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

Before I make some remarks on Brexit, I want to start with Fine Gael and the Taoiseach's relationship with Viktor Orbán and Fidesz, the far right populist party in Hungary. The European People's Party, EPP, has taken some action. It is far too late and far too little in being only a suspension rather than an expulsion. The rhetoric of Orbán and Fidesz in Hungary is one of extremely right-wing, racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Roma language, speeches and so on. It is very consciously whipping up hate, for example, saying about refugees:

We don't see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders.

He uses similar rhetoric against the Roma people, suggesting that they are not really from here, and do not belong here. This does not stay in the realm of rhetoric but is put into action through the building of a fence more than 500 km in length on the Hungarian border to keep migrants out and through plans for a so-called immigration special tax, with 25% extra tax on aid groups that support migration. Until recently the response of the Taoiseach and the Irish Government, and Fine Gael, a sister party of Fidesz, has been to turn a polite blind eye, saying that while they do not agree with him on everything that is how it is. In 2018 the Taoiseach said, "Viktor's [note, "Viktor"] view is that he wants Hungary to stay Hungarian." He also said "I don’t agree with Viktor Orban's views on immigration; I don't agree with him on lots of things but you have to respect the fact that other countries come [from] a different perspective". That reflects and illustrates the absolute failure of the so-called centre of politics, in reality the orthodox right, the extreme centre, to challenge the ideology of the right and the far right. Far from being a bulwark against the rise of these right, far right and populist right forces, it is a gateway and by legitimising discrimination against oppressed minorities and authoritarianism, it lays the basis for the rise of these sorts of forces.

On Brexit, I note and thought it was interesting that the Taoiseach made a point at the Fine Gael event at the weekend criticising Corbyn's proposal for a customs union without any state aid or neoliberal rules. He said that was trying to have your cake and eat it. That seemed to illustrate and expose that the EU as a whole, but also the right-wing Irish Government, places avoiding a hard border on this island second to maintaining the neoliberal rules of the European Union because that is what Corbyn's position potentially offers. The Irish Government, however, seems to be saying no, it must insist on maintaining the neoliberal character of the customs union and the rules as part of that.

In terms of preparation for Brexit, there is much that is unknown at this stage. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, report published yesterday was interesting and very worrying because of what it indicates about the quite severe impact of a no-deal or a disorderly Brexit in terms of wages, disposable income, consumption etc. That raises the need for trade unions and workers’ organisations to prepare to resist a potential onslaught of attacks on workers by companies saying that because of Brexit they have to cut wages, conditions and jobs etc. That poses the need for workers to come together throughout this island but also with working-class people in Britain in a conference of trade union activists to discuss how those attacks can be resisted to say that no burden for Brexit should be paid by ordinary workers.

At governmental level, the Government's programme focuses primarily on giving aid and grants to private companies to assist them through Brexit. Unfortunately, it is not focused primarily on the interests of workers. We need a programme to defend the interests of working-class people in Ireland in the event of a hard, a disorderly or a Theresa May Brexit. The starting point for that must be to say no job losses, to say that companies that threaten redundancies or attacks on workers' conditions should have their books opened and should be inspected by workers' representatives and if necessary, rather than bailing out private companies, they should take them into public ownership under the democratic control of the workers and used to pivot and turn the economy in a different, sustainable direction away from our current unsustainable reliance on finance and the nature of agribusiness and so on.

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