Casey’s pitch for Euros: tough on immigration
Businessman says he’s a Eurosceptic but insists he is NOT an Irish Farage
PRESIDENTIAL runner-up Peter Casey will run in the European elections on a platform that is strongly critical of Irish and European immigration policies.
He also believes Ireland should leave the euro and opposes the Brexit backstop in its current form, saying it would give Britain ownership of Lough Foyle.
However, the entrepreneur and TV personality told the Irish Mail on Sunday that he was not an Irish Nigel Farage because he was ‘more moderate’ than the right-wing UK politician who has led the charge in favour of Brexit.
Nevertheless, he revealed strong Eurosceptic views, saying Ireland must leave the euro to ensure future financial prosperity.
The former Dragons’ Den star doubled down on his criticism of the Traveller community and said favoured status for the ethnic group should be revoked.
‘The Proclamation says we should cherish all of the children of the nation equally. I think it is very very important that we don’t discriminate against any group, whether it be on race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion. It is just wrong,’ he said. ‘I would be pushing to get the [special status] revoked.’
The Derry native is running in the European elections for the Midlands-North West constituency on a manifesto that promotes job creation and prudence in capital project building.
However, it is his views on immigration that are likely to attract most attention.
‘I’m in favour of immigration but the immigrants have to contribute,’ he said. ‘We just can’t afford them; we can’t afford to support our own people who need help in Ireland. We need to have a discussion on it.’
He said immigrants were putting ‘huge pressure on our housing’ and that Ireland needed to stop widespread immigration until our services could properly accommodate new arrivals.
He said he would try to influence immigration policy if he is elected to Europe – but denied he was the new Farage.
‘I am much more moderate than Nigel. We need immigration but it needs to be controlled in a way that we can support it. There is no point bringing people in and putting social welfare beyond the reach of people who need it.’ Mr Casey has a brutally honest solution to direct provision – the practice of housing people awaiting asylum acceptance in centres. ‘With direct provision, it is very clear cut. Either they’re illegal and they should be sent back to whence they came… or we give them a passport.’ On Brexit, Mr Casey said: ‘We can’t have open borders where people can just willy-nilly come into the country. We absolutely need a migration border.’ Mr Casey, who lives on the banks of Lough Foyle, believes Brexit will reignite a historic row over the ownership of the disputed territory. ‘Technically, with the backstop, it will come down the middle of Lough Foyle – the Crown will control the lough. It actually highlights the silliness of the backstop,’ he said.
Ireland, he said, should stay in EU – although it would ‘not end of world if we left’ – but he firmly believes Ireland should leave euro.
‘If we had our own currency and we had spent like drunken sailors, the foreign exchange markets would have been flooded with punts. The value of the punt would have gone down 20%… it would have been 20% cheaper to come to Ireland. There would have been a demand for punts.
‘You’d have to have a referendum to go back [to the punt] but anything can be renegotiated – we can renegotiate.’
‘We absolutely need a migration border’