This is a wake-up call for our cosseted elite
FOR as long as I remember we’ve had a stable democracy for a next door neighbour and a home from home for generations of Troubles.our people, enduring through the hardest of times and the Across the Atlantic we had another firm friend, the promise of America with its endless fund of goodwill, investment and often misty-eyed sympathy from the corners of Irish-America.
Brexit’s victory sent shockwaves through the UK, but the tremors are felt over here when, overnight, our country also became overshadowed by the twin clouds of isolation and friendlessness.
The rise of Nigel Farage on one side and possibly Donald Trump, who heartily saluted Brexit on the other, means we could be shortly surrounded by figures who don’t give a damn for ancient ties or old allegiances.
In France the threat of the extreme right embodied by Marine Le Pen, and in Spain of the rise of the far left herald a new order in European politics.
At home the influence of hard-left politicians and independents means that a Utopian ideal courses through political debate, one that foolishly ignores hard facts like the State’s inability to tackle homelessness or a health crisis without money.
BREXIT has made the EU weaker and, contrary to what TD Paul Murphy of the Anti-Austerity Alliance says, the result does not mean a more caring and sharing Europe but one that could easily fragment, fall prey to Putin’s military ambitions, and threaten the security and living standards of millions.
Across America, Europe and – now that it is independent – the UK, mainstream politicians have lost touch with large swathes of the squeezed middle, just as under Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Miliband, the Labour Party in Britain has been cut adrift from
As Ireland swept to victory in the Euros, hordes of delighted fans contacted their credit unions for emergency funds to let them stay on in France. I’d love to know how they fared. Last time I contacted my friendly credit union for a quick cash injection, I was asked for so many documents – bank statements, pay slips and credit card receipts – that I figured that it was simpler to just go without. its traditional heartland. The move to the extremities, whether the right or left of the political spectrum, is a show of protest by the so-called coping classes at what they see as their betrayal by the establishment.
Money may be the root of all evil but the hankering for it is at the root of revolutions.
We are emerging from the turmoil of a huge global recession but the sense of division and inequality it engendered has intensified.
‘There is a sense that the people who caused it got away with it scot-free while most people have continued to pay the price through austerity,’ says former Blair government spokesman and Remain campaigner Alastair Campbell.
‘People are asking, what is this great economy you are talking about? Because I don’t see it.’
We asked the same about Fine Gael’s disastrous general election slogan, Keep The Recovery Going.
It’s why Trump’s promise to Make America Great Again resonates with millions of blue-collar workers who see their wages under threat from migrant labour and have given up hope of a decent future for their children.
UNDER the stultifying force of political correctness, western political leaders failed to assuage fears, mostly unfounded, about immigration. The irony is that with Brexit and Trump’s ascendancy, legitimacy may be given now to the free expression of racist attitudes, xenophobia and a toxic form of nationalism.
With their I’m All Right Jack mentality, the cosseted elite exist in a bubble, refusing to see that the wider population doesn’t necessarily share their values or their lifestyle.
Fine Gael effectively lost the election because it couldn’t see how, after years of austerity, a small water charge could devastate the finances of working families.
Brexit has delivered the UK from the EU. If it delivers our leaders from their cocoon of privilege before it’s too late, it might be worth something.