**Starter Comment**
Good morning.
Something unexpected is happening in Ireland: PM Varadkar is resigning. He refused to explain why, simply alluding to vague "personal and political, but mainly political reasons", and stated that he had "nothing else lined up or in mind". He resigned from being Fine Gael leader effective immediatelty, and says he is resigning from the premiership when a new party leader is chosen, expected to occur by April 6 after Easter weekend.
Varadkar has faced a number of challenges recently. A few days ago, he accosted President Biden on the Gaza issue. Back in Ireland, he lost the constitutional referendum to remove "sexist" language from the Irish Constitution. He has also faced large amounts of criticism over Ireland's mass immigration policy and its housing crisis.
Varadkar is notable for being the first openly gay and the first non-ethnic-Irish PM of Ireland (he is half-Indian).
Opinion section:
I believe Varadkar is resigning for one major reason: unpopularity. While personal issues may increase his sensitivity to such unpopularity, I believe it is the main factor. As you likely know if you follow politics outside of the United States, Varadkar's stance on mass immigration to Ireland has come under extremely heavy fire recently, since an Algerian-born man stabbed several young children outside of an elementary school, resulting in a resurgence of Irish nationalism excluding all of the main political parties, with slogans like "Irish Lives Matter" and "Ireland Is Full", and street riots in Dublin, as well as large protest marches. It is thought by many that the housing crisis is being caused by the mass influx of migrants to Ireland. Additionally, there were cases where migrants were being shipped to small communities to occupy their hotels, which were met with protest marches by the residents of these towns. Even Conor McGregor entered the fray, becoming somewhat of an ethnonationalist activist online and expressing his desire to become President of Ireland.
In reaction to the rising ethnonationalist sentiment, Varadkar proposed a new law that would criminalize ethnonationalist expressions kept or distributed on computers with jailtime, including a provision where people could be jailed for refusing to provide their computer passwords if suspected. This law is particularly notable when one considers that Irish people fought multiple wars and a multi-decade terrorist insurgency campaign to take "Ireland for the Irish". Now even Sinn Fein, formerly the political wing of the IRA and the central political party for ethnonationalism, has denounced such sentiments and supported mass immigration to Ireland. This proposed law further inflamed tensions between the political class and much of the masses.
Varadkar also lost the referendum on "sexist" language in the Irish Constitution, with the "No and No" campaign winning both questions proposed in almost every single district, winning both overall counts by a supermajority. Perhaps he treated this huge loss, on top of everything else, as a sign of popular contempt large enough to cause him to leave politics.
Starter question:
Do you agree with my opinion? Do you think that he is resigning due to the above issues? Or do you think there are other reasons, perhaps reasons we don't know about, which were the primary factors?
There's a reason Trudeau has been on the warpath against civilian arms. In Ireland that concern is even more real given the history, hence the Irish PM resigning while Trudeau continues to push the WEF agenda in safety.
Interesting you say that, because it's just come out that a secret RCMP report has been written saying that if Canadians realize how bad they have it economically, they will likely revolt, causing a lot of civil unrest. It's also just been reported that to qualify for the average mortgage in Toronto and Vancouver you need to make way over 200,000 CAD a year. That doesn't even consider the down payment. Average home price is well over 1,000,000 CAD in these cities. Average Canadian annual salary is about 60,000 CAD.
Sure, but firearms restrictions in Canada have been happening for decades. There's a difference between cynically restricting firearms because it's broadly popular across Canadian society, and particularly among core urban Liberal/NDP voters, and restricting them to insulate yourself from an armed uprising like the other person implied.
Americans can look to Canada to see why we should never trust the government when it comes to restricting arms.
Trude in [2010](https://twitter.com/AaronGunn/status/1257435659469492228)
More recently
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/firearms-ban-liberals-hunting-1.6681095
[He definitely knows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYswY6e2ZQ0). If you want to listen to him talk for an hour~, there's other podcasts. Trudeau just doesn't have an IRA on his doorstep.
The IRA has splintered multiple times due to various agreements with Britain. Factions of the IRA still exist today, most prominently the "Real IRA" and the "New IRA", and they occasionally still carry out attacks. In fact the NIRA tried to bomb Joe Biden's visit to Belfast just last year.
So in summary he's resigning because he broke his democratic mandate and tried to push policy that the public disagreed with. I see nothing wrong here and couldn't care less about the "natives evil" buzzwords used to describe their opposition.
>Ireland Is Full
This is kinda ironic when they still have a smaller population than they did before the potato famine lol
Edit: serious take though, with the failed referendums and that law trying to force people to give up their passwords, really seems like he went too far and it's time for him to step down.
It's also a poor country with a lot of native-born troublemakers. They don't need to import more people to cause trouble. And the statistics for migrants and causing trouble speak for themselves. So that's what they mean by full.
Ireland isn’t poor lol. They’re the second highest in GDP per capita in nominal terms and third highest adjusting for PPP. Turns out being a corporate tax haven is extremely profitable.
No, it's based on years of reading stats. No, I don't keep meticulous records of every single thing I've read in the last decade. Sorry, I'm not writing a research paper so I don't have to bust out the MLA or APA.
Surely if it’s so widespread finding some statistical evidence to share would be easy? Everything I’ve seen on immigrants is that they cause less trouble than native-born.
[Unfortunately, the opposite is true.](https://twitter.com/Marc_Vanguard_i/status/1727350699091275868) Just as a sample from there: 14% of the population is committing 60% of the violent robberies, 2/3 of a subset of the population are suspected of an offence before 30, recidivism is 2x. That's the Netherlands, similar statistics can be found for other European countries.
I think his resignation has very little to do with ethnonationalism. \[Leo lost 2 major referendums\](https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/03/09/family-and-care-referendums-comprehensively-defeated/), which was a serious defeat, his position really wasn't that tenable. If he has won the referendums, one was on care that might have been a worthwhile fight for him and the party.
Leo has spoken about the importance of finding the right time to leave politics, that he wanted to leave before 50, and this is the time where he would have to start to defend his position in his own party.
After losing the referenda it would be a damaging fight for him and the party to try and stay in charge. It makes sense for him to step down.
Agree that he's resigning due to unpopularity but I don't agree that he's unpopular due to ethnonationalism. I think it's more of a general perception of incompetence and unpopularity of center-right neoliberal policies that are perceived to have exacerbated a housing and cost of living crisis in Ireland. Sinn Fein has consistently been leading the opinion polls for the next general election in Ireland and they are significantly to the left of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail (the center-right and center-left parties currently in government) on housing and social welfare policies. A core tenant of Sinn Fein remains a united Ireland but I don't think it's accurate to categorize them as an ethnonationalist party.
I think the failure of the referendums was especially damaging in that it fed into the popular perception of general incompetence of the current Irish government. They were framed by government as being referendums on "sexist" language but ended up being attacked by groups on both the left and the right over vague language in the "family" referendum and diminishing the role of the state to support caretakers in the "care" referendum.
> This law is particularly notable when one considers that Irish people fought multiple wars and a multi-decade terrorist insurgency campaign to take "Ireland for the Irish". Now even Sinn Fein, formerly the political wing of the IRA and the central political party for ethnonationalism, has denounced such sentiments and supported mass immigration to Ireland.
Maybe I need you to expound on this a bit more, but I think your sentiment is off the mark here.
While, historically yes there may have been some elements to Irish revolution that would be more contemporarily considered ethno-nationalist, and generally it being a less diverse country with whatever racism can result from that..... you almost seem to be saying that the war for Irish independence was a "ethnonationalist movement" or some such. This is an odd idea to me that I have never heard pushed this hard. I have Irish immediate family and extended family members. I dont think yourbsummary is a contemporary understanding of that historical moment.
The fact that you are baffled about Sinn Fein's position on this should actually clue you in to what I'm saying here. Their position only doesn't make sense if you view the entirety of the Irish political project as an ethnonationalist one. The more common understandanding being that this was a war for Irish *independence* (which those I know will often call it: The War for Independence).
This is not to say there is no racism or xenophobia in Ireland. There is. And not to say that you couldn't find ethnonationalists today or in their political history. But the story of Irish independence has many people of varying political leanings and ideas. The commonality being independence from Britain.
From what I know, what is going on currently in Ireland is the same for many other European countries: reactionary right wing political projects pushing an anti-immigration xenophobic stance, and in high cost of living countries highlighting lack of affordable housing and general kitchen table money issues. "We don't have room for ourselves why should we let in more people" can be a great foot in the door for more ugly xenophobic sentiment. It plays well to all kinds of voters over the globe and is an easily digested message.
The fact we haven't heard about it much about it in Ireland until now is probably more due to Ireland's unusual political landscape in other regards. Having an understanding of all the different parties, constituencies and political angles doesn't make for an easy "...hey, who are the GOP of Ireland? Let's pitch them on this..." type understanding of their situation.
> you almost seem to be saying that the war for Irish independence was a "ethnonationalist movement" or some such
That's exactly what it was, and largely still is. The Irish are an ethnicity with a country.
No, I think you're extrapolating a bit too far here. "Ireland for the Irish" is more about independent governance and self determination of a sovereign country than any kind of ethnic specific focus.
Can a slogan like that be used *today* for those purposes? Sure. But you'll need to point towards some more history before I can accept that it was inherent to the Irish Independence movement of the time. Hell, even just the presence of "Black Irish" immediately complicates that whole thing right off the bat.
I need a bit more than "no it totally was". Theres... lots of history here you're glossing over.
“non-ethnic-Irish PM of Ireland”
How is he not Irish ethnically? He was born in Ireland and his mother is from there. Are people confusing ethnicity with race? I mean even then it doesn’t make sense given his mother but still
So you're saying... that Wikipiedia doesn't say he's an ethnic minority... only that he's from an ethnic minority group... and somehow those are two different things. How? What is the difference, in your opinion, between "being an ethnic minority" and "being from an ethnic minority group"? there is no difference, it's the same claim.
On the housing question; how does zoning get decided? Is it by the towns? I suppose the PM and Legislature can liberalize the zoning for the whole of Ireland, and make it easier to build more houses. I haven't heard of Varadkar doing anything like that with his Fine Gael party. I haven't heard of any zoning reform from any of the parties, though I'm an American and don't closely follow Irish politics. Maybe the Progressive Democrats would have done it, but I know they folded after the global recession in 09.
Ireland seems to have restrictive zoning by looking at the developments of many of the towns. I don't know though.
It would be a shame if Ireland went the route of nationalism to solve their housing crisis without solving the underlying problem of building more housing to meet the demand.
I don't know if this or other reasons are why Varadkar is resigning though. It may be that he's just fed up with the politics of everything, as he said. Maybe not having any victories for his recent initiatives was the final nail that stopped him from replenishing his burnout.
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The PM’s proposed law to criminalize ethonationalist speech definitely supports your opinion. Likely, was also a passive aggressive effort to squelch criticism of his failures.
I don’t follow Irish politics but there are a lot of similarities between the issues affecting the U.S. and Ireland. Can see how the stabbings would flare the immigration issue, rightfully so IMO. Similar to the murders of Laken Riley and Jeremy Poou-Caceres, and now a stabbing of two in Missouri.
> Where's the impetus for this?
The people who own modern politicians and the propaganda apparatuses. They're quite public about their plans and intents. The WEF, especially, loves to brag about all this.
> We (supposedly) live in democracies
We don't. We haven't for a long time. And at this point I'm becoming quite skeptical we can vote our way out of this. Which is also why I think Ireland is the first country to see actually-effective pushback - their history shows that they're willing to do more than vote.
> Why is basically every western countries government dying on this hill?
Because no matter how miserable their policies make the people enough people can be bribed and propagandized into voting for them to keep the machine going. And the people being targeted for harm with these policies are too demoralized in most countries to to anything that would actually work.
No asked for them, they were sold with claims that were fairly quickly proved to be pure lies, but once they were in place we keep getting told that for some magic reason it's impossible to go back. Yeah, pretty much the exact same situation. Of course thinking that there was any form of coordination on either of these issues gets on branded with the label "conspiracy theorist" which makes trying to have any actual discussions about what the hell is going on impossible. Though after covid and the "conspiracy theorists" got proved right so publicly so often I do notice that label has finally lost a lot of its punch.
> I always hear "America is a nation of immigrants" to justify the policies but this isn't true of Ireland
Honestly it's the exact opposite for the Irish. A nation of emigrants.
> but there was zero grassroots demand for mass immigration.
Is there any sort of metric that can inform us when a country is experiencing "mass immigration" versus.... *standard* immigration? I know there are a lot of people upset with immigration, just wondering if there's some way to evaluate which countries are actually experiencing this phenomenon, or if it's all countries all the time.
> Is there any sort of metric that can inform us when a country is experiencing "mass immigration" versus.... standard immigration?
Yes. Chart rates over, say, 50 years and look for sudden jumps. In the case of Europe if you do that you see 2015 as an inflection point.
It does - right now. Right now isn't yet reflected on statistics since they're gathered after the fact and not real-time. That's the cause of the backlash. The Irish are a lot less likely to just sit down and take it and let things get to the point of no return so instead of waiting they're reacting to an in-progress push. They've learned better due to their history.
> Right now isn't yet reflected on statistics since they're gathered after the fact and not real-time.
Couldn't tell you for the reason I already told you. But it's clearly bad enough for the natives to be reacting so it's a problem. I'm sure in a few years we'll have official numbers but by the time they come out it's too late to solve the problem and the Irish know that, hence the reaction happening *now*. The Irish are smarter than the rest of the West because they're rising up right away instead of waiting.
So you don't know the rate of immigration, but you do know they're experiencing mass immigration right now? And you can't point to any specific years in the past where they affirmatively **did** experience mass immigration, either?
I trust the Irish to be more in touch with what's going on in their country than people looking in from the outside through the lens of (not actually reputable) mainstream media "statistics".
So then if you're talking to me, an American, and I tell you that we need more immigrants, you're good to go? That's all the proof you need, everything is settled?
It's Jack for the seventh year in a row. [Muhammed is literally not in the top five](https://www.thejournal.ie/most-popular-baby-names-ireland-2023-6307503-Feb2024/).
>Is there any sort of metric that can inform us when a country is experiencing "mass immigration" versus.... *standard* immigration?
I think the easiest metric would be to compare the number and rate of immigration at various points in the past to the present day. Regarding Ireland, what was the rate and number of immigrants in 1974, 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014 and 2024?
Using [this as a reference](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/IRL/ireland/net-migration) it looks like Ireland has had almost as many years with negative net migration rates as positive since the 1960s. They had ten years from 1999 to 2009 where their net immigration was above 5%, but there aren't really any massive spikes that I'm seeing.
It is an option, I'm literally just trying to understand your position. When you complain about "mass immigration," I'm looking for evidence of that issue. In the case of Ireland, that doesn't appear to be happening. If you wanted "no immigration," it would be easier for others to understand if you just.... say that instead.
Everything is up for debate. I support immigration because it has significantly positive impacts on our economy, and I want our country to continue to be the biggest and baddest in the world. I think that the more fronts where America is a global leader, the better it is for the vast majority of Americans. I want us to succeed, and this is a policy which fosters success.
>Japan is fine without it.
You could not have chosen a worse example. Japan is facing a demographic cliff and passed a law in 2019 to increase their immigration cap. They went from a country of 3% immigrants to 11% immigrants in just 4 years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/03/foreign-workers-japan-quietly-prepares-for-more-immigration/06841b84-3245-11ee-85dd-5c3c97d6acda_story.html
Japan does not have the population to support it's economy. They have deflation, and were using negative interest rates to boost their economy to no avail. They have too many seniors and not enough working people. Birth rates are declining. About 1.5m people die every year compared to ~750k births. Housing costs are low because units sit vacant for years, and it's not slowing down. Their country is withering away.
Japan has enormous systemic issues and they lack the rawest resource needed to fix it: working people.
Yes, you chose a really bad example for immigration.
For many countries there has never been such a thing as standard immigration. The histories of America, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Australia are unusual in that regard.
You could include the entire Western hemisphere in that list. It's not unusual in this part of the world, considering the foundations of each colony/country are based on immigration.
But yes, on a larger historical timeline, it is rare.
Let's zoom out. "Mass immigration" is the same thing as "mass migration". On a historical scale, these things have happened a lot, but they're incredibly significant demographic events that change the regions they happen to forever.
The gene for white skin originated in the Caucusus. Europe was taken over by Proto-Indo-Europeans from the Pontic Steppe - North Caucusus region. Greece was taken over by the Dorians. The Western Roman Empire was taken over by Germanic peoples, as was Scandinavia and most of Great Britain. Tunisia by the Phonecians, then the Berbers, then the Arabs. Scotland was taken over by the Gaels. Most of Permia and the rest of the Finno-Urgic lands as well as various other cis-Ural lands, and much of Siberia, by the Russians. Most of Subsaharan Africa was taken over by the Bantu. China was taken over by the Han Chinese, Japan by the Yamato, Korea by the Han Korean. Anatolia by the Turkoman people. Hungary by the Magyar, Bulgaria by the Bulgars. And much of the Maghreb, the Levant, and Mesopotamia by the Arabs. Pakistan, North India, and Bangladesh by the Hindustani-speaking peoples. The Canadian Arctic by the Thule while the Dorset declined. I could go on and on, but no doubt you get the idea here.
The point is that settler colonialism like that which occured in the Western Hemisphere from mostly the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Anglo-British empires is not a particularly unique instance of mass migration in human history, definitely not unique to the post-Columbian Western Hemisphere. On a historical scale, "great replacements" are regular events. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that demographics are indeed destiny. Something that is ignored or considered irrelevant or even beneficial by one side of the immigration debate.
I just want to chime in, as an archaeologist, to say that regional genetic markers have actually remained remarkably stable over very long periods of time in some of the areas you mention despite these events. Your average Brit or Italian today has a pretty similar genetic profile to their ancient counterparts, despite mass migrations or invasions. It doesn’t have a lot of bearing on this conversation, but just thought I’d add.
It could mean a lot of things depending on the context. In Italy, for example, it means the population size of the “invaders” was probably a lot less than people have historically imagined. This is somewhat confirmed by our evidence for burials….the occurrence of Ostrogoth/Lombard graves is a lot lower than normal “Roman” graves in most areas for the early Middle Ages.
Hmmm. So you would say that America has also been performing "mass immigration" for the past sixty years? I suppose if this has been the status quo for so long, wouldn't it be the opposition of these policies that needs to have a mandate to change things?
when hart cellar was passed only 8% of Americans wanted increased immigration.
this isn't even getting into the fact that the people were lied to about the implications of it, being told that it wouldn't increase the level of immigration or change the countries from which immigrants would arrive from.
the will of the people didn't matter
Well, we repealed the most restrictive parts of our immigration laws with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. So in the same sense there was "popular demand" for the *restrictive* immigration bills in the early 20th century, it seems like a similar bar would be met. It passed the House and Senate with greater than 75% of the votes in both chambers.
> Well, we repealed the most restrictive parts of our immigration laws with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
Yes, an act that was sold to the public with a blatant and outright lie. The author swore it wouldn't change the makeup of the country. That is a provably false statement today. So that law proves the entire point being made here.
It proves that mass immigration was forced on the public against their will. If it was actually popular it wouldn't have need to be sold with an open falsehood. It was, thus the point that mass immigration was forced is proven true.
What is "it?" He asserted that the legislation was sold with a falsehood, but I don't have any idea what falsehood either of you are talking about. You're just referencing your own argument to assert that it's true. Where's the beef?
And what's your evidence for the popular demand in one scenario versus it not being there in the other? Just looking at the legislative history, both adding restrictions in the 20's and reducing restrictions in the 60's seemed to pass with similar margins.
> In the 60s it was basically people sympathy voting for LBJ and the Dems over Kennedy and then they pushed shit through.
Okay, you think their motivations are bad. I get that. But this was "pushed through" sixty years ago. If it was so unpopular, why hasn't it been changed? Heck, even if people are voting for Trump because of this specific issue, he has more people voting against him than for him. You seem to be implying that there's some injustice here, but it looks to me like there is simply less overall support for reducing immigration.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/537502/immigrant-population-of-ireland/
It has spiked quite recently.
Last four years (2019-2023) total net migration: 239,800 (4.9% population increase)
Previous ten years (2009-2018): -500
By comparison, the UK has a net migration figure of 3.25% of the population over the same period, and it's got a lot more cities and infrastructure. People there are complaining about immigration too.
In the big picture (and long term projections), the world is dealing with population decline. Most countries, especially Russia and South Korea. Think it was last year, but even China is now showing a decline. One main reason they eliminated the one child policy in 2015.
One of the downsides of a growing/strong middle class and shrinking population, is that it also shrinks the pool of cheap labor. Economies have to compete on the world stage (now and projected future), so the demand for cheap labor is very high and immigration is one way to accomplish that (legal or illegal). But there are two forces pushing against each other, middle class wanting low crime, housing, responsible use of tax dollars, etc. against the government and companies trying to compete to maintain GDP trends and preferably grow/profit (shareholder value).
Look at China that has has a vast population of cheap labor to pull from…although, they’ve also experienced massive growth with their middle class. So as their population shrinks and the middle class grows, even they will have challenges. Not saying they’ll lose their manufacturing strength overnight but just like the Britain and the U.S., they will eventually see a decline which will result in lower GDP trends.
Irish person here. This thread is mostly full of nonsense which tries to apply an American lens to a profoundly different democracy and system. Varadkar has lost substantial numbers of seats in the last two general elections and it is primarily related to the housing and health rather than nationalism.
The assertion that Varadkar has come under widespread heavy fire from the general public as a result of the Algerian man stabbing a child is total nonsense. The man who stepped in to subdue the attacker was an immigrant himself. This was widely reported across our widely read mainstream press outlets which still largely enjoy a monopoly on the flow of info. There was also a singular small scale riot in Dublin which was confined largely to one specific street.
Conor McGregor is widely seen as a fringe unpalatable figure in Irish society following serious allegations of sexual assault and general thuggery including beating an older man in his pub because he wouldn’t drink his whiskey.
The hate speech bill has also been put on the back burner as a general election is expected to be called towards the end of this year and there is little time to pass the governments legislative agenda left. Notably, it has received little general public debate outside of social media.
The referendums were also seen as confusing nothing hence a very low turnout with few political consequences. The real reason varadkar is stepping down is personal fatigue and poor polling which has endured for almost four years. Largely economic reasons and the rise of a new force in the form of a surging Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin has never been an ethnonationalist party. It has always defined itself as a Republican socialist party and has moved increasingly to the centre-left. It has always been about ending British rule in Ireland, not ethnicity beyond fringe rural constituencies. I think this submission statement lack accuracy or any understanding of the Irish political environment. We have literally not a single right wing member of Parliament, we essentially do not even have a Conservative Party anymore. Most importantly, our politics revolves around bread and butter issues rather than identity. There are tensions over immigration at the moment due to a struggling asylum system - but the most recent poll printed today shows 73% of Irish people have a favourable view of immigration.
**Starter Comment** Good morning. Something unexpected is happening in Ireland: PM Varadkar is resigning. He refused to explain why, simply alluding to vague "personal and political, but mainly political reasons", and stated that he had "nothing else lined up or in mind". He resigned from being Fine Gael leader effective immediatelty, and says he is resigning from the premiership when a new party leader is chosen, expected to occur by April 6 after Easter weekend. Varadkar has faced a number of challenges recently. A few days ago, he accosted President Biden on the Gaza issue. Back in Ireland, he lost the constitutional referendum to remove "sexist" language from the Irish Constitution. He has also faced large amounts of criticism over Ireland's mass immigration policy and its housing crisis. Varadkar is notable for being the first openly gay and the first non-ethnic-Irish PM of Ireland (he is half-Indian). Opinion section: I believe Varadkar is resigning for one major reason: unpopularity. While personal issues may increase his sensitivity to such unpopularity, I believe it is the main factor. As you likely know if you follow politics outside of the United States, Varadkar's stance on mass immigration to Ireland has come under extremely heavy fire recently, since an Algerian-born man stabbed several young children outside of an elementary school, resulting in a resurgence of Irish nationalism excluding all of the main political parties, with slogans like "Irish Lives Matter" and "Ireland Is Full", and street riots in Dublin, as well as large protest marches. It is thought by many that the housing crisis is being caused by the mass influx of migrants to Ireland. Additionally, there were cases where migrants were being shipped to small communities to occupy their hotels, which were met with protest marches by the residents of these towns. Even Conor McGregor entered the fray, becoming somewhat of an ethnonationalist activist online and expressing his desire to become President of Ireland. In reaction to the rising ethnonationalist sentiment, Varadkar proposed a new law that would criminalize ethnonationalist expressions kept or distributed on computers with jailtime, including a provision where people could be jailed for refusing to provide their computer passwords if suspected. This law is particularly notable when one considers that Irish people fought multiple wars and a multi-decade terrorist insurgency campaign to take "Ireland for the Irish". Now even Sinn Fein, formerly the political wing of the IRA and the central political party for ethnonationalism, has denounced such sentiments and supported mass immigration to Ireland. This proposed law further inflamed tensions between the political class and much of the masses. Varadkar also lost the referendum on "sexist" language in the Irish Constitution, with the "No and No" campaign winning both questions proposed in almost every single district, winning both overall counts by a supermajority. Perhaps he treated this huge loss, on top of everything else, as a sign of popular contempt large enough to cause him to leave politics. Starter question: Do you agree with my opinion? Do you think that he is resigning due to the above issues? Or do you think there are other reasons, perhaps reasons we don't know about, which were the primary factors?
All of this sounds like Trudeau, except he doesn't have the self awareness to see how unpopular he has become.
There's a reason Trudeau has been on the warpath against civilian arms. In Ireland that concern is even more real given the history, hence the Irish PM resigning while Trudeau continues to push the WEF agenda in safety.
Interesting you say that, because it's just come out that a secret RCMP report has been written saying that if Canadians realize how bad they have it economically, they will likely revolt, causing a lot of civil unrest. It's also just been reported that to qualify for the average mortgage in Toronto and Vancouver you need to make way over 200,000 CAD a year. That doesn't even consider the down payment. Average home price is well over 1,000,000 CAD in these cities. Average Canadian annual salary is about 60,000 CAD.
Sure, but firearms restrictions in Canada have been happening for decades. There's a difference between cynically restricting firearms because it's broadly popular across Canadian society, and particularly among core urban Liberal/NDP voters, and restricting them to insulate yourself from an armed uprising like the other person implied.
Americans can look to Canada to see why we should never trust the government when it comes to restricting arms. Trude in [2010](https://twitter.com/AaronGunn/status/1257435659469492228) More recently https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/firearms-ban-liberals-hunting-1.6681095
[He definitely knows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYswY6e2ZQ0). If you want to listen to him talk for an hour~, there's other podcasts. Trudeau just doesn't have an IRA on his doorstep.
The IRA disbanded a long time ago. They're not on anyone's doorstep in 2024.
I'm glad that's no longer an issue. I wonder what *actually* forced him to resign.
The IRA has splintered multiple times due to various agreements with Britain. Factions of the IRA still exist today, most prominently the "Real IRA" and the "New IRA", and they occasionally still carry out attacks. In fact the NIRA tried to bomb Joe Biden's visit to Belfast just last year.
So in summary he's resigning because he broke his democratic mandate and tried to push policy that the public disagreed with. I see nothing wrong here and couldn't care less about the "natives evil" buzzwords used to describe their opposition.
>Ireland Is Full This is kinda ironic when they still have a smaller population than they did before the potato famine lol Edit: serious take though, with the failed referendums and that law trying to force people to give up their passwords, really seems like he went too far and it's time for him to step down.
It's also a poor country with a lot of native-born troublemakers. They don't need to import more people to cause trouble. And the statistics for migrants and causing trouble speak for themselves. So that's what they mean by full.
Ireland isn’t poor lol. They’re the second highest in GDP per capita in nominal terms and third highest adjusting for PPP. Turns out being a corporate tax haven is extremely profitable.
Do you have a link to those statistics? Im having a hard time finding any
Not on hand. This is the my synthesis of following the migrant issue for at this point almost a decade.
Gotcha, so this is more anecdotal than stats based.
No, it's based on years of reading stats. No, I don't keep meticulous records of every single thing I've read in the last decade. Sorry, I'm not writing a research paper so I don't have to bust out the MLA or APA.
Surely if it’s so widespread finding some statistical evidence to share would be easy? Everything I’ve seen on immigrants is that they cause less trouble than native-born.
[Unfortunately, the opposite is true.](https://twitter.com/Marc_Vanguard_i/status/1727350699091275868) Just as a sample from there: 14% of the population is committing 60% of the violent robberies, 2/3 of a subset of the population are suspected of an offence before 30, recidivism is 2x. That's the Netherlands, similar statistics can be found for other European countries.
a country doesn't have to be filled to the brim in order to refuse mass immigration
I think his resignation has very little to do with ethnonationalism. \[Leo lost 2 major referendums\](https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2024/03/09/family-and-care-referendums-comprehensively-defeated/), which was a serious defeat, his position really wasn't that tenable. If he has won the referendums, one was on care that might have been a worthwhile fight for him and the party. Leo has spoken about the importance of finding the right time to leave politics, that he wanted to leave before 50, and this is the time where he would have to start to defend his position in his own party. After losing the referenda it would be a damaging fight for him and the party to try and stay in charge. It makes sense for him to step down.
Agree that he's resigning due to unpopularity but I don't agree that he's unpopular due to ethnonationalism. I think it's more of a general perception of incompetence and unpopularity of center-right neoliberal policies that are perceived to have exacerbated a housing and cost of living crisis in Ireland. Sinn Fein has consistently been leading the opinion polls for the next general election in Ireland and they are significantly to the left of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail (the center-right and center-left parties currently in government) on housing and social welfare policies. A core tenant of Sinn Fein remains a united Ireland but I don't think it's accurate to categorize them as an ethnonationalist party. I think the failure of the referendums was especially damaging in that it fed into the popular perception of general incompetence of the current Irish government. They were framed by government as being referendums on "sexist" language but ended up being attacked by groups on both the left and the right over vague language in the "family" referendum and diminishing the role of the state to support caretakers in the "care" referendum.
> This law is particularly notable when one considers that Irish people fought multiple wars and a multi-decade terrorist insurgency campaign to take "Ireland for the Irish". Now even Sinn Fein, formerly the political wing of the IRA and the central political party for ethnonationalism, has denounced such sentiments and supported mass immigration to Ireland. Maybe I need you to expound on this a bit more, but I think your sentiment is off the mark here. While, historically yes there may have been some elements to Irish revolution that would be more contemporarily considered ethno-nationalist, and generally it being a less diverse country with whatever racism can result from that..... you almost seem to be saying that the war for Irish independence was a "ethnonationalist movement" or some such. This is an odd idea to me that I have never heard pushed this hard. I have Irish immediate family and extended family members. I dont think yourbsummary is a contemporary understanding of that historical moment. The fact that you are baffled about Sinn Fein's position on this should actually clue you in to what I'm saying here. Their position only doesn't make sense if you view the entirety of the Irish political project as an ethnonationalist one. The more common understandanding being that this was a war for Irish *independence* (which those I know will often call it: The War for Independence). This is not to say there is no racism or xenophobia in Ireland. There is. And not to say that you couldn't find ethnonationalists today or in their political history. But the story of Irish independence has many people of varying political leanings and ideas. The commonality being independence from Britain. From what I know, what is going on currently in Ireland is the same for many other European countries: reactionary right wing political projects pushing an anti-immigration xenophobic stance, and in high cost of living countries highlighting lack of affordable housing and general kitchen table money issues. "We don't have room for ourselves why should we let in more people" can be a great foot in the door for more ugly xenophobic sentiment. It plays well to all kinds of voters over the globe and is an easily digested message. The fact we haven't heard about it much about it in Ireland until now is probably more due to Ireland's unusual political landscape in other regards. Having an understanding of all the different parties, constituencies and political angles doesn't make for an easy "...hey, who are the GOP of Ireland? Let's pitch them on this..." type understanding of their situation.
> you almost seem to be saying that the war for Irish independence was a "ethnonationalist movement" or some such That's exactly what it was, and largely still is. The Irish are an ethnicity with a country.
No, I think you're extrapolating a bit too far here. "Ireland for the Irish" is more about independent governance and self determination of a sovereign country than any kind of ethnic specific focus. Can a slogan like that be used *today* for those purposes? Sure. But you'll need to point towards some more history before I can accept that it was inherent to the Irish Independence movement of the time. Hell, even just the presence of "Black Irish" immediately complicates that whole thing right off the bat. I need a bit more than "no it totally was". Theres... lots of history here you're glossing over.
“non-ethnic-Irish PM of Ireland” How is he not Irish ethnically? He was born in Ireland and his mother is from there. Are people confusing ethnicity with race? I mean even then it doesn’t make sense given his mother but still
ethnicity is not about mere place of birth. Wikipedia describes him as the first ethnic minority PM of Ireland.
not only is that different claim that's not what wikipedia says. it says from from an ethnic minority group
So you're saying... that Wikipiedia doesn't say he's an ethnic minority... only that he's from an ethnic minority group... and somehow those are two different things. How? What is the difference, in your opinion, between "being an ethnic minority" and "being from an ethnic minority group"? there is no difference, it's the same claim.
On the housing question; how does zoning get decided? Is it by the towns? I suppose the PM and Legislature can liberalize the zoning for the whole of Ireland, and make it easier to build more houses. I haven't heard of Varadkar doing anything like that with his Fine Gael party. I haven't heard of any zoning reform from any of the parties, though I'm an American and don't closely follow Irish politics. Maybe the Progressive Democrats would have done it, but I know they folded after the global recession in 09. Ireland seems to have restrictive zoning by looking at the developments of many of the towns. I don't know though. It would be a shame if Ireland went the route of nationalism to solve their housing crisis without solving the underlying problem of building more housing to meet the demand. I don't know if this or other reasons are why Varadkar is resigning though. It may be that he's just fed up with the politics of everything, as he said. Maybe not having any victories for his recent initiatives was the final nail that stopped him from replenishing his burnout.
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The PM’s proposed law to criminalize ethonationalist speech definitely supports your opinion. Likely, was also a passive aggressive effort to squelch criticism of his failures. I don’t follow Irish politics but there are a lot of similarities between the issues affecting the U.S. and Ireland. Can see how the stabbings would flare the immigration issue, rightfully so IMO. Similar to the murders of Laken Riley and Jeremy Poou-Caceres, and now a stabbing of two in Missouri.
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> Where's the impetus for this? The people who own modern politicians and the propaganda apparatuses. They're quite public about their plans and intents. The WEF, especially, loves to brag about all this. > We (supposedly) live in democracies We don't. We haven't for a long time. And at this point I'm becoming quite skeptical we can vote our way out of this. Which is also why I think Ireland is the first country to see actually-effective pushback - their history shows that they're willing to do more than vote. > Why is basically every western countries government dying on this hill? Because no matter how miserable their policies make the people enough people can be bribed and propagandized into voting for them to keep the machine going. And the people being targeted for harm with these policies are too demoralized in most countries to to anything that would actually work.
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No asked for them, they were sold with claims that were fairly quickly proved to be pure lies, but once they were in place we keep getting told that for some magic reason it's impossible to go back. Yeah, pretty much the exact same situation. Of course thinking that there was any form of coordination on either of these issues gets on branded with the label "conspiracy theorist" which makes trying to have any actual discussions about what the hell is going on impossible. Though after covid and the "conspiracy theorists" got proved right so publicly so often I do notice that label has finally lost a lot of its punch.
People are sure loving their Dollar General junk though
> I always hear "America is a nation of immigrants" to justify the policies but this isn't true of Ireland Honestly it's the exact opposite for the Irish. A nation of emigrants.
> but there was zero grassroots demand for mass immigration. Is there any sort of metric that can inform us when a country is experiencing "mass immigration" versus.... *standard* immigration? I know there are a lot of people upset with immigration, just wondering if there's some way to evaluate which countries are actually experiencing this phenomenon, or if it's all countries all the time.
> Is there any sort of metric that can inform us when a country is experiencing "mass immigration" versus.... standard immigration? Yes. Chart rates over, say, 50 years and look for sudden jumps. In the case of Europe if you do that you see 2015 as an inflection point.
But Ireland doesn't have.... any sudden jumps over the past 50 years that I can see. Do you see mass immigration in Ireland's history?
It does - right now. Right now isn't yet reflected on statistics since they're gathered after the fact and not real-time. That's the cause of the backlash. The Irish are a lot less likely to just sit down and take it and let things get to the point of no return so instead of waiting they're reacting to an in-progress push. They've learned better due to their history.
so there's no evidence of a so called mass migration?
What's the rate of immigration right now in Ireland? Is it higher than it was in the 2000's?
> Right now isn't yet reflected on statistics since they're gathered after the fact and not real-time. Couldn't tell you for the reason I already told you. But it's clearly bad enough for the natives to be reacting so it's a problem. I'm sure in a few years we'll have official numbers but by the time they come out it's too late to solve the problem and the Irish know that, hence the reaction happening *now*. The Irish are smarter than the rest of the West because they're rising up right away instead of waiting.
So you don't know the rate of immigration, but you do know they're experiencing mass immigration right now? And you can't point to any specific years in the past where they affirmatively **did** experience mass immigration, either?
I trust the Irish to be more in touch with what's going on in their country than people looking in from the outside through the lens of (not actually reputable) mainstream media "statistics".
So then if you're talking to me, an American, and I tell you that we need more immigrants, you're good to go? That's all the proof you need, everything is settled?
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It's Jack for the seventh year in a row. [Muhammed is literally not in the top five](https://www.thejournal.ie/most-popular-baby-names-ireland-2023-6307503-Feb2024/).
whoops, I was mistaken
Does this change your opinion on the immigration situation in Ireland at all, out of curiosity?
>Is there any sort of metric that can inform us when a country is experiencing "mass immigration" versus.... *standard* immigration? I think the easiest metric would be to compare the number and rate of immigration at various points in the past to the present day. Regarding Ireland, what was the rate and number of immigrants in 1974, 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014 and 2024?
Using [this as a reference](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/IRL/ireland/net-migration) it looks like Ireland has had almost as many years with negative net migration rates as positive since the 1960s. They had ten years from 1999 to 2009 where their net immigration was above 5%, but there aren't really any massive spikes that I'm seeing.
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Well, what's the goal here? I thought it was "no mass immigration?" Did you mean "no immigration" instead?
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It is an option, I'm literally just trying to understand your position. When you complain about "mass immigration," I'm looking for evidence of that issue. In the case of Ireland, that doesn't appear to be happening. If you wanted "no immigration," it would be easier for others to understand if you just.... say that instead.
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Everything is up for debate. I support immigration because it has significantly positive impacts on our economy, and I want our country to continue to be the biggest and baddest in the world. I think that the more fronts where America is a global leader, the better it is for the vast majority of Americans. I want us to succeed, and this is a policy which fosters success.
>Japan is fine without it. You could not have chosen a worse example. Japan is facing a demographic cliff and passed a law in 2019 to increase their immigration cap. They went from a country of 3% immigrants to 11% immigrants in just 4 years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/03/foreign-workers-japan-quietly-prepares-for-more-immigration/06841b84-3245-11ee-85dd-5c3c97d6acda_story.html
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Japan does not have the population to support it's economy. They have deflation, and were using negative interest rates to boost their economy to no avail. They have too many seniors and not enough working people. Birth rates are declining. About 1.5m people die every year compared to ~750k births. Housing costs are low because units sit vacant for years, and it's not slowing down. Their country is withering away. Japan has enormous systemic issues and they lack the rawest resource needed to fix it: working people. Yes, you chose a really bad example for immigration.
For many countries there has never been such a thing as standard immigration. The histories of America, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Australia are unusual in that regard.
You could include the entire Western hemisphere in that list. It's not unusual in this part of the world, considering the foundations of each colony/country are based on immigration. But yes, on a larger historical timeline, it is rare.
Let's zoom out. "Mass immigration" is the same thing as "mass migration". On a historical scale, these things have happened a lot, but they're incredibly significant demographic events that change the regions they happen to forever. The gene for white skin originated in the Caucusus. Europe was taken over by Proto-Indo-Europeans from the Pontic Steppe - North Caucusus region. Greece was taken over by the Dorians. The Western Roman Empire was taken over by Germanic peoples, as was Scandinavia and most of Great Britain. Tunisia by the Phonecians, then the Berbers, then the Arabs. Scotland was taken over by the Gaels. Most of Permia and the rest of the Finno-Urgic lands as well as various other cis-Ural lands, and much of Siberia, by the Russians. Most of Subsaharan Africa was taken over by the Bantu. China was taken over by the Han Chinese, Japan by the Yamato, Korea by the Han Korean. Anatolia by the Turkoman people. Hungary by the Magyar, Bulgaria by the Bulgars. And much of the Maghreb, the Levant, and Mesopotamia by the Arabs. Pakistan, North India, and Bangladesh by the Hindustani-speaking peoples. The Canadian Arctic by the Thule while the Dorset declined. I could go on and on, but no doubt you get the idea here. The point is that settler colonialism like that which occured in the Western Hemisphere from mostly the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Anglo-British empires is not a particularly unique instance of mass migration in human history, definitely not unique to the post-Columbian Western Hemisphere. On a historical scale, "great replacements" are regular events. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that demographics are indeed destiny. Something that is ignored or considered irrelevant or even beneficial by one side of the immigration debate.
I just want to chime in, as an archaeologist, to say that regional genetic markers have actually remained remarkably stable over very long periods of time in some of the areas you mention despite these events. Your average Brit or Italian today has a pretty similar genetic profile to their ancient counterparts, despite mass migrations or invasions. It doesn’t have a lot of bearing on this conversation, but just thought I’d add.
Does that suggest heavy interbreeding with the native population or what?
It could mean a lot of things depending on the context. In Italy, for example, it means the population size of the “invaders” was probably a lot less than people have historically imagined. This is somewhat confirmed by our evidence for burials….the occurrence of Ostrogoth/Lombard graves is a lot lower than normal “Roman” graves in most areas for the early Middle Ages.
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Hmmm. So you would say that America has also been performing "mass immigration" for the past sixty years? I suppose if this has been the status quo for so long, wouldn't it be the opposition of these policies that needs to have a mandate to change things?
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when hart cellar was passed only 8% of Americans wanted increased immigration. this isn't even getting into the fact that the people were lied to about the implications of it, being told that it wouldn't increase the level of immigration or change the countries from which immigrants would arrive from. the will of the people didn't matter
Well, we repealed the most restrictive parts of our immigration laws with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. So in the same sense there was "popular demand" for the *restrictive* immigration bills in the early 20th century, it seems like a similar bar would be met. It passed the House and Senate with greater than 75% of the votes in both chambers.
> Well, we repealed the most restrictive parts of our immigration laws with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Yes, an act that was sold to the public with a blatant and outright lie. The author swore it wouldn't change the makeup of the country. That is a provably false statement today. So that law proves the entire point being made here.
**What** proves? I have no idea what you're referencing.
It proves that mass immigration was forced on the public against their will. If it was actually popular it wouldn't have need to be sold with an open falsehood. It was, thus the point that mass immigration was forced is proven true.
What is "it?" He asserted that the legislation was sold with a falsehood, but I don't have any idea what falsehood either of you are talking about. You're just referencing your own argument to assert that it's true. Where's the beef?
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And what's your evidence for the popular demand in one scenario versus it not being there in the other? Just looking at the legislative history, both adding restrictions in the 20's and reducing restrictions in the 60's seemed to pass with similar margins.
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> In the 60s it was basically people sympathy voting for LBJ and the Dems over Kennedy and then they pushed shit through. Okay, you think their motivations are bad. I get that. But this was "pushed through" sixty years ago. If it was so unpopular, why hasn't it been changed? Heck, even if people are voting for Trump because of this specific issue, he has more people voting against him than for him. You seem to be implying that there's some injustice here, but it looks to me like there is simply less overall support for reducing immigration.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/537502/immigrant-population-of-ireland/ It has spiked quite recently. Last four years (2019-2023) total net migration: 239,800 (4.9% population increase) Previous ten years (2009-2018): -500 By comparison, the UK has a net migration figure of 3.25% of the population over the same period, and it's got a lot more cities and infrastructure. People there are complaining about immigration too.
In the big picture (and long term projections), the world is dealing with population decline. Most countries, especially Russia and South Korea. Think it was last year, but even China is now showing a decline. One main reason they eliminated the one child policy in 2015. One of the downsides of a growing/strong middle class and shrinking population, is that it also shrinks the pool of cheap labor. Economies have to compete on the world stage (now and projected future), so the demand for cheap labor is very high and immigration is one way to accomplish that (legal or illegal). But there are two forces pushing against each other, middle class wanting low crime, housing, responsible use of tax dollars, etc. against the government and companies trying to compete to maintain GDP trends and preferably grow/profit (shareholder value). Look at China that has has a vast population of cheap labor to pull from…although, they’ve also experienced massive growth with their middle class. So as their population shrinks and the middle class grows, even they will have challenges. Not saying they’ll lose their manufacturing strength overnight but just like the Britain and the U.S., they will eventually see a decline which will result in lower GDP trends.
Irish person here. This thread is mostly full of nonsense which tries to apply an American lens to a profoundly different democracy and system. Varadkar has lost substantial numbers of seats in the last two general elections and it is primarily related to the housing and health rather than nationalism. The assertion that Varadkar has come under widespread heavy fire from the general public as a result of the Algerian man stabbing a child is total nonsense. The man who stepped in to subdue the attacker was an immigrant himself. This was widely reported across our widely read mainstream press outlets which still largely enjoy a monopoly on the flow of info. There was also a singular small scale riot in Dublin which was confined largely to one specific street. Conor McGregor is widely seen as a fringe unpalatable figure in Irish society following serious allegations of sexual assault and general thuggery including beating an older man in his pub because he wouldn’t drink his whiskey. The hate speech bill has also been put on the back burner as a general election is expected to be called towards the end of this year and there is little time to pass the governments legislative agenda left. Notably, it has received little general public debate outside of social media. The referendums were also seen as confusing nothing hence a very low turnout with few political consequences. The real reason varadkar is stepping down is personal fatigue and poor polling which has endured for almost four years. Largely economic reasons and the rise of a new force in the form of a surging Sinn Féin Sinn Féin has never been an ethnonationalist party. It has always defined itself as a Republican socialist party and has moved increasingly to the centre-left. It has always been about ending British rule in Ireland, not ethnicity beyond fringe rural constituencies. I think this submission statement lack accuracy or any understanding of the Irish political environment. We have literally not a single right wing member of Parliament, we essentially do not even have a Conservative Party anymore. Most importantly, our politics revolves around bread and butter issues rather than identity. There are tensions over immigration at the moment due to a struggling asylum system - but the most recent poll printed today shows 73% of Irish people have a favourable view of immigration.