Far right headlines - what’s it all about?

James O’Toole looks behind the headlines to explain why there’s so much talk of the far right in Ireland right now.

When you’re close to an event sometimes you have to take a step back to figure out what’s going on.

The Dublin riot and the fact that 23 buildings and camps have been burned out, including one building in Ringsend meant for homeless families, has left many people shocked and confused. How did this happen?

Up until the 2008 banking crisis Ireland was a 2 party state and had been for 80 years. The choice was either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, both parties representing factions of the wealthy.

For years, they ruled with support from the Bishops and a compliant media. The Irish people were brutalised and forced to our knees.

There were periods of great struggle, like massive strike wave at the end of the 1960s or the huge tax marches of 1979, but weak opposition parties like Labour always bottled it and jumped into bed with one of the right wing establishment parties.

When Fianna Fáil bailed out the banks to the tune of €64 billion they lost votes in their traditional heartlands. You see, while Fine Gael were always an alliance of D4 snobs and wealthy, who wanted to maintain a strong connection to Britain, Fianna Fáil were able to use anti-British talk and social housing builds to win a cross class support base.

Ireland was an outlier in Europe in having two right wing parties dominating politics. That system broke down after 2008 as voters fled first Fianna Fáil and then Fine Gael when they took over the austerity butchers job in 2011.

The establishment was terrified and after facing mass resistance over water charges from 2014 to 2016 decided to half-heartedly embrace change. They decided that they could offer some advances like marriage equality and Repeal, but hold tight to their neoliberal tax haven economic policies. Politicians like Varadkar, who had previously spoken against choice, suddenly found a new path to a rising voter share.

Demands that had been fought for by grassroots movements were co-opted by the establishment to shore up their support base. This was stage-managed change that tried to navigate the massive enthusiasm for these changes in working class areas.

Repeal got huge votes in the poorest estates. Workers knew it wasn’t about your personal opinion on abortion but about choice. But the defeated Catholic wing of the establishment, which included many in the grassroots of the establishment parties started to fight back. They were furious that their parties were letting go of the old mechanisms of control. They wanted the boot of the Bishops back in workers’ faces.

Fianna Fáil faced a grassroots rebellion over Repeal and there were splits in Fine Gael. But any faction of the ruling class has to deal with the resistance of the working class to its strategies.

But from 2016 on the level of struggle dropped dramatically, particularly in the poorer estates. As the arc of struggle declined the Covid lockdown hit and deprived many people of an income.

The ultra conservative Iona Institute, led by rich Catholic voices, launched a media outlet called “Gript” to spread propaganda for that wing of the establishment that missed the old days of Church brutality, abuse and cover up. Former “Irish Catholic” newspaper editors like Hermann Kelly spread conspiracy theories 24/7 and dis-empowered isolated lockdown minds were open to taking them in.

Isolated people were also an audience and a patsy for grifters to build up a following on the basis of sensational lies and then ask for donations. But there was also an economic underpinning to the far-right networks that grew during Covid: people who owned small businesses were ruined, from coffee shop managers to gym owners. Their economic terror led to psychological dislocation and a need to find answers which many found in the wrong places.

As Covid ended the far-right had established networks of dis-empowered and isolated people and given them a target - the left. This isn’t new fascism has always used crisis to help the establishment take out the left. Mussolini burned union halls to build his troops up.

They pivoted from vaccine conspiracy theories back to racism. But at the heart of all these networks is a goal - to restore the old methods of capitalist brutality and control over the working class.

The Dublin riot made this anti-working class trajectory clear - they attacked bus and Luas drivers. The far-right talk about standing up to the establishment while parroting the worst views of the establishment.

The world is divided into billionaires who’d give you a rainbow flag, but make you homeless and other billionaires who’d take away rainbow flags and make you homeless.

Fascists say, let’s help one wing of the billionaire class beat the other. Socialists say overthrow all the billionaires and build a society where, as Connolly said, every child has an equal share in the wealth we collectively labour to create.