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

It is important, when considering the issue of Brexit and what is happening in the European Union more generally, that we do not lose sight of the wood for the trees. We are always in danger of doing precisely that on a whole range of issues and certainly on the issue of Brexit. We will try to focus on issues that I fully accept are very important for the many who are affected and the economy. However, we look at them in a narrowly empirical and technical way instead of understanding that what we are faced with in Europe is a very serious political crisis, one which flows from an economic and social crisis in Europe as a whole. This fact was recognised to a certain extent at the time of the Brexit referendum when there was an acknowledgement that Europe should look to itself. It has since gone out the window, however, and we have entered a game of politics. Theresa May is playing politics, as is the European Union, and it is now all about the mood music. The question is whether Theresa May said something in Florence that was different from what she said in her previous speech, whether Michel Barnier's speech was slightly different from Guy Verhofstadt's speech or whether there has there been a slight change in tone. It is, therefore, a case of playing politics.

Not only does it not make sense to have a hard border between North and South or east and west between this country and Britain, it does not make sense for anybody. It does not make sense for Britain or Europe to have tariff barriers between them and it does not make sense to have such barriers on the North-South axis. I am sufficiently optimistic to believe, notwithstanding the politics and politicking that is taking place, that even business interests understand that this is not a sensible proposition.

A previous speaker stated that consultancy firms are not getting a great take-up for advice on how to deal with Brexit. The point, however, is that we do not know what Brexit is because it will be decided by politics. We should, therefore, think a little about the deeper politics of the issue. As Deputy Paul Murphy stated, the deeper politics of it are becoming very alarming against the background of the election result in Germany at the weekend. In the bastion of stability and economic success, the model and anchor of the European Union, the fascists and Nazis have entered parliament, taking 13% of the vote and almost 100 seats. This is part of a wider wave of growth for openly fascist, neo-Nazi, far right nationalist political forces across Europe and beyond and it is a development that should worry us.

There are a number of ways to deal with this development. One is to bend to these forces and their vile, racist, Islamophobic rhetoric which tries to explain away economic and social problems by scapegoating vulnerable people and minority groups. I will give credit to the political establishment in Ireland on one point. Notwithstanding all of our differences, from the centre right to the radical left and pretty much everything in between - certainly in terms of those represented in the Oireachtas - we are a bright light in that none of us has bought into this racist nonsense. I am very glad of that and we must maintain that position and refuse to capitulate to this nonsense. We also need to go a little further and ask why this obnoxious stuff is rising. There is a direct correlation between the rise of racist, extreme right, nationalist forces in Britain, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Sweden, and any other country one wishes to name, and deprivation, unemployment and poverty. These are the common denominators that are all increasing as a result of the austerity policies pursued by the European Union and the Tories in Britain.

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