Archive for the ‘International Political Analysis’ Category
“Hate campaign over asylum seekers’ hostel drives French mayor out of town”. – Irish Parallels? – Grim Weekend in Dublin.
Contributors to the Cedar Lounge Blog are discussing a grim weekend in Dublin and other parts of Ireland. Racists are active :
That was a grim weekend in Dublin.
There have been confrontations between anti-immigration protestors and gardaí after protester marched to the International Protection Office on Mount Street in Dublin city centre.
Since March a growing number of tents have been pitched outside the office and in surrounding streets.
The protestors shouted at asylum seekers, telling them they were not welcome and there were also confrontations with gar
https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2023/05/15/a-different-strategy-from-the-protestors/#comment-828054
Contributors are asking if similar events are occurring elsewhere – this report from France concerns Yannick Morez, mayor of a small town in north-west France. Arsonist Racists have forced Morez to leave his elected office and town while the central government fails to confront the far-right criminals. There are disturbing parallels with current events in Ireland.
Hate campaign over asylum seekers’ hostel drives French mayor out of town
The mayor of a small town in north-west France announced his resignation this week following a vicious, months-long hate campaign whipped up by the far-right over the creation of a hostel for asylum seekers in a residential area close to a school. Yannick Morez, who is to move out of the town he has lived in for 32 years, said his decision was prompted by an arson attack on his home and the disinterest of the authorities to the successive threats made against him. The resignation caused a political storm this week, over both the apparent lack of support and protection given to the mayor, and the rising tensions and climate of violence in French political life.
Read the rest of this entry »Doctor Matt Barrett saves a little of Ireland’s honour at the absurd coronation of a British King called Charles III
The French socialist Jean-Luc Melenchon spoke for many when he branded the coronation of the new English king Charles III “nauseating”.
A Dublin cardiologist, Matt Barrett, is the partner of an Irish politician Leo Varadkar (currently the Fine Gael Taoiseach, Prime Minister). Matt had to attend the recent coronation of an English king called Charles. While Varadkar and other attending Irish forelock-tuggers (such as President Michael D Higgins and the Sinn Féin leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill) dutifully swallowed the nauseating royal guff, Matt broke ranks.
Ten out of Ten to Matt Barrett! :
“Varadkar’s partner, Matt Barrett, however, did not get the memo. In the VIP motorcade and in Westminster Abbey, he posted a series of irreverent comments on Instagram to his private group of more than 350 followers.
“Holy shit I think I’m accidentally crowned king of England,” he posted from the taoiseach’s car as they approached the abbey on 6 May.
The posts, reported in the Irish Times on Saturday, have embarrassed the government and landed Varadkar in a fresh diplomatic blunder.
Once inside the abbey, Barrett, a consultant cardiologist, ignored an injunction in the order-of-service booklet to switch off his phone and posted jokes and observations on the ceremony.
A paragraph from page 38 in the booklet caught his eye. “The queen’s sceptre and rod are brought from the altar by the Right Rev and Right Hon the Lord Chartres GCVO and the Right Rev Rose Hudson Wilkin CD MBE, Bishop of Dover. The queen touches them in turn,” it said.
Barrett posted a photo of it with a green line around the last sentence. “Sounds like the script to a good night out, tbh,” he said.
In the list of participants, he noted the Right Rev James Newcome, who has the title Clerk of the Closet. Barrett highlighted this, saying: “Had this job until my early 20s.”
Later he posted a photograph of Charles wearing his crown and compared it to the sorting hat in the Harry Potter books. “Was genuinely half expecting it to shout ‘GRYFFINDOR,’” he wrote.”
The source is the Guardian, a British newspaper.
In Ireland, beside the famous “You Are Now Entering Free Derry Wall”, the English king is not welcome :

Dozens of British Police Confiscate Anti-Monarchy Banners in London, May 6 2023
The site “Leeds for Europe” reports :
Yesterday Suella Braverman’s new, draconian anti-protest laws were used to their full extent to surpress anti-monarchy protestors.
The rest of the world was watching, this is how the English service on France 24 reported it – “While many criticise the price tag of the Coronation as ordinary Britons struggle to put food on the table.. The police arrests of peaceful protesters are scenes you’d expect to see in Russia, not in the UK.”
‘An Historic May Day in London: New Days in Old England’ by Thomas J. O’Flaherty from the Daily Worker Saturday Supplement. Vol. 3 No. 134. June 19, 1926.
Tomás Ó Flatharta, inspiration of this blog, was a talented writer. This is an example of his work, full of interesting personal and political insights.
Source : Revolution’s NewsStand : https://revolutionsnewsstand.com/2023/05/01/an-historic-may-day-in-london-new-days-in-old-england-by-thomas-j-oflaherty-from-the-daily-worker-saturday-supplement-vol-3-no-134-june-19-1926/

May Day in London’s Hyde Park, 1926.
T.J. O’Flaherty travels from Dublin to London to participate in the May Day celebrations during that year’s General Strike and penned this wonderful essay on the day’s events.
‘An Historic May Day in London: New Days in Old England’ by Thomas J. O’Flaherty from the Daily Worker Saturday Supplement. Vol. 3 No. 134. June 19, 1926.
I LEFT the usually turbulent but now comparatively peaceful Dublin on the evening of the 30th of April, bound for London. Dublin is not an easy place to leave—particularly for those with a thirst for the dramatic.
But May Day in London in 1926 with 1,000,000 coal miners out of the pits! And with a general strike threatened! This was something that many men and women would sacrifice years of ordinary existence to experience. So I resisted the temporary invitation of friends to spend a week shooting curlews in the heather-clad mountains of Wicklow, or discussing the futility of things in general with the cynical intelligentsia of Dublin who survived the gats of Black and Tans, Regular and Irregular Republicans and Free States.
Donald Trump deposition: New York court releases video in civil rape trial – BBC News Story
Evidence submitted to a New York City trial is described below – no comment is necessary. The accused man recently spent two days in an Irish town called Doonbeg in County Clare, where he owns a lavish hotel and golf course.
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65504435
A video of a deposition given by former US president Donald Trump as part of his civil rape trial has been released by the court.
The roughly 48-minute video shows Mr Trump, 76, mistaking his accuser E Jean Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples in a photo.
It also shows him repeating his denial of Ms Carroll’s allegations by claiming she is “not my type”.
Lawyers for both sides rested their case on Thursday.
Read the rest of this entry »Leader of Britain’s anti-monarchy group Republic arrested at coronation protest
Gopal Priyamavda Observes :
From a plundered economy to a police force ready to crush protests, Britain today looks like its colonies once did. It had to happen.
https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66450
Priyamavda published her article on the Al Jazeera website on May 5 2023; One day later her prediction concerning “a police force ready to crush protests” came true.
Meanwhile several leading Irish politicians are tugging the forelock to the British Monarch : Shame on the leaders of Sinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill and President Michael D Higgins – their behaviour is politically unprincipled. Leaders of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – Messrs Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin are not betraying their principles – they believe in celebrating the crimes of the British Empire.
Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66449
Republic’s Graham Smith held at protest on King Charles III’s procession route in central London
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