Graham Clifford: New Government needs to get tough on the far right
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"Ireland rejects far-right extremism" was the heading in the British daily newspaper, the .
The strapline read: "As the world grapples with rising extremism, Ireland’s election underscores a preference for stability, pragmatism, and centrist governance."
While we were hyper-focused on local constituencies, transfers, and eliminations, those further away could see things more objectively.
They could see that the Irish electorate said emphatically "no thank you" to the politics of hate, division, and racism. The rejection could not have been clearer.
It was a pitiful showing after all the grandstanding, noise, and chest beating.
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Even candidates for parties for which more controls on immigration formed a pillar of their pre-election offering struggled badly.
Those returned for Independent Ireland, mostly outgoing TDs, would likely have been elected had they run as independents.
Exit polls showed that immigration was the main issue for just 6% of voters. Included in that figure were some who want better conditions and care for those seeking safety and sanctuary.
Around 76% of voters gave their first-preference votes to either centrist parties or parties on the left, while many others voted for Independent candidates like Catherine Connolly in Galway West.
Over the last year, in particular, we’ve seen Fine Gael speaking out of both sides of its mouth in relation to immigration.
It was the outgoing Taoiseach who described the tents on the canal in Dublin, in which slept vulnerable international protection applicants, as “a shanty town”.
Simon Harris promised a “very significant increase” in deportations of failed international protection applicants if Fine Gael were returned.
He said asylum seekers were driving up homeless figures. Fine Gael championed Ireland’s membership of the controversial EU Migration and Asylum Pact.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee told an Oireachtas committee in April that over 80% of people seeking asylum here were arriving via the North — this figure, she conceded, was anecdotal and could provide no data to substantiate it.
Hate speech legislation was shelved.
On the election campaign, Harris said he wanted international protection applicants to pay for their State accommodation, if working, and was at pains to say “common sense” had to be implemented in the immigration system — a system over which Fine Gael has presided for the last 14 years.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik called it "populist pandering to anti-immigrant feeling", and she was correct.
However, the Fine Gael party leader wasn’t alone in this regard. Sinn Féin’s stance on immigration chopped and changed continuously — often calamitously.
I recall Cork TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire standing on the plinth of Leinster House saying his party was “opposed to open borders”.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing — neither could many Sinn Féin activists on the ground working to fight back against far-right agitation locally.
Sinn Fein’s first-preference vote was down by more than 5%. The party leadership too talked about “common sense” in relation to immigration.
Collectively, the body politic worked itself up into a frenzy on immigration — fuelled by ill-informed and glib utterings by some politicians, online deception, and a media which became blinded by the flames of hate.
News bulletins telling of a dozen people blocking a road in Clare, a couple of grown men causing disruption in libraries, or a small group shouting abuse outside a barracks in Westmeath somehow warranted national media focus. So few people, so much coverage.
Of course, the despicable Dublin riots warranted much attention — but so often Irish media outlets have provided coverage to agitators whose sole aim is to generate content and attain notoriety.
We now know the first names of so many of these people. Why? How? It's so often because of the coverage they’re given.
This election, once and for all, showed us what the people of Ireland really think about. And, for the overwhelming majority, it’s not immigration.
So, if political parties want to be populist — and sadly many do, especially those in Government — then don’t lean right, because that’s not where the votes are.
Focus on building community integration. Support groups and initiatives which bring people of all different backgrounds together. Listen to people originally from elsewhere. Build bridges rather than erect barriers.
Scrap the entirely inadequate migrant integration strategy, and replace it with a community integration strategy, and do all you can to include everyone in the political process.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that 40% of the electorate didn’t bother casting their vote or that the entire Dáil will be white, without any TD — that I’m aware of — with a strong migrant background.
The incoming Government needs to get tough on the far right. There can be no tolerance for their public disorder, intimidation, and the dispersal of malicious mistruths. Find ways to pressurise social media companies into moderating content. Listen to the people.
The people voted emphatically to reject the far right, to reject the inhumane treatment of anyone in our country, including those people seeking international protection, to reject hatred, intimidation, division, homophobia, and — above all — to reject racism.
- Graham Clifford is the founder of, and head of, international development with the Sanctuary Runners – a solidarity through sport movement. Sanctuaryrunners.ie