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

This failure to distinguish extreme right-wing politics with racism at its heart and what it did to Europe in the 1930s and to throw that accusation at others comes at a time when our own Government is in a political alliance with the most dangerous manifestation of crypto-fascist extreme right racist, Islamophobic politics in the entirety of Europe, in the form of Viktor Orbán, a person who has spewed out anti-Muslim filth of the sort that legitimised the massacre in New Zealand. That is what is going on. The Taoiseach then had the audacity to attack the British Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and somehow equate him with Viktor Orbán. Jeremy Corbyn does not have a racist bone in his body. He has fought his entire life against racism, anti-Semitism and anything even remotely like it. The people who are attacking Corbyn are those who say that if one criticises Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians, one is anti-Semitic, which is the most dishonest accusation imaginable because what Israel is doing to the Palestinians - Europe stands idly by while it does it - is the absolute vicious persecution of the Palestinians and the denial of their most basic rights and the right to return to some sort of self-determination and sovereignty.

It locks up hundreds of Palestinian children without trial. The European Union ignores what Israel does and ignores the fact that today, in defiance of international law, Donald Trump is legitimising the illegal annexation of Syrian territory and that Israel is planning another assault on peaceful protestors in Gaza as they prepare to protest for their rights under international law and for the right to return. Europe stands idly by. The Taoiseach stands idly by and then pops out allegations against the left when he is conspiring with or failing to challenge the political forces that visit death, destruction and illegality on the people of Palestine and colluding with obnoxious political forces in Europe such as Viktor Orbán. The hypocrisy of it is absolutely stunning.

It is that kind of hypocrisy, playing around with these political forces and appeasement of those sort of political forces to use the terminology of the 1930s, it is appeasement of the fascist far right, racism, authoritarianism and all that goes with it that led to the horrors of the past and that is the very real danger that is growing right across Europe. Instead of playing petty politics to have pot shots at Members on the other side, the Taoiseach should start to show a little bit of a moral compass when it comes to the very dangerous far right political threat that is emerging across Europe.

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