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

There are two dimensions to the scenario of Brexit and, more generally, the scenario opening up across Europe that I want to discuss. One is the political side and the narrative surrounding all this, and the second is the more direct economic and practical issues. It is very important in the first instance, particularly on the back of the recent French presidential election, that we challenge a certain narrative, which I noted Government spokespeople were quick to come out with in the aftermath of the election result, namely, that the victory for Macron was about the centre reasserting and re-establishing itself, with the direct implication that this is a good thing, as against, presumably, the "extremes", as the Government and the political establishment of Europe would like to present it. We need to challenge this narrative because it is very dangerous and dishonest. I will explain what I mean by this.

The alternative to Europe presented by the people who ran, led and dominated the Brexit campaign and now, in the case of the Tory Government, Theresa May, is obnoxious and needs to be completely resisted. Whether it is the vile anti-immigrant sentiment that has been whipped up by the likes of UKIP and the Tory Party, scapegoating immigrants as somehow responsible for the economic and social problems in Britain, or Marine Le Pen doing likewise in France, this obnoxious, vile ideology must be resisted and challenged. About that we need to be quite clear. However, far from being somehow the bulwark against this, the centre, whether it be Macron, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, perhaps - I do not know whether Fianna Fáil is included in whatever is defined as the moderate centre - the European mainstream and the European centre, of which the Government is a part, are responsible for fuelling the growth of these dangerous and far-right forces. The disillusionment and disenfranchisement that people feel - for a range of reasons - with the European Union and the centre ground of European politics are precisely what has fuelled the growth of these dangerous far-right forces. If one considers the French election, this is very clear.

There is complacency about the Macron victory. We all welcome the fact Marine Le Pen did not win, but it is very important to say that the majority of people voted against her, not for Macron. A poll carried out straight after the result shows 57% of people only voted for Macron because they wanted to stop Le Pen, not because they had any enthusiasm for Macron. Many people, even though they hated Le Pen, could not bring themselves to vote for Macron because they were afraid what an investment banker, which is what he is, would likely do to French people suffering from inequality, mass unemployment, high levels of poverty and so on. If, as is very likely, Macron continues, as he is pretty much explicitly stating, with a kind of neo-liberal offensive against the French welfare state - talking about cutbacks in public expenditure and so on - far from his acting as a bulwark against the further rise of Le Pen, his policies will lead directly to the further growth of support for her. It is a terrifying prospect that she could even have attracted the 33% or 34% share of the vote she obtained. It is worth reminding ourselves that Adolf Hitler only ever got 33% support in a free election and he still came to power with all the horrors that followed. Therefore, any complacency about the threat represented by the National Front, the far right and other racist forces would be very misguided.

A failure of the political centre to acknowledge how the policies of the EU, particularly those relating to austerity, privatisation, supporting banks over people and so on, has spurred the sort of disillusionment that has led to the growth of these forces would be a dangerous complacency that will have us riding towards a further disastrous growth of the far right. It is very important to say that. The hope I take from the French election is the growth in support for people such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is very - and rightly - critical of the European Union but robustly against racism and the anti-immigrant sentiment and is trying to offer a radical, progressive and left-wing alternative to the failures of the EU.

The EU has laid the ground for this even on the issue of racism. How can the EU present itself as progressive on the issue of immigration? Last weekend, 6,000 people, most of whom were travelling from Libya, were rescued from the Mediterranean.

At the same time, the European Union did a deal with the Libyan Government in which it provided money to try to prevent migrants from leaving the country. Appalling abuse is occurring in Libya, with large numbers of the refugees being picked up in the Mediterranean describing being raped, physically beaten and abused. Open slave markets at which desperate people are bought and sold are operating in Libya, yet the European Union is doing deals with its government to keep migrants out of Europe. If Europe was not operating a racist policy by refusing to let these people in, we would not have this disaster or encourage the view that somehow immigrants are the problem and, in turn, fuel the arguments of Marine Le Pen, the fascist far right and extreme right-wing nationalists in Britain.

I do not have time to discuss major expenditure increases by the European Union in response to President Trump's decision to ramp up militarism in the United States. The European Union has decided to ramp up European military expenditure by spending €5 billion, in addition to the €200 billion it already spends, on developing research in areas such as drone technology and other vile and murderous military technologies. That is the response of the European Union, which is also using austerity and Brexit to further ram through the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation and public service cutbacks. It is very important that we take seriously the growth of the far right and do not absolve the extreme centre - it is not the moderate centre - from what it has done in fuelling the dangerous levels of disillusionment and alienation that are spurring the growth of the far right.

On the practical matters facing Ireland, Brexit is becoming the new austerity and is being used as an excuse for everything, including more competitiveness. What does the phrase "more competitiveness", which the Taoiseach used in his contribution, mean? Does it mean we must keep down wages and public expenditure? That is what the European Union believes it means and what is has consistently meant for the Government. Brexit is also becoming the new excuse for privatisation, cutting public expenditure and keeping a lid on wages and it will be used as an excuse for attacking public service pensions. This is what the European Union has been doing under the impact of austerity. The centre, disaster capitalism-like, is using the crisis as an opportunity to ram through the misguided policies which are digging the grave of the European Union and fuelling the growth of the far right.

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