Irish anti-immigrant groups finding 'common ground' with NI loyalists and UK neo-Nazi networks
The report by the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, an anti-extremism think tank, details how Irish anti-immigration figures have promoted former-UVF members on social media and held tricolours next to loyalists waving the Ulster banner during protests.
'Groups who've historically been on opposite sides—Irish nationalists and Northern Irish loyalists—are now finding common ground in anti-migrant narratives,' Zoe Manzi, an ISD hate and extremism analyst and author of the report, said.
'It's a major shift that shows old ideological lines are breaking down, replaced by shared grievances that are driving a growing and increasingly visible anti-migrant movement across the island.'
The report compares this collaboration to how Islamist and far-right groups can both amplify antisemitic conspiracy theories, despite being ideologically opposed to each other.
As an example, the report also notes that Tommy Robinson, a far-right British nationalist was
welcomed to Dublin
by Irish nationalist figures such as Derek Blighe, the former leader of the unsuccessful Ireland First political party.
Robinson, who has an
extensive criminal history
, has expressed support for Soldier F, an officer who
an inquiry
into the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1972 found to have killed multiple Irish civilians in Derry. Soldier F
faces trial
in September.
The ISD report claims that an 'emerging cross-border infrastructure for anti-migrant mobilisation' was evident in recent riots against immigrants, including in the Antrim town of Ballymena.
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The recent protests were celebrated by some nationalist groups in the Republic, as well as violence that broke out during protests against a centre for asylum seekers in Coolock, Dublin, last year.
Representatives for the anti-IPAS protest group, Coolock Says No, also took part in Belfast anti-migrant protests that broke out after the Southport stabbings last year (which were
falsely said
to have been carried out by an asylum seeker, including by Irish anti-migrant groups).
Glen Kane, a loyalist activist who has
been convicted
of kicking a Catholic to death during a riot in 1992, also attended that protest.
The report warns that loyalist figures at these events now attended by Irish anti-immigration activists often have established ties to UK neo-Nazi networks, as well as far-right groups further afield.
The report also details how protests in Ireland have been used by international far-right groups to push fringe agendas.
'These include British neo-Nazi and far-right networks (some with direct ties to Loyalist groups in Northern Ireland); North American influencers who frame Irish unrest as part of a broader cultural war; and Russian-aligned propaganda outlets promoting polarising content,' the report reads.
However, rather than just amplifying Irish fringe viewpoints, the report claims that these international figures are also increasingly pushing their own narratives.
This often involves inciting dissent into Ireland's political discourse in a new phase that the report says is characterised by 'street protests, intimidation, targeted violence and coordinated amplification online.'
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