PSNI Centrestage At Dublin Antifa Conference

The left in Ireland has devoted much ink to pinning the nationalist right as a front for HM’s government, with little reciprocal attention going in the opposite direction.

On Monday, however a senior PSNI constable sat down with leading left-wing voices in fighting the ‘far right’ in Ireland at a Dublin conference organised by the Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL) to discuss policing.

Titled “Policing of Far-Right Intimidation in the Republic of Ireland,” the conference is the latest sign of the British state’s growing guidance over the Irish state and political left in how to deal with the problem of upstart nationalists.

The UK is already a veritable police state when it comes to free speech matters, with many Irish activists and civil servants keen to leech out established procedures from London, much to the chagrin of republicans among their ranks.

Topics discussed at the ICCL panel included how both the state and NGO left could draw on “best practices and lessons learned” from policing in Northern Ireland and grapple with the phenomenon of right-wing citizen journalists.

Flanked by left-wing activists and counterterror experts, Detective Inspector Andy George was among the speakers at the all-day event organised by the ICCL. 

President of the National Black Police Association, Detective George, was a member of the RUC/PSNI since 1999 and came to media prominence last year for comments made regarding the acquittal of a white police officer for shooting a member of a London drill gang.

In January of this year, Detective George accused those objecting to PSNI recruitment of racism with his organization, the National Black Police Association, earning repeated criticism for pushing a woke agenda within the British security apparatus.

As a veteran Chief Inspector within the northern police force, Detective George is likely to have interacted with British intelligence, specifically MI5, particularly in counterterrorism and intelligence-led operations.

Hardly la Quinta Brigada and something one suspects the ICCL and left-wing orbiters may be slow to highlight.

Joining Detective George on stage was Soros-funded Hungarian academic Andrea Peto and UN counterterror expert Fionnuala Ní Aoláin. Alongside the panel of counterterror experts and a PSNI constable was left-wing activist Dessie Donnelly from the Belfast-based Rabble Cooperative that specialises in combining human rights activism with software engineering.

The ICCL, the host of the day’s events, has previously been highlighted for its foreign funding streams. According to Gript’s reporting, 90% of its revenue originates from outside the Irish state.

What appears prima facie to be a forward-looking conference by a ‘respectable’ NGO like the ICCL this week was a de facto security conference with the British state, and one which stinks of hypocrisy considering the current accusations of the nationalist right somehow being in the pocket of alien actions.

When a handful of foolish Coolock residents wander to Belfast, it is a sign that anti-migration protests are in league with the Shankhill Butchers. When British security officials openly coordinate with the Irish left on how to defang migration protests ,it is swept under the carpet.

Whatever happens in the next chapter of the Irish migration debate, one gets the feeling that London will be watching through their Irish proxies, eager to import best practices as antifascism takes on a very colonial bent in Ireland.