Confusion & Confidence: An #IREXIT Story

The left aren’t the only culprits of pseudo politics in the validation generation.

Around 400 people turned out to the Bonnington Hotel in Whitehall yesterday calling for Ireland to leave the European Union.

The afternoon was chaired by former government hopeful Kate Lawlor, who hosted a number of  spokespeople for the ‘Irexit’ movement; a campaign to launch Ireland’s first official Eurosceptic party despite Irish confidence in the EU being at an all-time high.

The speeches were kicked off by former Irish ambassador to Canada Ray Bassett – a former Irish ambassador to Canada – and Professor Ray Kinsella. 

Both men were somewhat persistent to remind the audience about Ireland’s ‘founding fathers’; drawing very loose parallels between the British Colonial rule of Ireland and the European Union. This rhetoric was surprisingly prominent amongst the supporters present, who too seemed to recognise a clear similarity between the strikingly different set of circumstances.

They spoke for about 20 minutes each, delivering plenty of well-articulated yet substanceless references to patriotism, morality and dignity. It was hard to differentiate between both speeches however, as both lowered the room’s energy and consisted of a similarly hollow structure and theme.

The Manning Inquisition

As the audience began visibly slouching in their chairs, Lawlor introduced the next speaker. Paddy Manning, a prominent Vote No campaigner during the 2015 marriage equality referendum and 2018’s 8th amendment referendum, was far more engaging than the Ray Brothers. This was reflected immediately in the audience who he charmed rather impressively. An animated character with a booming and convincing voice, he captivated the audience in ways his predecessors were simply incapable of. There was no slurring of words. No fumbling of papers upon papers of notes. Just pure raw confidence and energy.

Although it looked good for Manning, the sheer lack of substance in his message was certainly on par – if not even more prominent than the Rays. However animated and convincing his tone was, Manning – predictably – chose the easy road and proceeded to bash the Irish media and governments past and present in order create a sense of fear and doubt around the room with sarcastic comments that triggered immense jeering from the audience. A basic tactic, but an obvious choice when substance is at a loss.

But the press weren’t the only criminals of The Manning Inquisition. Surely devastated, the ECB were swiftly brought to justice too, referred to by Manning as the ‘Enemy Central Bank.’ This, combined with other vague and empty references to an ulterior universe worked seemingly well at filling the void in the minds of an audience where rationality, forward thinking and thought-out strategy would once have thrived.

When Paddy was finished citing his ambiguous ideas and lack of policies, he presented a young, slick looking man called Ben Scallan. Scallan, the 21 year old who was introduced with his accomplishments in the “foundation” of an independent media organisation intended to represent the views of the centre-right, seemed uneasy throughout the build-up to his speech. He sat awkwardly upright in the front row at the very far corner with his eyelids gorilla-glued to his brow, constantly fidgeting with his tablet, stroking his thighs and spilling cups of coffee on the floor beside his chair.

He delivered his speech with great passion and energy, a blessing in disguise after the lethargic start to the conference. Despite a seemingly positive start, Scallan eventually retreated to the usual template; slate the ‘mainstream media’, disregard those unsuspecting commentators who didn’t see eye to eye with him and refer to meaningless phrases like sovereignty, pride and of course, “our forefathers.”

He continued to light up the room with justifications for populism and the revealing of Angela Merkel’s apparent communist identity. Although profoundly energetic and clearly a confident public speaker, the young Scallan had been exposed to the vague plague; unable to contribute a single wholesome suggestion of policy or strategy throughout his fiery speech. Though it wasn’t for his lack of trying; offering a solution in his closing statement which read: “we should do something.”

Unfortunately however, he was unable to clarify or define what that something may be.

On a closer inspection, his ‘company’ Civil Right Media doesn’t seem to exist. With no trace on the Irish company register and a Facebook page generated the night before yesterday’s event, it would seem that Manning’s expectations of Scallan’s accomplishments may have been slightly skewed.

Scallan’s speech brought the conference to a sort of ‘half time’ phase. The patrons swamped the hotel bar and dropped several hundred euro on Danish and Dutch beers, us media vultures scattered around the crevasses of the conference room and everyone who was anyone slipped into the neutral smoking area for a well-earned Marlboro Gold.

The half-time period – like the majority of the first half – became tiresomely prolonged. People were finishing their third pint of lager and the fear of disinterest was evident in Lawlor’s scattering of the room to reconvene her platoon.

Lawlor took to the podium in an effort to return the masses to their pews. Once settled, she played her final card. The face of the campaign. The man who the crowds had been anticipating all afternoon. Hermann Kelly – who until now had spent the afternoon floating around the room with an obvious aura of confidence – took to the podium in his admittedly stunning two-piece blue suit and addressed the assembly. The usual sea of cheers and whistles was louder this time. Maybe it was all the alcohol, or perhaps he was about to take on the quest of changing the day’s rhetoric and deliver a concise, humble and justified plan of action for the freedom of Ireland from EU tyranny.

But no. Not even once.

A pity, no doubt. An opportunity lost for certain. Sure, the crowds who sat before him bathed in his words. His disregard for the “old drunk men in Brussels” (despite a quarter of his audience now well oiled), his bashing of Ireland’s political parties and of course his trademark Stockholm syndrome reference he can’t leave home without was like fuel to the fire of a totally engulfed crowd.

Objective achieved and without question a successful day for Kelly and his troops. Indeed this was likely the intention. Kelly has maintained a successful career in journalism and politics and is no fool to the trade. A well-structured and intentionally nebulous afternoon of catchphrases, emotionally ripe buzzwords and a fetish for nationalism: just some of the key ingredients for an event of such calibre. And they nailed it.

But what of their future? They plan to register as a political party and promote their ideologies, but are yet to share any decisive strategy, policy or even basic plan of action for what they can offer a voter.

So far, the campaign has presented very little to convince a potential electorate:

• a 529 word manifesto in which beliefs play a larger role than facts and figures;
• a little green booklet dispensed at yesterday’s event filled with more obscure and hazy ideologies. Not to rub salt upon wounds, but the title of this little green booklet isn’t even grammatically a sentence;
• a website that looks like it was made in 1992 and possibly the most audacious move for a campaign already struggling to gather momentum;
• an €8 entry fee for yesterday’s event.

One must respect the efforts and opinions of even the smallest minorities within our community. But it makes one’s job difficult to respect something that, given the time in which they have had to prepare, those involved seem to have put in the minimum amount of effort required as humanly possible.

The overall product proposed by Kelly and co. resembles that of a Junior Certificate CSPE essay that was hurriedly scrawled onto a copybook in the boys bathrooms just minutes before class.

We’ve seen this before. The left do it too. Rally your core members together for the cameras, talk in emotion, not facts. Draw analogies too bizarre that no one would even bother criticising and arguments so vague they are impossible to contradict. Textbook pseudo politics. After all, the global electorate continue to rely increasingly on emotions – rather than rational thought – when it comes to important matters, so why wouldn’t Kelly do the same?

Diversity in opinion on such an important matter (the relationship between Ireland and the EU) is of the utmost importance, but this effort appears lazy and rushed, which, should it continue this way, will no doubt play a significant part in the eventual demise of this ideology in Ireland.

Afterthought.

“The difference between the student radicals and the Hell’s Angels is that the students are rebelling against the past while the Angels are fighting the future. Their only common ground is their disdain for the present, or status quo.”

Thompson probably didn’t anticipate the contemporary relevance of such a quote. The Angels are the right and students are the left. They occupy lives of hatred for one another as well as a distaste in the common enemy. ‘The Man.’ Their worlds are constantly terrorised by the government and media swine, but at no costs could they work together.

Those who identify as right and those who identify as left will never find peace in this world, for to do so would require their acceptance of themselves – an idea so profoundly blasphemous in both camps that one would find themselves expelled at the earliest sign of rational thought.