Ezra Levant ｜ Free speech is on fire in Ireland： in-depth with Gript Media's Ben Scallan
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Summary
Ben Scallan joins us to talk about the Irish riots, the stabbings and the social unrest, and of course, Conor McGregor. He's a leading citizen journalist in Ireland, and he's here to tell us about it.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Today, a great conversation with Ben Scallon, an independent journalist in
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Ireland who's covering the riots in that country and the stabbings and the, I don't know, the
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social unrest. And of course, Conor McGregor. It's a very interesting place these days.
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And Ben Scallon's the guy to talk to us about it. But first, let me invite you to go to
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rebelnewsplus.com. That's a website where you can sign up for the video version of this podcast.
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I want to show you some of the craziness on the streets of Ireland. Better to show it to you
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than just to tell you about it. You can get that at rebelnewsplus.com. Eight bucks a month.
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Not a lot of dough for the ordinary Joe, but it sure does add up for us, I'll tell you,
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because that's how we pay half our payroll here. So do it for the great content, but do it to keep
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Rebel News healthy. That's rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's podcast.
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Tonight, what's going on in Ireland? We talked to a leading citizen journalist.
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It's December 15th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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You're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.
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Ireland is a country of just over 5 million people, but in so many ways it's going through
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the same battles as countries around the West. Here in Canada, in Western Europe, in the United
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States, issues like mass immigration that is not assimilated, issues like globalist control as
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opposed to national sovereignty and, of course, political correctness and wokeness, demonizing
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anyone who dares to think contrary to the official narrative. I love Ireland for so many reasons, even
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though I've never had the pleasure of spending any time there. And my window into the world of Ireland
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comes from a new independent journalism outfit. We've interviewed several of their reporters before,
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including our guest today. What a delight to be joined again by Ben Scallon, a reporter for
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gripped.ie. And gripped is spelt in an archaic way, G-R-I-P-T, as in he gripped it. That's an old-fashioned
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way of saying I love it. And they have been on fire. I shouldn't say on fire because there were some
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riotous fires recently. Joining us now is Ben Scallon, one of their correspondents. It's been great to see you
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again. Ireland has been in a storm of controversy for so many reasons. And I am so grateful that we
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have you to tell us the other side of the story, as opposed to what I call the regime media, which,
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in fact, one of the things we'll talk about is how the regime media refuses to cover things that,
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quote, aren't helpful to the narrative. Great to see you, Ben.
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Yeah, great to see you, too. It's great to be back.
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Well, let's just talk a little bit about some of the most shocking news that ignited the place,
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both metaphorically and actually physically. There were fires set. There was a stabbing
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in Ireland that was so horrific, it pricked the conscience of the entire country and actually led
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to riots in response. Tell me a little bit about the stabbing. Who did the stabbing? How was that
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treated by the media? Who was stabbed? And I don't mean to be grotesque or macabre, but it is very
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relevant to the reaction and then the media's counterreaction. Tell us what happened about a
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month ago now. Yeah, so we can't say definitively, as a matter of fact, who committed this terrible crime
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because nobody has been convicted yet. You know, of course, there's a legal process there and I wouldn't
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want to prejudice any kind of ongoing case. But for those who aren't in the know, about, I'd say,
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a month ago now or so, there was a stabbing in broad daylight at a school in the centre of Dublin
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City, which is the capital city of Ireland, where three young children, all aged six years or younger,
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were stabbed, including one woman, an adult kind of childcare worker who was with them at the time.
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She was also stabbed. I believe she's just out of hospital as of a few days ago. And two of the
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children were, I mean, they were all badly injured. There's no such thing as a non-serious stabbing,
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but two of them, I suppose, fared a bit better than the third one who, to our knowledge, is still
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in hospital. And the updates on that child's status have not really been forthcoming from
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authorities. We don't really know what's going on there. The alleged perpetrator, the person who is
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the person of interest for the police, is a man of Algerian origin. He is also in hospital himself,
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having sustained injuries at the site. People, you know, bystanders and people who are walking by
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jumped in there. And it is claimed that whoever was perpetrating the attack, who, again, some
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alleged that it was this individual, that they were basically hospitalised. And so he's been there
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since. But yeah, as you can imagine, this is a really shocking crime. And it's not the kind of
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thing that we've had in Ireland, really, ever. I mean, of course, it's never going to be normal in
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any country for children to be stabbed. That's not something that people would consider to be just a
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day at the office. But I do think that there are some countries like America, where tragically,
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you know, there have been school shootings, there have been these sorts of tragedies, it's not
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unheard of. Whereas here, we've never had anything like that. So this was a kind of a new sort of
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atrocity that really shocked the nation to its core. And it's something that we sort of feel that the
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atmosphere on the ground is like we've crossed a threshold here when things like this start to
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happen. Yeah. And I think people were so appalled by it. And I don't mean to make a comparison,
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because it's, I don't think there's a link, but it, but if it was an Algerian migrant who stabbed
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children, which is so contrary to every civilizational norm, my mind is drawn to the
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possibility that it may be in some way linked to what's going on in Israel, because we did see
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children attacked on October 7. Is there any indication whatsoever, have authorities or police
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or anyone tried to understand the motive of an Algerian migrant? And I say again, as you point
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out, he's a suspect, he is not yet being convicted beyond a reasonable doubt in court. He's still in
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hospital, in fact. Is there any indication whatsoever of a motive? I mean, I suppose the reaction would
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be to say madness. But, but there was a deliberation here. There was a plan, it sounds like. Do we know
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what, do we know why he did it? Was he heard shouting something like Allah Akbar? And
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No, I mean, the police say that having looked into this after, in the wake of it, as they were doing
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their investigations, that they don't believe there's any particular religious or political
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motive. They think that the, the suspect suffers with psychiatric issues and that that was probably
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the primary contributing factor here, that it's not necessarily ideological. But I mean, that in and of
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itself, uh, uh, you know, assuming that there is truth to this and that it is, as it appears,
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that in and of itself would raise issues. And I think part of what is frustrating people is that
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this is the latest in a long string of very shocking crimes. So just last year, we saw the murder of a
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young girl. She was 23 years old, Aisling Murphy, who was just out for a run in her local area in a nice
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rural area. And she was stabbed repeatedly to death by a man who has now been convicted, uh, who was a
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Slovakian national. And of course, I want to make it absolutely clear as well. Of course, people of all
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nationalities and all groups commit crimes. Irish people commit crimes every day of the week. Uh, you know,
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there's, there's no one ideology or religion or ethnicity that has a monopoly on these sorts of
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things. But I do think there's a conversation that is worth, uh, at least considering when you
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think about the fact that people are coming to our country who we know very little about, you know,
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there's always going to be a baseline level of, uh, criminality of violence. That's a terrible thing,
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but it is unfortunately a part of life and living in the reality that there's going to be evil people
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who do evil things. But I think there's a difference when you bring a guy from a country
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like Slovakia, like in the case I just mentioned, and he is born there and now he's here stabbing
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someone to death. That was a preventable crime. You know, maybe it's conceivable that if we knew more
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about this individual, we would have realized that he's bad news and he wouldn't have come here in the
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first place. So people don't want to have that conversation. They want to immediately deflect
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and say, Oh no, you're tiring everybody with a broad brush. Of course, it's not about time. You
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know, most people who come from abroad, including my own mother, who's an immigrant from Jamaica
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are perfectly normal, reasonable people who just want to live their life like anybody else.
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But it is naive and incorrect to act like everybody who comes to our country is going to be benevolent
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and well-meaning. And we should be able to point that out and have a conversation about that
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without being accused of being this kind of ist or fobe or whatever else.
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And especially as we move into the era of mass migration in Canada, for example, there are no
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longer desk interviews. You no longer go and meet in person to apply to immigrate. It's all done
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over the computer. Like there's physically not, no one lays eyes on you. No one has a personal
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conversation. No one tests your reaction to things. There's no human element. It's just,
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you know, in Canada, we're now at 4,000 migrants a day, every day of the week, 365 days a year. There's
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no way to vet that many people. And I agree with you that a lot of them are, you know, maybe just
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seeking a better economic opportunity. But, but especially if you're bringing people from either
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a war-torn place where they might have PTSD for all we know, or a place where there are ideologies that
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are extreme. We, we don't know. But what we do know is how the government authorities and how the
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regime media try to stifle conversations about these things. You mentioned the case of the 23-year-old
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woman, Aisling Murphy. And in Ireland, it sounds like you have something we have here in Canada also,
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which is at sentencing a victim impact statement where someone is allowed to say to the court,
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here's how this hurt me. I would like you, judge, to take this into consideration in the sentencing.
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At least that's how it works here in Canada. I understand that the murdered woman's boyfriend
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made some remarks, but because he referenced the issue that you and I are talking about,
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the immigration and who this person was, his victim impact statement was silenced and covered up.
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I think we have a clip of, uh, some of Ireland's, uh, most official journalists saying,
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well, it weren't, it's not helpful what this victim said. So we would rather silence the voice
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of the grieving boyfriend whose girlfriend was murdered because what he said wasn't helpful to
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whom? Are you in the news business or are you, are you running some errands here? Here, we'll play a clip
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of, uh, what I know you've tongue-in-cheek called Ireland's top journalists because they're,
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they're sort of anti-journalists here. They're un-reporting the case. Let's take a look.
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Kitty, um, I wonder, do you think the politicians and media, um, ignore what others around the country
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said was the most significant part of Ryan Casey's victim impact statement? Um, Ryan Casey,
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of course, was the, the boyfriend of the murdered teacher, Aisling, uh, Murphy. He prefaced his victim
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impact statement by saying his girlfriend's murderer had lived off the state without contributing
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to it for 10 years. And then he said, I feel like this country is no longer the country that Aisling
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and I grew up in and has officially lost its innocence when a crime of this magnitude could
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be perpetrated in broad daylight. We have to once and for all, he said, start putting the safety of
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not only Irish people, but everybody in this country who works hard, pays taxes, raises families,
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and overall contributes to society first. Um, those were very interesting comments, weren't they?
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Well, yeah, I mean, I think elements of them were not good, frankly. I think they were incitement
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to hatred. And I think that's why aspects of the media left out aspects of them. Um, I, this
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was an extremely heartbroken and devastated young man who has lost the partner of his life,
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but the race and nationality of the man who perpetrated that awful violence on Aisling and
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murdered her is irrelevant. Um, and I, I, he, I can understand, you know, in the emotion and him
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feeling that, and he's entitled to his views, but I think the media has a responsibility to not report,
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um, views that are incitement to hatred. And he has been held up as a hero of the far right now. Um,
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um, so interesting you may call them. Um, but I, I, I, I, I, I mean, I'm sure he would say they
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weren't meant to be incitement to, to hatred. Was it the right thing for the media to overlook them
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in those circumstances? I mean, was it an embarrassed overlooking of those comments, do you think?
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I don't think so. I think they were right to, um, to not include them. Um, they were said, they were,
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I, I, I, I don't think that they were helpful. Um, and, uh, it's the kind of thing that,
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you know, the far right latches onto that they latched onto the, um, nationality of the man who,
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um, who attacked their children. And, you know, I'd love them to go down to the courts and report
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on all the white Irish men who are perpetrating violence on, on Irish and immigrant women, um,
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every day in the court. They're not doing that. So the nationality, what the problem here is
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violence against women and children. It's not the nationality of the people who are perpetrating it.
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The problem is misogyny and hatred and entitlement to inflict women violence on women and children.
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It's another, it's another related issue and ill in society, but it has nothing to do with race.
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I tell you, that's the most astonishing series of statements I ever heard. Ben, I was just jotting
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down notes. So she's telling, uh, the surviving victim, the, I don't know if you would call it a
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widower if they weren't yet married. She's telling him how to properly grieve. She's telling him what
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to feel and what to think. He's doing it wrong. She says it's not good what he says and it's incitement
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to hatred. So that sounds like she's criminalizing his statement of grief. She repeatedly says he refers
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to race. I didn't hear a word about race in there. I don't think Slovakian or immigrant or races.
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She called his comments irrelevant. Again, she, he should have consulted with her before having his
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feelings. Um, she repeatedly said far right. I guess if your girlfriend is murdered and you object to it,
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that's far right. She said that journalists actually had a responsibility to not report. Like I said,
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anti-journalism or un-journalism. Um, but she, uh, is against making race an issue, which the grieving
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widower didn't do, but she'll come up with her hated group misogyny. So basically this is just men
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and the men are the ones we should probably be hating. I have seldom seen so many woke ideas jammed
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into a three minute statement as that Ben, but I can see if that's what your regime media is like.
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Why gripped.ie. And by the way, I'm a subscriber. I love it. I can see if that's what the regime
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media is talking about. Why gripped is just growing by leaps and bounds. Thank you for letting me react
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to that. Give me your thoughts on what we just saw. Who was that lady, by the way, that was on,
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it looked like it was on BBC Ireland. Um, and who was that lady who was making those comments?
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Yes. Those are the, the show was on BBC Northern Ireland, but the, the woman who was on who they
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were interviewing was, uh, Kitty Holland, who is the social affairs correspondent for the Irish
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times, which is kind of Ireland's paper of record. It's, it's, uh, you know, very prestigious. It's a
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couple of hundred years as a publication. So it's kind of viewed as almost the gold standard of media
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here. And what I found so remarkable about Miss Holland's comments there was that while many
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people found it shocking, that video went extremely viral. It occurred millions of views when we posted
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the clip. Uh, the, the fact of the matter is she's only saying out loud what most journalists in
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Ireland privately think, but they might just have a little bit more sense to not say it in public.
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You know, the, the fact that she would say, oh no, I think actually journalists have a responsibility to
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suppress information like this. That is in effect what the entire media ecosystem in Ireland did.
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Almost nobody actually reported. He gave a long statement to Ryan Casey, uh, the, the boyfriend,
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and he touched on a lot of issues and he very briefly mentioned the immigration issue. And he,
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as, as you say, he didn't mention anything about race. He didn't say anything offensive or unreasonable.
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He basically just asked the question, how is it that somebody can come to Ireland,
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Ireland, not work, not contribute to society beyond welfare for their entire duration of,
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of staying here and end up, uh, allowed to stay being given permission by the states,
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despite the fact that they contribute nothing of value, and then ultimately go on to murder an
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innocent young girl who was just trying to live her life. So he asked what is an incredibly reasonable
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question, which was a question that was on the minds of most people in this country and the
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aftermath of this appalling crime. And yet, Miss Holland has now admitted on behalf of her media
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colleagues who evidently agree with her, because you can see from the way they behaved, that, uh,
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the, the media views it as its job essentially to suppress this, this kind of information because
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it's hateful and far right and unhelpful essentially, which kind of tells you all you need to know about
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why certain things are the way they are and why media is in the state that it's in here in this country.
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Yeah. That unhelpful thing. It's sort of a wink wink that we're all here to help, to help whom?
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I mean, to help people, uh, seek the truth about the world that, I mean, that's what media is.
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You're between, you are the conduit from the world to people. That's what, that's what journalism should
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be. But they, to them, not being helpful is helpful to power, helpful to the regime, to the
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authorities, to the official narrative, to globalism, to, we all know that mass migration is the right
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thing and this is unhelpful to that campaign. Just incredible. Now they use the word far right again
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and again, and I have no idea, um, what that means other than it is a term of hatred. We were talking to
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Dr. James Lindsay the other day who said Mao, Chairman Mao in China used that same phraseology,
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just, just basically to label swaths of people who were, were bad. Like it was just, uh, it was
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really just an insult that didn't have a particular meaning. It was just a label. Um, the Irish justice
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minister talks about far right, far right all the time as well, but we've got a clip and, and, and you
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guys again, one of my favorite things about GRIPT is you're not just commenting on the news that
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other people get, you go and get the news and you have access actually to the Irish cabinet. You go
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to these press conferences, you ask the questions and they actually answer you. They don't either,
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I mean, that's one thing that sort of surprises me about Irish politicians is they sometimes actually
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answer questions. Uh, I, I know they obfuscate a lot, but sometimes they give an answer. And
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the most impressive thing is, um, they let you in, you know, they haven't yet, uh, reached into their
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inner bully and kicked you out. So some of these clips, um, are you putting questions directly to
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the cabinet ministers? I, I know you've done some great work on, on censorship laws, but I just want
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to show a clip of the justice minister, who's the main driving force behind the upcoming hate speech
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bill, which is really the most strenuous hate speech bill outside of North Korea. It's shocking.
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Um, and here's the acknowledgement that just like Chairman Mao, far right just sort of means
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people we don't like. Let's take a look at this clip. Could you give me a definition of what you
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consider is the far right? In terms of a definition of the far right, I mean, it's, it's,
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it's obviously a political ideology or it's a particular view that a person has. Um, I, I'm not
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sure there is a definition. It's not a little bit like hate. Well, yeah, so I think we need to find
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what it is. You have a limited amount of time. If you interrupt the minister, you're going to run out
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of time. So just that answer the question. Thank you. I think what we see from a lot of people who would
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claim to be far right, which is not a crime, uh, for somebody to have a particular ideology, it's where they
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act on maybe certain, uh, matters. But, uh, we have seen people to be anti-government, anti-state,
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anti-immigration, uh, anti, uh, women's rights, uh, amongst other things. That would be my own
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particular view of those who would claim to be far right. So that was, uh, in a committee,
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that was not a question put to her by your journalist, but I know you've engaged with Helen
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McEntee before because she is, she really does seek to implement the, the world's most onerous
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censorship regime. And, and, um, she says being far right is not a crime, but she seeks to
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essentially criminalize far right, uh, content. Now I'd like you to describe it. I've read the bill
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and I've, I've done a show on it, but listen, I'm over here in Canada. You're, you're in the heart of
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Ireland yourself. My understanding is that this would criminalize even what you have, say,
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on your phone. If someone sends you a meme or an email or an image, uh, even if you just have
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it in your possession, you haven't deployed it yet. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, uh,
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cause maybe I'm confusing it with other hate crime bills, like ones we've got coming in Canada. Tell
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me the worst or tell me the truth really about Ireland's proposed bill. Go ahead.
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So you're, you're right about that. The fact that you don't even have to disseminate the alleged
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hate material. If it's just simply found in your possession. So say, as you, as you say,
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something on your phone, something on your laptop, maybe the police for, for some reason,
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they're in your house and they find out that you have an objectionable pamphlet or leaflet.
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There doesn't have to be any evidence or proof that you have distributed this to another person.
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If it's deemed to be hateful, you can be jailed merely for possessing it. And in fact,
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it is the, uh, burden of responsibility or the burden of proof, should I say is on you
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to prove your innocence. It's been reversed where you, you need to try and somehow prove I did not
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intend to disseminate this so-called hate material. And I, I mean, you, you know, as well as I do that,
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that's almost a logical impossibility. You can't prove a negative. How do you prove you didn't intend
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to do something? You know, it's not really something that is going to be easy to, to, uh,
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explain in court, but even more fundamentally than that, that that's, that's one element of the bill
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that's problematic. It doesn't even define the word hate. It's a hate speech bill. But when you read
00:23:59.160
the text of the legislation, it says that hatred means hatred on the basis of X, Y, Z characteristics,
00:24:06.600
which is a circular definition. So hatred effectively means whatever somebody wants it
00:24:12.440
to mean when they're trying to prosecute you. And it even has more logical absurdities like one of the
00:24:18.360
protected characteristics is genders other than that of male or female. That's what it says in the text.
00:24:24.520
But when I asked our Taoiseach, which is effectively our prime minister, I asked him how many genders are
00:24:31.240
there according to the government based on this legislation? Because actually our leader of the
00:24:35.400
Shannon last year, she's like our, uh, Senate majority leader, I guess you would call it in,
00:24:40.520
uh, North America. She said that, uh, there were about nine genders. So about nine generations ago,
00:24:48.280
there were two genders, you know, there were two sexes. There still are two sexes, but today I think
00:24:53.240
we probably have about nine genders and that doesn't diminish any other gender within the gender identity
00:24:59.080
set. Facebook discovered 53, I should tell you. So, uh, they're discovering more every day in the lab,
00:25:04.920
you know, scientists are actively searching. We have that, uh, I didn't know that was you who
00:25:10.360
put the question to Leo Varadkar. Am I pronouncing that right? He's, I'm not going to try the Irish
00:25:15.960
name for, it's basically prime minister. How do you say that word in Irish?
00:25:21.000
Taoiseach. Taoiseach. Okay. That's, there's, there's wonderful, beautiful Irish terms that I just don't,
00:25:26.680
I just never hear them spoken here. I read them, but I don't know how to say them Taoiseach. That's great.
00:25:31.240
So here's Leo Varadkar, uh, who's a, if I'm not mistaken, he's a world economic forum,
00:25:36.120
young leader, just like Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern were and Mark Ruta. And that was you who asked
00:25:43.000
him how many genders there are. I didn't know that. You know, let's take a quick look at that. That's
00:25:47.160
To be shocked. The hate speech bill makes gender a protected characteristic, but Michael McDowell and
00:25:52.200
others have noted that the gender recognition act only recognizes two genders while the hate speech
00:25:56.840
bill explicitly refers to more genders than just male or female. Your Shannon leader, Senator
00:26:01.560
Regina Doherty previously said that there are about nine genders. Generations ago, there were two
00:26:06.680
genders. You know, there were two sexes. There still are two sexes, but today I think we probably have
00:26:11.720
about nine genders and that doesn't diminish any other gender within the gender identity set.
00:26:17.560
So how many genders are there? And you know, can we get the government's official position on that?
00:26:22.040
Oh, look, there isn't, there isn't official position on that, but you know, I'm sure that
00:26:26.120
will all be debate in the course of the debates of the Jonathan.
00:26:28.280
You know what? I love the fact, Ben, that you're able to get within question asking range
00:26:34.120
of these political leaders. You've, you've scrummed Helen McEntee before. She is trying to,
00:26:40.600
she was trying to say that most Irish people like this censorship bill. And I got to tell you,
00:26:46.680
like I said, I've never been to Ireland, but I want to remedy that quickly. I've just passed through
00:26:49.800
the airport once. When I think of Ireland, I think of scrappy, proud, stubborn people who
00:27:00.360
tell it like it is, who aren't afraid to swear, whose poetry even is rebellious. I think of
00:27:07.560
prickly pears like Sinead O'Connor, even, you know, someone who, who's just such a handful.
00:27:14.600
When I think of Ireland, I do not think of docile, passive, obedient people. I mean, maybe,
00:27:20.520
maybe I'm just stereotyping here, but the idea that most Irish people would put up their hand
00:27:25.160
and say, please, can you censor me? I just don't see it. I mean, there's a ton of Irish people in
00:27:29.880
North America. Obviously there's more Irish expats than there are Irish. And, and there's a phrase,
00:27:34.920
the fighting Irish, and it's a compliment. You know, the idea that the Irish people,
00:27:40.280
you know, I even think of Morrissey's song, uh, Irish heart, English blood, uh, uh, this I'm made
00:27:47.000
of, and there's no one on earth I'm afraid of, you know, the land of Conor McGregor, that they're
00:27:53.240
signing up to be censored. I don't buy it. And you put it to, uh, you, your team at Gript,
00:28:00.360
you know, I'll let the video do the talking because they claimed the Irish wanted it,
00:28:04.600
but you guys actually counted. And it was a lie. Take a look at this.
00:28:08.040
Yesterday, you indicated that the only people who oppose your government's hate speech laws are,
00:28:12.520
quote, fringe commentators. But of the thousands of replies to your own government's public
00:28:17.000
consultations, 73% were negative. And according to the last poll done on the subject, 65% of people
00:28:23.400
oppose such laws. So is it not in fact your government that's endorsing the fringe position here?
00:28:28.920
What I think is very clear, and this is coming from the significant amount of public consultation that
00:28:33.240
we've had in the last four years, um, consultation that started back in 2018 is that there is a very
00:28:39.720
clear group of minority people in this country who are simply targeted and who are being either
00:28:45.240
victimized or harassed, assaulted, who are victims of hate speech and hate crime simply because of who
00:28:50.680
they are. So that is very clear. That is based on fact. And that is also based on reports that we have.
00:28:55.880
Minister with requests. That's not what I asked. But I'm sorry. That's not what I asked. And also,
00:29:00.440
I've gone through every single one of the consultation responses. There are about 3,600 of them.
00:29:06.280
And that's really not what they said. The vast majority of people said they don't want this. So
00:29:10.600
where are you getting the idea that there's public outcry for this other than government paid NGOs?
00:29:16.840
So that's incorrect to say that the vast majority of people don't want this. I think even if you were to
00:29:21.480
listen to the debate last night in the Shannad, uh, and certainly the debate in the Dole, the vast
00:29:25.960
majority of people do want this. But those are politicians. We're talking about the general
00:29:30.040
public. Where's the, where's the public outcry for them? I can either answer the question or not.
00:29:33.320
But I mean, what I'm basing this on is very clear factual evidence. If you speak to Angarda Shia
00:29:38.440
Conner, there has been 29% increase in hate crimes across this country. So while we don't have hate
00:29:43.640
crime legislation. Recorded, recorded hate crimes. So, so they're trying to claim that the Irish want to be
00:29:48.840
censored. They do that in Canada too. No human being wants to be censored. The only people who
00:29:56.600
are calling for this are the people who would be the censors or the people who are plotting on how
00:30:01.320
to use this against, you know, against too much free speech. Gripped would be a target under this.
00:30:07.240
Absolutely it would. So I'm glad you were there to hold them to account. One of the things about Ireland,
00:30:13.800
maybe it's because it's a smallish place. I mean, it's smaller in population than the greater
00:30:18.520
Toronto area. But it's a beautiful countryside from what I can see. And I think that it's the
00:30:27.960
kind of place that could be ganged up on, you know. And there's an interesting clip of an Irish
00:30:35.320
government representative in the European Parliament because Ireland's still part. Ireland did not Brexit
00:30:41.160
along with the UK. And there was an admission that 70% of Irish legislation is essentially
00:30:48.680
transposed from Brussels, from the European Union making rules. And then it's just downloaded into
00:30:56.200
Ireland, essentially replacing the sovereign authority of the Irish people and their elected
00:31:01.480
delegates with Brussels, where most of the politicians are foreigners. Here, let's take a look
00:31:07.000
at that interesting comment by a member of the European Parliament, Sean Kelly. Take a look.
00:31:15.000
I did speak to Pina Gale. They asked me would I consider running for the law. But I told them that my
00:31:22.840
commitment was to Europe, that I hope to run the elections on June 7th next year, that I was the
00:31:29.080
first Kerry person to be elected to the European Parliament to represent Kerry and Ireland South.
00:31:35.880
And that I have a lot of experience now doing a lot of good work. Many people don't realise that 70%
00:31:43.880
of the legislation comes from Europe and that in the Dáil they're often only transposing what's decided.
00:31:50.040
He says the quiet part out loud. 70% of what we do is just, I think he used the word transpose. He used the word
00:32:07.960
transpose. And I don't think that Irish people again signed up for this. But I think between Leo Varadkar and the EU,
00:32:16.200
Ireland is being turned into a laboratory for schemes that I know no Irish person would sign up for.
00:32:23.080
You know, I've already talked about the mass immigration. And here comes the censorship.
00:32:28.120
And I think that I look at Leo Varadkar and he's even got the same vibe as Trudeau and Ardern and
00:32:35.160
Holland's Mark Rutte. And even Gavin Newsom has that sort of air of superiority. I'm sorry I have to be in this grubby
00:32:43.960
little place, Ireland. I'm actually much bigger than that. Just like Jacinda Ardern is much bigger than
00:32:48.600
New Zealand. Or Mark Rutte was much bigger than Holland. And they're just so lucky to have him.
00:32:53.080
And I'm here to, like Moses, to come down from Mount Sinai. I'm going to tell you how it is.
00:32:58.120
And if you think that a few kids being stabbed on the street is, well, that's a price we're willing to
00:33:05.400
pay to be with it, with the cool kids. I just think that they're doing creepy things to Ireland,
00:33:10.600
like they did to Holland, like they did to New Zealand, like Trudeau's doing to Canada.
00:33:14.280
And I think that it's a loss of national sovereignty. And they're trying to shut up anyone
00:33:18.920
who's upset about it by calling them far right and censoring them. That's how I feel about Ireland.
00:33:24.120
Maybe I'm just seeing my own reflection back to me. These are the things I'm worried about in Canada.
00:33:28.440
But that's what Ireland looks like to me. Well, the 70% figure that that politician gave was really
00:33:36.360
something that we've all suspected. It's a thing that people, particularly people on the more
00:33:42.200
conservative or right-wing side of the spectrum here in Ireland, would have said for years,
00:33:46.200
oh, we're losing our sovereignty to Brussels. And that's particularly egregious when you consider
00:33:52.120
how long and how hard we fought for independence from a foreign superpower,
00:33:57.880
namely Britain. You know, we literally fought for about 800 years to achieve our independence.
00:34:03.800
Every single generation of Irish people had to rise up in rebellion. And we were always crushed
00:34:08.440
and always lost until one day we stopped losing and we finally won just in the last century.
00:34:14.520
And then within a few short decades, that win has now seemingly been subverted to the point where
00:34:21.560
this new foreign government, namely the European Parliament, is basically dictating 70% of our
00:34:29.000
legislation, according to this government politician. And so, I mean, when you actually listen to that
00:34:35.400
clip, what he's saying is his political party, which is in power, we're asking him, would he run in the
00:34:40.920
domestic elections, our elections for the Dáil, which is like our lower house? And effectively,
00:34:46.120
what he's saying is, well, why would I do that when all the important decisions are happening over
00:34:49.800
there on the continent? Sure, nothing happens here. We're basically just the county councils
00:34:54.200
shuffling papers. And I mean, even Britain, when we were controlled by Britain during our colonial days,
00:35:00.680
they offered us a thing called Home Rule, which was effectively where they said, look,
00:35:04.920
we'll give you a small amount of autonomy. This was something that was discussed for many years and
00:35:10.040
people were campaigning for it and it went back and forth. But the idea was to give us a small bit of
00:35:14.920
local autonomy where you can cover the kind of unimportant things that don't really matter,
00:35:20.040
but that ultimately London would pull the strings and they would have the final say on things that are
00:35:25.560
really important, like taxation and what have you not got, conscription for wars and yada yada.
00:35:31.000
Whereas, you know, that was considered to be an unacceptable situation for the majority of Irish
00:35:37.400
people. They said, no, we want full and true independence in the truest sense of the word.
00:35:42.120
We want to be free. We want to be, as our early founding documents say, we want to take our place
00:35:48.200
among the nations. That was the phraseology used. And now here we are in a situation where we're
00:35:54.200
effectively back to Home Rule. We have a county council government that makes the boring day-to-day
00:36:01.080
logistical bureaucratic decisions while everything remotely important happens on the continent.
00:36:05.960
And one last thought I'll say before I kick it back over to you. We used to have an expression,
00:36:11.240
which was we serve neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland, which is, you know, self-explanatory.
00:36:17.880
We're not going to go with Britain. We're not going to go with Germany or any other European
00:36:22.440
power. We're going to stand up for ourselves. I think that could be amended today to be,
00:36:26.920
we serve neither King nor Commissioner, you know, because that's effectively what we have traded our
00:36:33.400
British vassal state position in for. It's just now a load of Germans and Frenchmen are running the show.
00:36:41.320
Yeah. I just, it's, it seems unnatural. It seems contrary to the Irish spirit. You just talked about
00:36:48.360
800 years of rebellion and that, that should apply to other things. And, and free speech,
00:36:53.960
most of all, like I think Ireland, because of the sorrow and the pain and the famine and, and, and,
00:36:59.720
and tremendous, uh, you know, that generates ideas, it generates poetry and art, it generates music.
00:37:06.280
I think there's, I mentioned Sinead O'Connor, may she rest in peace. Uh, but you know, whether you
00:37:11.960
too, or, or the cranberries, I mean, there's a lot of pain and emotion and poetry coming from a small
00:37:19.560
place. Um, on, on the poetry side, James Joyce, one of my favorite poems, uh, poets is WB Yeats and
00:37:25.640
his incredible poem, uh, The Second Coming, a phrase I think of all the time. Ben, I don't know if you
00:37:31.160
think about this, but in that poem, The Second Coming, he says the, the best lack all conviction
00:37:38.680
while the worst are full of passionate intensity. I think of that all the time. And I think,
00:37:45.080
where are the best people? Where are the good guys? They lack all conviction. And oh my God,
00:37:50.280
look at the streets full of those who are full of passionate intensity. And so I think of this land
00:37:57.160
that I have not yet visited, but I hope to remedy that. And I think, where are the best?
00:38:03.320
And I think the world's most famous Irishman right now, I mentioned U2, the band, and I guess
00:38:10.040
Joe Biden considers himself Irish, although he's American. Uh, he's definitely American. He's the
00:38:14.680
president of America. I think perhaps the world's best known Irishman is a fighter, a tattooed,
00:38:21.560
uh, swaggering fighter named Conor McGregor, who is famous in America, where there are more Irishmen
00:38:29.640
than in Ireland. But I think he's sort of a national hero. This is how he looks to me from the outside,
00:38:35.160
Ben, you correct me if I'm wrong, because he embodies the Irish spirit, that fighting Irish
00:38:40.120
phrase I mentioned. He's got the stubbornness, uh, he's got the audacity, he's over the top,
00:38:46.680
uh, which is so different from the Leo Varadkar's of the world. And the reason I mentioned Conor
00:38:51.480
McGregor is because in the last month I have seen more politics out of him than I think in his life
00:38:57.480
combined. And I think it started with the stabbing in the streets of the children. And I see that he's
00:39:04.360
retweeting tweets by Gript. Little independent Gript is on the radar screen of Conor McGregor. And Conor
00:39:12.920
McGregor is talking about running for public office. And I, and we've set up a fun little
00:39:21.560
website, draftconor.com, just because, I mean, just for sheer entertainment value, having that,
00:39:27.800
you know, this master entertainer who's, who, who knows how to rivet a crowd. I mean, of course,
00:39:33.400
the whole world would love that, but from an ideological point of view, I think he would cut
00:39:38.200
through that world economic, globalist, open borders, soft on crime, woke, don't report a
00:39:44.120
victim statement if it's unhelpful. He would cut through all of that and he would tower over these
00:39:50.440
midgets that rule the country. What do you think of Conor McGregor? Is he serious? Does he have the
00:39:57.240
character to be, uh, the, uh, the leader of Ireland and, and is it actually going to happen? Is he going
00:40:03.160
to be sort of the Trump of Ireland? Well, I tell you what, it's, it's interesting you compare him
00:40:08.280
to Trump there because one of the impacts that Trump had, whether you love him or hate him,
00:40:13.480
is the fact that he was almost like a wrecking ball. You know, a lot of people, uh, have compared
00:40:19.000
Trump to Marmite where you either absolutely love him or absolutely hate him. And he's extremely
00:40:24.040
polarizing, but that, uh, he, when you live in a very politically correct, stifled society where
00:40:31.320
certain topics are off the table for discussion, somebody like Trump just comes through and it,
00:40:37.320
like a bull in a china shop, just starts blowing open all of these conversations that were left
00:40:43.640
on undiscussed and, and, uh, unmentioned for years. And so that had a positive influence.
00:40:50.600
I could potentially see Conor McGregor with his very uncouth, unpolished style,
00:40:56.520
having a similar impact on certain conversations because he's got the megaphone, he's got the voice,
00:41:01.240
and he, he doesn't give a rat's ass about anything or anyone. So the, the idea that he would, uh,
00:41:08.520
bite his tongue or hold back on an opinion he had about some kind of, uh, contentious issue
00:41:14.680
is not exactly, uh, something that you would believe if you would, you would see how this guy operates.
00:41:19.960
So I think from that perspective, if he did decide to run for a political office seriously,
00:41:25.560
it could, uh, have a very interesting effect, uh, and an entertaining effect certainly on the way
00:41:32.120
certain conversations go. You know, I think maybe sometimes it takes a person like that, uh, to,
00:41:38.120
Yeah. Well, I tell you one thing, I don't think he would be bound by any hate speech law. I just don't
00:41:42.920
think anyone tells Conor McGregor what to say. Um, you know, I'll close. I've been talking about so
00:41:49.160
many artists. I think more Morrissey is half Irish, if I'm not mistaken. And in that song, he says,
00:41:54.680
uh, and I will die with both of my hands untied. To me, that's the Irish spirit. And it sounds like
00:42:01.240
too many Irish say, here are my hands, tie them. I love Gript. I'm a subscriber. I encourage my viewers
00:42:09.000
who care about Ireland, who have a connection to Ireland or who see Ireland as a microcosm of our own
00:42:14.280
challenges to go to gript, G R I P T dot I E. Um, I think you'll love them. I think that they're
00:42:22.120
a high quality news source. They've got that rebellious spirit, but they're also polite
00:42:26.360
company. They're allowed into the scrums with cabinet ministers. I find that amazing. And I'm
00:42:30.360
sort of jealous, frankly. And, um, and you can become, I mean, most of their stuff is free,
00:42:35.320
but you can become a premium subscriber like I am and you can choose your level. And I just think,
00:42:40.440
even though I really don't have any connection to Ireland, I have an affection for their people and
00:42:45.880
what they're going through. And Ben, you're very generous to spend so much time with us.
00:42:50.280
Please pass on our highest regards to your colleagues. And, um, why don't I leave you with,
00:42:55.240
uh, the final thought on being an independent journalist. We've talked a lot about, uh,
00:42:59.320
about a lot of subjects. Uh, what's the future for Gript? How's 2024 looking for you?
00:43:03.720
Yeah. Well, 2023 has been spectacular. Uh, we've got a few interviews in the works that
00:43:11.320
we've lined up and it's really just a matter of getting them nailed down logistically, but some
00:43:15.720
very high profile names, which if we can, uh, get, get that to pan out, it'll be very exciting.
00:43:21.320
And, uh, we anticipate 2024 being exponentially bigger than the bonanza year we've already had. So
00:43:27.880
thank you so much for your kind words and hugely appreciate, uh, uh, the, the opportunity to speak
00:43:34.040
to you. We always have great conversations and, uh, absolutely. It's, it's great to hear how things
00:43:39.240
are going on, uh, on your side of the pod as well. Well, thank you, my friend. And you've been generous
00:43:43.480
with your time and I know the time zones is already late over there. So thanks for fitting us in and
00:43:48.120
hopefully we'll have a chance to meet in person, uh, in the Emerald Isle. And until then, uh, thanks.
00:43:53.720
And, uh, I tell you, you're proving citizen journalism, crowdfunded from viewers. You have
00:43:59.640
a subscription model more than the crowdfunding one, but it's citizen funded. That's why you can
00:44:04.760
trust gripped because they are not part of the regime. They answer to their own conscience
00:44:09.880
and to their viewers. Keep it up, my friend. Take care. Wonderful. Thank you so much.
00:44:14.840
All right. There you have it. Ben Scallon, one of the talented team at gripped.ie. Well, that's our show
00:44:20.920
for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:44:25.400
to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.