Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In an earlier contribution, Deputy Martin asked how long the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People before Profit would deny that Brexit was right wing and racist. I would also ask how long Deputy Martin and other Fine Gael and Labour Party Deputies will deny that the EU is right wing and racist. I would also like to put another a more positive scenario arising from the Brexit result. As somebody said in a post on Facebook, David Cameron is gone, Boris Johnson is gone, Nigel Farage is gone - who said this was all bad? This is actually positive. What we have in the Labour Party is essentially a struggle between the right wing, Blairite wing of the Labour Party, and the left, the more membership led section of the Labour Party. They are doing battle for control of the Labour Party. The Anti-Austerity Alliance and the Socialist Party support the growing movement against austerity and racism and we support moves to defend Jeremy Corbyn from those who are trying to oust him because this is a battle of ideas. It is not a battle of personalities. We convey our solidarity to him. He was democratically selected by the membership, not by MPs, and they should have the final say.

Arising from Brexit, there is a real prospect of a left movement to challenge austerity and of a left Labour Party emerging probably from a split in the party. It would mean two parties, but let them go. Similarly with the Tories, there could be two Tory parties. These are not necessarily negative developments. In fact, from the point of view of people who want real change, who want the economy run in the interests of the majority, it is good if there is a left movement emerging in Britain around Jeremy Corbyn. There is a real prospect of a general election being called, and the Labour Party winning that election with a left leader of the party, and that is a positive thing.

Also arising from Brexit, there has been an attempt to sully working class people and those in Britain who voted to leave the European Union as if they represented just one right wing and racist bloc. Clearly, if one examines the statistics all across Europe, there is a movement against what the EU has become. The Telegraph, which is not a radical socialist journal, contains an article which mentions that a tsunami of referendums is on the cards, with possibly 33 being called in the coming year, and not all of them from a right-wing perspective.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Centre found that only 38% of French people had a favourable attitude to the European Union while 62% had a negative attitude towards the European Union. That is not accidental; it arises from the economic crisis in 2008 and 2009 when it was made to pay in Europe for that crisis. This seems not to be understood by the Government side. An Ipsos MORI poll found that nearly half of voters in eight large European Union states want to be able to vote on whether to remain members of the bloc, with a third saying they would opt to leave, if given the choice. Are all of these people right wing and racist all of a sudden? In the case of France and Italy, that is far from the case. In the case of France there is talk of a "Frexit". The discourse there is not to do with a right-wing trend, but with the fact that the anti-EU sentiment in France comes from the working class French electorate who feel the EU project is being hijacked by ultra liberal technocrats and they want to see it go the other way. The French working class has shown its dissatisfaction with the EU through nationwide strikes, blockages and scenes of urban unrest. It has made the comment that Brexit teaches a lesson to the whole of Europe that either we change it or we leave it. I do not think the European Union can be changed. We saw that in Greece last year with the humiliation that was heaped on it and the referendum of the people of Greece ignored by the EU leadership. Similarly, in Italy, the Five Star Movement has said it wants Europe to be a community and not a Union of banks and lobbies. It is very important that the Taoiseach and the Government understand that the movement now is away from the EU and what it has become and towards a return to democracy for real workers' rights, which the EU cannot provide.

I note also that NATO representatives were in attendance at the meeting held at the European Council. The fact that NATO representatives sat in and took part in a meeting like that says it all. After the meeting the European Council and NATO issued joint statements that there will be accelerated and practical co-operation between the EU and NATO in selected areas. They called for further enhancement of the relationship in light of our common values and the unprecedented challenges from the south and the east. What are those unprecedented challenges from the south? They mean poor people from Africa and other countries who are trying to escape lives of poverty, but also lives of war that the EU is also involved in, stoking up and supporting and perpetuating. That is what they mean when they talk about the terrible challenge. I note that the Taoiseach was also at the European Council meeting near the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme where 1 million young people were slaughtered. The European Council mentions these unprecedented challenges; so much for helping these people.

Regarding migration, the EU has now become an entity for preventing the poorest people on the planet from entering its borders. That is racist. Not only is it doing that, but it is boasting now instead - this is in the European Council report from Donald Tusk - that the sense of security in Europe has been restored because the numbers entering Europe from the Middle East is down to 50 a day as opposed to 7,000. Where are those people being held? They are being held in Turkey in the most horrific conditions, thanks to an agreement the EU signed with the country's Prime Minister, Mr. Erdoğan. That is the EU that we see.

There was an establishment line of argument that the vote by the British people to leave the EU was racist, isolationist and xenophobic but what we are seeing across Europe is an anti-EU sentiment arising from the bailout and austerity programme inflicted since 2008 and 2009, and also an EU that has become anti-immigrant and put up fortresses against the poorest people in the world.

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