WEBVTT - The Irish Far Right/Neo-Nazi Movement 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.800 All Media. 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:08.400 Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:11.760 it Happening Here, which is normally focused on the United 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:15.600 States because that's where we all live. However, we do 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.200 like to cover the rest of the world and the 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.720 ongoing struggle against the global far right movement. And today 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:23.439 we're going to talk about a place that we don't 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.000 cover often on this show, Ireland. And it's not because 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:30.400 Ireland doesn't have a problem with the far right, because 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.080 as our guest today is going to talk to us 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.199 about it, most certainly does. And so I would like 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.839 to welcome to the program a great guy, Padre O'Rourke, 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.640 author of Burn Them Out, A History of Fascism and 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.040 the far right in Ireland. Thank you so much for 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:45.800 being on the show. 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.240 No problem, delice to be here. Thanks very much, Robert. 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.000 Yeah, you know, there's this attitude and I think, as 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:53.640 you noted in some note use of the long, there's 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.680 a degree to which it's true that Ireland has some 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.760 resistance to the far right that has led to maybe 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.800 it growing slower or taking a little longer to get 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:05.440 off the ground to the same extent that it has 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:07.959 in the UK or the US. As a result, of 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.039 kind of the history of Irish Republicanism, but that's not 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.800 comprehensively true across the island, and that that's you know, 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:19.120 certainly has not stopped it from having some pretty significant problems, 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:20.479 which we're going to talk about today. 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:25.920 Yeah, Sadly, as long as fascism has existed, since Mussolini's 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:28.880 March on Rome and his political rise, we have had 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.240 fascist groups here of one sort or another. We've had 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.160 fascist groups in Ireland that were pro British and politics, 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.440 fascist groups in Ireland that were pro Irish or Irish independents. 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.720 You know, obviously we were neutral during World War Two. 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.920 We weren't occupied by Nazi Germany or anything like that. 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:47.760 We did have one very big fascist group here in 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.680 the nineteen thirties, the Blue Shirts, who were extremely violent 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.440 and got sixty eight members of parliament elected. They were 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.040 the main political opposition. They were kind of the largest 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:01.160 non governing fascist organization in the world per capita. But 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:04.720 as you said, Irish republicanism has kind of inoculated us 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.200 against a lot of the far right stuff we'd have 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.080 seen in Britain and Germany and France in the nineties 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.360 because you know, while the conflict was going on in 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.280 the North of Ireland. Basically, if you were an angry 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.280 young man with very strong patriotic feelings who was given 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.600 towards political violence, you would probably end up in the 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.960 Provisional IRA and their politics were very left wing and internationalist. 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.160 I mean I remember going into their political wing Shinfein's 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.520 bookshop in Dublin in the nineteen nineties and it was 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.560 all pictures of you know, yes Er Arafat, and it 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:42.520 was pictures of Nelson Mandela and like the Zapatistas, and 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.160 you know, it was very much about Irish independence being 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.120 an anti colonial struggle. You do, of course get like 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:52.600 on the opposite side of that, on kind of the 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.560 loyalist pro British side. In the North, you did get 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.200 as kind of reaction to that, pro British paramilitaries, the 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:04.400 Ulster Volunteer Force, the UDA, Ulster Defense Association, the Ulster 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.200 Volunteer Force, the UVF. They would have linked up with 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.000 neo Nazi groups like Combat eighteen in England to get guns, 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.480 to get finances, to get their hands on explosives and 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:15.840 things which were easier to get in England than in 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:18.639 the North of Ireland. But really we never had a 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.360 party here, either in the north or in the south 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.520 that was as successful as groups like the Front National 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:29.480 in France or the British National Party in England. Both 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.600 sadly in recent years, certainly in the last ten years, 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.360 the far right are kind of back. They're alive and kicking, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.560 and they're taken to the streets. 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.240 And so what do you credit that? I mean, it 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.360 seems like there's a mix of things. First off, you 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.840 suddenly do have people immigrating into Ireland from elsewhere in 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.640 the world in significant numbers for you know, the first 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.240 time in quite a while. And then on the other head, 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.880 it sounds like there's also the kind of as we 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.520 see everywhere, all the conscious exporting of far right figures 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:01.440 in id is into the country. 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.560 Yeah. Well, Ireland's greatest export was always people, and you know, 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.120 we a few Irish American communities in you know, Chicago, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:13.880 New York, you know, all over Ebi, Irish people in 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.919 Australia and Canada and England, all over the continent. So 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.880 in the early you know, twenty tens, we started like 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:22.440 there had always been a trickle of migration and people 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.200 coming back and forward, like we had some you know 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:29.240 Vietnamese refugees here. We had you know, historically we had 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:33.520 Russian Jews coming here and so on, escaping pilgrims in Zaras, Russia. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:35.600 But really the first time that we had very large 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.560 numbers of people coming was in the twenty teens, and 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.599 it was things like the Mediterranean migrant crisis. It was 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.240 people fleeing climate change in Africa, the Syrian civil War, 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.320 Teliban in Afghanistan, and more recently, of course Putant's invasion 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.159 of Ukraine and the fire Heights. Had always been these 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:55.440 tiny little fringe parties and figures. It was a very 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.080 active anti fascist group here called Anti Fascist Action Ireland. 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.919 And anytime these groups tried to organize or take to 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:03.960 the streets, they were challenged and they were run off. 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.920 But really what brought them all together Ireland's kind of 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.560 attempt to unite the right was the COVID nineteen pandemic, 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.520 because we had one of the strictest COVID lockdowns in Europe. 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.200 You're talking about. Originally you weren't allowed to travel more 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.040 than two kilometers from your home. That's one of the 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:26.200 quarter miles for you Americans, and basically you could go 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:29.160 to the store, but other than that, you couldn't you know, 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.960 you couldn't travel very far. And of course everyone was 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.360 locked at home with their with their internet and started 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:37.880 going down the rabbit hole. And what we saw was 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:42.360 the anti vaxer COVID conspiracy movement took to the streets 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.760 in Ireland very quickly, and that brought together all of 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:50.760 the disparate tiny far right and neo fascist factions, the 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:55.520 closet neo Nazis, the anti vaxers, the fundamentalist Catholics like 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.480 the Society of Saint Pias, the tenth, the sovereign citizen types, 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.760 the people who were on about five G conspiracies and 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.040 chemtrails all got onto the streets, all got active on 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.160 the Irish left and the anti fascist side. We kind 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.599 of dropped the ball because we were following the healthcare 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.680 advice and the cops were quite happy to ignore the 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.839 far right mobilizing on the street. But there were striking 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.960 workers like Debenhams and Clearies who'd been striking before COVID struck, 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.119 and the cops were going up and moving these trade 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.839 unionissan saying, you know, you're breaking the pandemic. So it 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.120 wasn't released even Lee and you know, suddenly, for the 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.520 first time during the pandemic, we were starting to see 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.719 groups of three four hundred far right in Dublin, which 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.080 doesn't sound like much, but I mean last weekend there 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.440 was a march in Dublin City and they had probably 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.839 around five thousand, maybe up to ten thousand people marching, 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.560 and that's something we haven't seen here since the nineteen thirties. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.240 Yeah, and that's such I think an important point. The 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.760 degree to which, because this is a global issue, the 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.960 degree to which everyone else attempting to abide by public 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:02.080 safety measures during COVID nineteen strengthened the far right because 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.360 they were out in the streets this kind of organizing 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:07.680 equivalent of getting to steal a march on the enemy. 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:10.040 It makes sense to me that it was because in 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.560 the US that was interrupted at least by the George 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.840 Floyd uprisings. But in Ireland, you know, it seems like 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.120 there was a much more significant period of time where 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.760 these folks were essentially acting and organizing unopposed, and the 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.840 police were, when they chose to act at all, acting 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.280 against folks on the opposite side of things who were 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:28.800 organizing during COVID. 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.280 Yeah, it was let kind of rum belong to the police. 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:34.600 The cops didn't really start taking action on any of 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.920 this stuff until I would say it was nearly November 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:42.320 twenty twenty three when they had this rally called I 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.560 think it was called to the Doll or maybe slightly 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.080 earlier than that. In September twenty twenty three. The Doll 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:52.000 is the Gaeacord for our Parliament, and basically the dregs 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.880 of the COVID movement kind of came together again. You 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.920 had all these tiny far rice and fascist parties popping up, 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:00.880 and the best thing of about them is they all 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.200 get into furior fights. They all start arguing with each 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.000 other about who's going to be the leader, and they 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.920 haven't united. But they took to the streets in the autumn, 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.720 in the fall of twenty twenty three, and there was 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:16.760 one really violent and disgusting riot outside the outside the 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:21.120 Parliament where the far right were throwing bottles of your 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.200 line at politicians trying to get in, were shouting racial 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.600 abuse at anybody who wasn't white, who was working in 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:32.000 the building as a cleaner or a parliamentary assistant or anything. 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.000 Any opposition politicians they could see. They were screaming at 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.920 them in imitation of you guys. And January the sixth 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.520 they had built a mock noose and they were using 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:46.320 it to hang effigies of politicians, and you also had 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.760 police cops being attacked for the first time by the 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.000 far right. Really, there'd been one or two other incidents, 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.520 but it's only when cops started getting attacked by them 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.600 and politicians were being directly their safety was being threatened, 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.400 then the cops start to act, maybe in the last 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.319 eighteen months or so, but it was really closing the 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.880 stable door about five years after the violent fire right 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:09.040 horse had already bolted. 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.920 Yeah, and you know, so I'm kind of thinking here, 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.200 this is part of why you've started to see you know, 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.080 guys like we started this conversation before being recording talking 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.080 about Tucker Carlson coming over to talk to Connor McGregor, 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.480 who's becoming an increasingly large part of this. And I 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.839 wonder if it's if it's maybe these these different kind 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.120 of international folks in the international movement sort of sniffing that, 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.880 you know, they're hoping that the cancer has metastasized, so 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:38.679 to speak. I mean, is that kind of what you 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:39.560 how you see it? 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:44.120 Well, they definitely have an influence here. I mean the politics, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.400 the talking points, the buzzwords that the far right use 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.480 in Ireland have all been learned from the likes of 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:56.080 Alec Jones, have all been learned from watching you know, 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.320 crazy stuff on Twitter. And it's all American and British 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.920 farrelight talking points that are being replayed here. Stuff about 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.160 the Clergy Plan, stuff about the Great Replacement and and 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.640 so on. I mean, one hundred years ago was the 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:12.880 protocols of the Elders of Zion, and now they're just 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.720 spinning the same conspiracy, same talking points again. Like for example, 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.319 one of the things we had here was we had 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:23.720 a party called the Irish People's Party and some of 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:29.120 our campaigners were really fundamentalist Latin mass set of Acantas Catholics, 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.240 and they were going down and protesting about drag queen 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.760 story time at Irish libraries. We don't even have drag 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.719 queen story time. These guys have been so inspired by 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:41.560 what was happening in America and I just went in 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.840 and started taking books off the shelves, you know, and 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:51.160 anything to do with any LGBT plus team, even basic 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.599 sex education guides for kids. Stuff that's pretty mild and 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.920 perfectly happy to give my own my own kids, and 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.400 I'm not the most woke guy, but it's not ripping 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.400 them up. They'd start taking them out in the library, 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:06.679 filming themselves, burning books at home. It was really crazy stuff. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.880 And at that stage again you did get anti anti 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.280 fascist organizing. But what you kind of get is figures 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.520 like Connor McGregor being amplified by the likes of Elon 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:20.439 Musk being amplified by you know, Tucker Carlson coming over 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.400 interviewing him, or Donald Trump of course inviting him to 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.920 the to the White House, I mean the Prime Minister 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.200 of Ireland as we'd say, Gail, like the teacher Meehall Martin. 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.719 He was invited to the White House on the twelfth 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.400 of March. But the guy that Trump chose to actually 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.080 have there on Patrick's Day itself was of course Connor McGregor. 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.680 And McGregor has links to I wouldn't say far right figures, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.000 but certainly very populist figures. And McGregor has kind of 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.840 started he's become God pilled and he started rambling on 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:55.160 about you know, rosary beads and the power of Christ 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:56.880 and all this kind of stuff, and he doesn't strike 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.840 me as a particularly religious man. And now with the 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:05.240 head of soccer Carlson, you know, and Elon Muskin others, 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.000 he says he's going to run for president, and we 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.360 have a presidential election coming up here in six months. 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.520 Did you watch the interview, Robert. 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:13.880 No, No, I haven't yet. I caught some clips of 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.080 it all on social media. Yeah, but I haven't gotten 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:17.120 to sit through the whole thing. 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.480 It's wild. Bear's absolutely no resemblance like what Connor puts 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.320 across bears no resemblance to what's actually happening in Ireland. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.480 Like he starts ranting about how the police are so corrupt. 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.679 Element that's true, but he starts talking about how the 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.600 traffic cor the road cops who give you like speeding 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.640 tickets and stuff, they're the most violent and repressive and 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.439 all this kind of stuff. And it just so happens 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:45.280 that Connor McGregor has a string of speeding violations in 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.839 his sports cars. And then Tucker Carlson chips in and says, oh, 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.440 my god, you've got these armed cops and they're they're 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.920 repressing the Irish people, but they're letting these immigrants do whatever. 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:57.800 My dad was a copier for thirty years. My dad 0:12:57.840 --> 0:12:59.760 was on the border in the nineteen seventies with the 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:01.640 iron ray shooting at him and he didn't even get 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.000 a gun. Her cops aren't armed. But Carlson is just 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:09.160 trying this stuff out, being educated about it, and he 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.000 says at the very end of the interview, McGregor says, oh, 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.160 there's there's been a government kind of hit job on me. 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.880 They're planning to bring me down. What he's referring to 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.280 is a civil trial now, not a criminal trial. A 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.480 civil trial that Connor McGregor lost when he was brought 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:28.040 to court for alleged rape and sexual assault and the 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.679 jury believed he's he's accuser a woman called a hairdresser 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.800 called Nikita Hand, and Connor McGregor was forced to pay 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.280 damages of a quarter of a million euro to her, 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.319 plus costs in the Irish High Court, which are about 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.160 one and a half million euro. Now to you or me, 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.319 that would be you some of money. To Connor McGregor, 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.319 that's nothing. And I have to say, for legal reasons 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.120 he is appealing it. But the reality is that standing 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.000 in the way of any political ambitions, Connor McGregor has, 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.240 and we just had here in the last six hour. 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.960 Last year, we had a lot local election for like 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:06.040 local councils, a general election, a European parliamentary election, any 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.040 one of those. All he needed to do was put 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.280 up one hundred and fifty quid and he could have stood. 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.720 He will be on the ballot. In fact, under Irish 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.040 electoral law, he could have stood in every single constituency 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.840 in the country and he didn't stand for election. And 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.600 now he's complaining that he's being debarred from the Irish 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.520 presidential race, and he's not. It's just it's an exceptionally 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.920 difficult ballot to get on. You can't just stump up 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.080 the money in America and become a third party candidate 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.640 or a writing candidate or whatever. That doesn't work here. 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.720 You need the support of a large number of democratically 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.880 elected politicians to get there. So I think McGregor's real 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.760 aim is not to get into the presidency, because really 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:49.760 he can't. He's not even going to be on the ballot. 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.760 But I think he wants to be Ireland's Ireland's answer 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.320 to Tommy Robinson. And I suppose if Tommy Robinson is 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:56.720 the answer, what the hell was the question. 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.600 Yeah, well, we'll get into that more in a second. 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.560 I do want throw to ads here really quickly, and 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:03.800 then we'll continue to talk about Connor for a moment 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.120 we're back. So you say he wants to be the 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.640 Irish answer to Tommy Robinson, which is such a like 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:26.760 aim a higher man like that. It's it's odd to 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.480 me like I had kind of I had kind of 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.160 been worried because we've had so many cases of guys 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.040 in the United States who start out as these absolute 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.320 jokes on the far right and then you just see 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:41.400 them pick up more and more attention over time, and 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:43.800 that was kind of my worry with Connor. But but 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.520 you're saying you're kind of concerned more that he's going 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:48.880 to continue to be like an organizing presence on the 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.280 far right rather than someone who has much of a 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.160 chance of picking up actual like political office. 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:57.640 Yeah. I think with Connor it's it's all about his ego, 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.400 which is probably what you'd expect from an MM star. 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:02.160 You know, there's going to be an element of you know, 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:05.400 ego and show voting in kfab and so on. I mean, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.000 it's interesting and he's interview with Tucker Carlson. He was 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.200 giving out that the Minister of Education, you know, isn't 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.960 a teacher, they're unqualified for the job. And the Irish 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.240 government's Minister for Health isn't a doctor. And it's like, well, 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.880 what qualifies you to be president? Connor? You're a former 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.520 plumber turned for MMA fighter, you know. 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:23.880 Yeah, getting hit in the face. 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.720 Yeah. And we've we've had ministers of education who were 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.040 teachers and ministers of health who were doctors who happened 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:32.640 to be totally awful. The reality is like, we have 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.280 a pr system, We've you know, a very democratic and 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:37.920 fair process, and we have more than a two party 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.360 system here. But I think, like as emerged during the 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.320 during that civil rate trial which McGregor lost, you know, 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.840 he had to admit to his cocaine use during it, 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.680 he has been sending out kind of fevered I would 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.200 imagine cocaine fever trip tweet saying as President of Ireland, 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.160 I have the power too, And it's like, man, the 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.400 election hasn't even happened yet, he's way ahead of himself. 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:04.520 He's not going to get in the ballot. He knows 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.720 that he wants to present it. And I mean the 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.160 fact that he's even talking about getting in the ballot 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.520 shows he doesn't understand the constitutional system here, which it's 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.199 not like Britain. We have a written constitution. It's not 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.480 that complex if you know the basics of the law. 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:19.320 He's never going to get in the ballot, but he 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.320 wants to present it that he's being denied the opportunity 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.960 to stand and unfortunately, what we have around the country 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:31.480 is an increasingly violent anti immigrant street movement that whenever 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.560 these what we call him here IPASS in International Protection 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:41.040 Applicant Services, these IPASS or refugee centers. Basically, when these 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.520 are picked as places of accommodation by the government while 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:48.640 these people's applications for refugee status they have to stay 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.520 somewhere while these are being examined, you tend to get 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:56.520 large protests in towns, villages, cities all over Ireland. Sometimes 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.800 he's turned quite violent. Sometimes there's been more than thirty 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.520 arson attacks on these centers. And I think what Connor 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.600 McGregor ultimately wants is he wants to be able to 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.840 tour the country attending these protests and having everyone queuing 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:11.840 up to take selfies with him and telling him what 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.920 a great hero he is, and I think I think 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.360 that's he's ultimately yeah, yeah, that makes sense, and he's 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:20.199 obviously he's going to grift off the back of it. 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:22.479 The guy has money already. But it was so funny 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.720 this multime multi millionaire being interviewed by Tucker Carlson saying 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.320 we're going to start fundraising from my campaign. It's like, 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:31.399 and you have more money than you could ever spend 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.080 on political posters and buyers and adverts, you know. 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.880 So it almost sounds like this is like a retirement 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.800 plan for him, right, Like he's he's he's clearly past 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.280 his prime in terms of the getting hit in the 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:46.200 face thing for money, and now he's sort of moving 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.480 on to like grifting off of these far right events 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.960 and probably traveling just ahead of a series of riots, 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.199 you know, Like that's that's it seems like what's in 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:54.760 his future. 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.280 Yeah, And I mean we've had some you know, at 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.320 the time of an outbreak of rioting in Dublin anti 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.760 imigrant violence which caused twenty million euros worth of damage 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.960 and you know, trash the city center in November of 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.560 twenty twenty three, Connor and I'm not saying he directly 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:12.480 caused it. But he was tweeting at the same time 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.000 Ireland is a war. Yeah, and around the same time 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.760 he was tweeting like any property that's been taken over 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:21.280 by foreigners evaporated. I think really his plan is to 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:26.199 kind of if he can represent himself as a political 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:31.160 martyr figure. He's hoping that it will overshadow the you know, 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:33.480 his loss in the rape case, and he is of 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.240 course appealing that and claiming he has new evidence and everything. 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.080 But I think really that's what it's about. 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.680 Yeah, So let's talk a little bit about the way 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.960 far right violence has looked in Ireland, like when these 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.240 when these protests have really kicked off, because it seems 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.760 like there's been this kind of fairly significant acceleration in 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:54.919 the last three or four years in terms of it, 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.960 particularly arsynotacks. And one thing that I was kind of 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:00.679 struck by in your notes was the degree to which like, 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:02.840 no one's been arrested for any of these yet. 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.280 No, what happens. These started around twenty eighteen, so maybe 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.120 just before COVID you had one or two of them, 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:14.840 And my book went to print in December twenty twenty four, 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.639 so I stopped counting in December and by then I 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.479 had over thirty arson attacks and there hasn't been a 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.600 single conviction for any of them. So it's when usually 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.640 former hotels that have been closed down with years are 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.600 that the government moves in or some local person moves 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:33.359 in to renovate them and use them as one of 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:35.560 these centers. They'll just go up and smoke in the 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.159 middle of the night. And I mean, we have already 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.320 a very significant homeless problem here. I mean there's more 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:46.560 than ten thousand people homeless in Dublin, both Irish and refugee, 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.000 and I mean that probably sounds small to someone listening 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:50.960 in a big American city. We thought we had a 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.600 housing crisis when we had two thousand people homeless, and 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.120 we got more than ten almost fifteen thousand people homeless now. 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:02.600 And some of these the immigrant protesters have actually burnt 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:07.080 down homeless accommodation designed for Irish homeless people in the 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.320 mistake and belief that it was going to be used 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:13.640 for refugees. Yeah, so that's their contribution to the housing crisis. 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.960 You've also seen stuff like attacks on politicians' homes. Sometimes 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.240 it's just pickets, sometimes it's graffiti. In the case of 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.560