Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

What is happening here, in my opinion, is extremely dangerous. Ireland is being bounced into joining a dangerous ratcheting up of tension on a world scale on the side of the UK, the US and NATO, with Russia on the other side. This is part of a process of undermining the nominal neutrality that Ireland is meant to have and it comes two weeks after a Fine Gael MEP paper calling for a redefinition of neutrality, a weakening of the triple lock and opening a discussion about joining a mutual defence pact. This is being done on the basis of no evidence. We are being asked to accept the word of British intelligence on this matter. Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn's spokesperson, was savaged in the right-wing British media last week for having the temerity to comment that the history of British intelligence is problematic. In reality, that is a gross under-statement given the role of British intelligence in this country in terms of collusion with loyalist paramilitaries and in Britain in terms of its role in the miners' strike, about which Seumas Milne wrote, and its role in terms of the dodgy dossier and bouncing the British people into war with Iraq and the disaster that followed. We are now expected to blindly trust British intelligence.

The attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter with the nerve agent, Novichok, is appalling. The use of such chemical weapons is reprehensible and it represents the barbarism of modern warfare. I want to make it clear that we are in no sense defenders, supporters or excusers for the authoritarian Vladimir Putin and the dictatorial regime of which he is part. The Socialist Party has a sister party in Russia, Socialist Alternative, which is subject to repression from that regime. We have consistently raised the question of LGBT oppression in Russia, workers' rights in Russia and of the crackdown on political opposition in Russia. We opposed the slaughter in Chechnya at a time, after 11 September, when western powers were turning a blind eye to what was happening in the name of war and terror. We have opposed their actions in Syria. We hold no truck for their human rights abuses in Russia or anywhere else around the world.

I believe that the Putin regime is well capable of engaging in the use of a nerve agent in this way but the problem is facts are stubborn and no facts or evidence has been presented to us. We are expected to rely on blind faith. There was an excellent article inThe Irish Timesa week and a half ago by Séamus Martin, a former Moscow correspondent, which goes through the arguments and outlines how there are other possible explanations. There is the possibility of the agent getting out of Russian hands, which happened around the collapse of the Soviet Union, the possibility that it was constructed elsewhere and the political complications for Putin, which he said make it appear that the possibility the Kremlin was directly involved seem unlikely. Neither I, the Tánaiste nor Mrs. Theresa May know who was responsible but we are being asked to trust British intelligence and join in this ratcheting up of pressure. This is gross hypocrisy.

We care about this issue but when it comes to known, widely-accepted British collusion in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and the death of over 30 people - and we know the British were responsible - no diplomats are expelled. So-called "spycops" from Britain have been here and in abusive relationships with women without the knowledge of the Garda or the Government, but nothing has been done about that. We are aware of the gross attacks on democratic rights taking place right now in the Spanish state. Mr. Puigdemont's arrest two days ago means there are now nine Catalan politicians in pre-trial detention while seven are in exile simply for trying to exercise the right to self-determination. There is no action about that.

What is happening now is not about the truth or human rights. It is about a new inter-imperialist rivalry that is taking off in which ordinary, working class people here and around the world have no side. We should refuse to be drawn into the development of a new cold war.

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