the Deputy trying to liken us to Farage to say he was in the camp of David Cameron and of Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and of Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, who decided to wait until after the Brexit vote to unveil the plans for a European army. They had those plans drafted but did not publish them until after the vote and following it they have been revealed. There is an explicit commitment now from what I call the global strategy on foreign and security policy to move towards a European army, something supported by Mr. Juncker, who has said, "a common army among the Europeans would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union". That is what Mr. Juncker thinks. Germany's defence Minister said, "The European army is our long-term goal but first we must strengthen the European Defence Union." That is their long-term goal. That is the agenda they want but we do not speak about that.

A great number of the people in Britain and here who are anxious about the exit vote are anxious because they are genuinely progressive but they have wrongly invested their anti-rasict sentiments, hopes and their belief and desire for solidarity with refugees in the European Union. I would ask those people seriously to consider whether they can honestly believe that the European Union that has signed an agreement with Turkey to expel all immigrants who come in and send them back to Turkey to be shot or imprisoned and brutalised by the Turkish regime is a force for defending and a force for the solidarity of refugees? That is the purest of fantasies.

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