Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Irish voices rising： A feature interview with Ben Scallan from GRIPT

00:00:00.080 Oh, we've got such a good show for you today. One of my favorite guys, Ben Scallon from

00:00:04.620 Gript. That's the Irish independent news source. There's so many interesting things going on

00:00:10.480 there. You don't have to be Irish to be fascinated by it because so much of it is going on here

00:00:15.580 in Canada too. I want you to see the video version of this though. So please download

00:00:20.960 what we call Rebel News Plus. It's eight bucks a month. You get the video version of

00:00:26.200 it. And more importantly, frankly, you help keep Rebel News alive because we don't take

00:00:31.460 any money from Trudeau and it shows. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com.

00:00:40.380 Tonight, a feature interview with Ben Scallon from Gript. That's the Irish independent news

00:00:46.960 outlet. Boy, have we got news for you. It's May 30th and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:51.980 Well, viewers will know a few weeks ago, I went to Ireland for the first time in my

00:01:12.820 life. Our friends at Gript had told me that there was a large protest, a march to challenge

00:01:20.560 mass open borders immigration. And I went there and it was incredible to see. So many things

00:01:28.380 reminded me of the challenges back here at home in Canada. But there was one thing that struck me as

00:01:34.420 an outsider looking with fresh eyes at Ireland, the reminder that the Irish are the indigenous people 0.99

00:01:42.520 in Ireland. So whereas other countries, the accusation of colonialism and imperialism and

00:01:49.600 decolonization, that's a weapon to be used against the country to bash down institutions. 1.00

00:01:58.120 Ireland didn't invade anybody. Ireland didn't enslave anybody. In fact, you may know that Ireland

00:02:04.860 itself was raided by slave catchers. In fact, the entire town of Baltimore, Ireland, the entire village,

00:02:15.020 every single man, woman and child was kidnapped and taken to Arabia as slaves. And so I saw placards

00:02:23.440 saying things like Ireland for the Irish and Irish lives matter. And if I were to see those in Canada,

00:02:29.620 the United States, I know people would say, that's racist. Stop appropriating our language. But

00:02:34.600 what do you do? And what do you tell people in a country that has never picked on others, that does

00:02:39.880 not have the stain of slavery on them? Because these woke ideologies are being grafted onto Ireland

00:02:47.420 in a way that just doesn't fit. I thought it was fascinating. And as you know, I'm very interested in

00:02:52.160 Ireland, even though I have no personal or familial connection whatsoever. I just find it such a

00:02:58.020 fascinating place. And it was delightful, as you know, to connect with Fatima Gunning,

00:03:02.400 one of the reporters at Gript, gript.ie, that's the Irish domain, is my favorite broadcaster from

00:03:11.620 there. They do broadcast video, they do written stories, and they're completely independent. And

00:03:16.360 what a pleasure to meet in person one of their stars. And so I'm delighted today to bring back to

00:03:21.980 the show, the senior political correspondent for Gript, a man who actually gets to put tough

00:03:28.560 questions to their cabinet. He's part of the accredited press gallery, which is astonishing

00:03:34.960 to us here in Canada. One of the best journalists in Ireland, Ben Scallon, who joined us now. Ben,

00:03:40.860 great to see you again.

00:03:43.100 Great to be back, Ezra. Thank you so much for having me.

00:03:45.500 Oh, it's a pleasure. And I tell you, we spent a little bit of time with Fatima at the march,

00:03:50.080 and people love Gript. I know the establishment doesn't like you much because you shine a light

00:03:56.080 of scrutiny on them. But watching the public come up to your reporter, Fatima Gunning, it reminded me

00:04:00.800 of how people come up to Rebel News reporters here in Canada, because you're telling the other side of

00:04:04.640 the story. And it was a wonderful day, and I hope to get back to Ireland. I want to talk about a few

00:04:09.600 things. One of them is your exclusive story. You tweeted a few teasers. You went to an anti-racist,

00:04:17.260 you learned about, you got leaked to you, details of an anti-racism summit at Cork City Hall featuring

00:04:26.360 government and opposition parties. So they're all in it together. And also from the Garda,

00:04:32.400 which is your police force there. I'll just quote one line, and then I'll let you tell the rest of

00:04:37.620 the story. One Sinn Féin member of parliament said Ireland should be, quote, very ashamed as a country

00:04:45.440 because of its failure to house, quote, darker skinned asylum seekers. It was even crazier things 1.00

00:04:51.280 about a Tupac chant, which I never thought the Irish were big into Tupac, the late rapper.

00:04:58.260 Take it away, Ben. Tell me about this meeting and give me the crazy details, but then come back and

00:05:04.020 tell me what it means. Because I think this goes to what I was saying about they're trying to graft

00:05:08.420 onto Ireland, a dark history that just is not Ireland's history. Take it away.

00:05:15.880 Yeah. So you've given a great kind of setting up of this fascinating story that I'm not going to say

00:05:25.320 how I got my hands on the information that's in the article. I'd really encourage everybody to go

00:05:30.440 and check it out because it's funny. It's crazy. It's jaw-dropping. And effectively, what it is,

00:05:37.620 is there was a meeting in Cork City Hall. Cork is one of the biggest cities in Ireland. And as you've

00:05:45.580 said, there were politicians there. There were academics from universities there. There was TUSLA,

00:05:51.980 which is kind of like Child Protective Services. They were there as an organization.

00:05:55.980 There were all these powerful state institutions. And it was a meeting supposedly about anti-racism.

00:06:04.600 It was organized by one of our NGOs. And as I've said on your show in the past, Ireland is effectively 0.60

00:06:10.460 an NGO-ocracy. We are run by the non-governmental sector. And I've said this before on the show,

00:06:19.360 so I don't want to bore viewers who might be regular listeners. But just in a nutshell, to sum it up,

00:06:23.960 we have about 33,000 different NGO organizations for a population of about 5 million people. So that

00:06:32.460 should give you some sort of sense of scale as to the behemoth that we're dealing with.

00:06:37.220 That's madness. I don't know if you've shared that detail, that specific fact. That would be like in

00:06:43.040 Canada. I'm just going to multiply by eight because I think our population is eight times as much.

00:06:47.520 That would be like a quarter million more than that. That would be NGOs. And they're all

00:06:56.620 really like the Borg. They're all aiming in the same direction, aren't they? Sorry,

00:07:00.280 I didn't mean to interrupt. I'm just astonished by that statistic. Keep going. I didn't mean to

00:07:04.120 interrupt. No, no, no. You're right. Because this is kind of an important bit of preamble,

00:07:09.900 I think, to get people's minds around. I'm not going to say, by the way, that every single one of

00:07:14.740 those NGOs is bad. I mean, I haven't had time to look into 33,000 organizations. I know some of

00:07:20.280 them no doubt do good work with homeless people, for example. There's all of that in there. It's

00:07:25.860 in that kind of milieu. But when you're dealing with that many organizations, many of them are

00:07:32.160 openly involved in campaigning. The government has admitted that they only fund NGOs that are

00:07:39.700 kind of in line with the program for government, shall we say. And so many of them are very openly

00:07:46.020 ideological and partisan. And they receive, the sector as a whole, receives about 6 billion euros

00:07:53.520 annually. And for, again, a sense of scale there, Ireland's entire annual budget as a state is only

00:08:00.620 about 100 billion. So we spend more on this sector than we do on our entire justice system. That's

00:08:06.420 everything from the police to the courts to whatever else that entails. So anyway, the only

00:08:13.800 reason I'm saying all of that before we get into the actual story itself is to show you the level

00:08:18.780 of power that these NGOs have. So this is not just a load of freaks in a room somewhere talking about

00:08:24.680 crazy stuff who you can point and laugh at. A lot of it is funny, but these are people with an enormous

00:08:30.460 amount of sway and state resources at their disposal. And so the meeting, while it was ostensibly about

00:08:37.500 anti-racism, it was effectively a massive grievance parade where it was all about how Ireland should

00:08:47.440 be ashamed of itself because of its past. They were talking about, there was an individual called

00:08:53.420 Georgian Kensho, who was shot by the police in 2020 in Ireland. This guy, and all the facts I'm about to

00:09:00.960 say are not disputed by anybody. He was a black African guy. He had hospitalized the shop employee

00:09:07.980 and left him with face injuries. He went on a rampage with a knife. The police then cornered him,

00:09:14.520 the armed response unit, basically the Irish version of SWAT. They cornered him. They told him to put the

00:09:20.320 knife down that he had. He refused. They pepper sprayed him. They tased him. And he still ended

00:09:27.120 up lunging at these armed officers. So at that point, left with no other choice, they shot him.

00:09:32.740 They were trying to turn this into an incidence of racism. They said that in Ireland, when you shoot

00:09:38.760 a black man like Georgian Kensho, that's like an achievement. And that's the reason why those officers 0.81

00:09:45.240 weren't prosecuted or held accountable under law. And so it just continued in this fashion with all

00:09:51.640 of these various groups describing what a horrendous racist hellhole Ireland is based on no evidence

00:09:58.080 really, and effectively slandering the country at large. That's so crazy. And that story you tell 0.94

00:10:05.560 there. And I just can see what they're doing because they do it in Canada to a lesser extent. Canada,

00:10:10.220 I don't know if you know this, Ben, but a lot of the slaves from the United States came on what they

00:10:15.320 called the Underground Railway. They sort of escaped to Canada because we were part of the

00:10:20.380 British Empire at the time and where slavery had been banned. So it was like a refuge. We never really

00:10:26.680 had a big black population in Canada until very recently. But the attempt to bring Black Lives Matter 0.88

00:10:33.020 and the George Floyd narrative to Canada, they're pushing because it worked in America. They're trying to

00:10:38.400 force it into Canada. But we really never had slavery here. It was banned before Canada was a country.

00:10:43.800 It feels like they're trying to force the George Floyd narrative on that one story, which is not the

00:10:53.640 Irish story. They're so excited about playing the same script in Ireland that they've used effectively

00:11:03.640 in the United States. I think that's what's going on. Well, there was a very interesting tidbit during

00:11:10.600 the whole meeting. And that was when they had one woman who was from the UK, and she ran a kind of an

00:11:16.300 anti-racist organization over there, sort of an NGO. And she was one of the invited speakers that they

00:11:21.780 had brought in to talk to the crowd about various issues. And one of the things she touched on was NGO

00:11:26.940 funding. And she said that after the killing of George Floyd in America, or the death of George

00:11:33.080 Floyd in America, of course, there was a fentanyl. And you know, we can get into whether that story is

00:11:38.540 as people typically portray it. But that's a whole other issue. And the point being that after that

00:11:45.380 event, there was a huge surge in funding for kind of anti-racist causes and anti-racist NGOs.

00:11:52.280 And she said that now that's massively tapered off, because that was several years ago. Now, the

00:11:58.620 conversation has kind of moved on. And so now you have to work much harder in order to keep the funding

00:12:05.340 flowing. And so she said that it's important then that we keep racism and anti-racism on the agenda in

00:12:12.260 order to keep and this was the word she used in order to keep tendrils going out into society. So this my jaw hit

00:12:20.660 the floor when I heard that this is really astonishing that what I've been saying for

00:12:24.820 several years now at this stage, particularly in the context of, for example, Ireland's hate speech

00:12:29.880 bill, is that there are groups who directly benefit from the perception that a country like Ireland or

00:12:38.080 like Canada or wherever is a horrible racist country. Because the analogy I always make is,

00:12:44.160 if you don't have leaky pipes, then you don't need a plumber. And if you don't have a racist society,

00:12:49.120 then you don't need professional anti-racist campaigners. And so it is directly beneficial

00:12:55.380 to an organization that is designed to fight these bogeymen to say, oh, Ireland is horrifically

00:13:04.020 racist. There's a rise in hate crime. People are being attacked because of the color of their skin,

00:13:09.240 blah, blah, blah. And so I thought that was a stunning admission on the part of this one particular

00:13:15.000 speaker. That's incredible. We see that everywhere with hoaxes because the demand for racism exceeds

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00:13:54.620 today.

00:13:58.160 I have no doubt that America 100 years ago or even not even that long ago had some dark remnants of a racist

00:14:09.560 past. And by the way, I'm not American. I'm here not to defend America. But there are so like the

00:14:14.460 Jussie Smollett hoax. There are so many hoaxes because like you say, people need the grist for the

00:14:22.540 mill. I don't think America in 2024 is an inherently racist society. Don't tell me the place that elected

00:14:29.120 Barack Obama twice is racist. I won't believe it. Don't tell me that Canada, where we had two

00:14:36.820 black governors general. Or maybe I'm getting my, I mean, and we have an Inuit governor general now.

00:14:42.140 I'm getting my races mixed up maybe. But don't tell me we're racist. It's not true. And actually,

00:14:47.480 one of the problems I think, Ben, is that you're almost teaching newcomers to be ungrateful and

00:14:53.880 grievance oriented. Instead of teaching newcomers, you've made it to paradise. You've made it to the

00:14:59.500 best place in the world. You've made it away from danger towards freedom. Now go and make the best.

00:15:05.080 I mean, the old version of the quote, American dream. It's not just quote, white people who are

00:15:10.540 being shamed without reason. It's immigrants who are being told, be angry, be mad, focus on your 0.99

00:15:19.340 differences. And you have reason to be upset. Like it's almost harming newcomers as much as anything

00:15:26.240 else. Don't you think, Ben? I think so. I think it creates unnecessary tension in society that was never

00:15:33.780 there and doesn't need to be there. One of the things I've been thinking about recently in the

00:15:38.560 context of Ireland's immigration debate and the fact that we have been an incredibly homogenous

00:15:44.840 country for basically the entire existence of this nation. And then suddenly we have this very

00:15:52.320 recent influx of people from all different cultures and parts of the world. I mean, my own mother is one

00:15:57.800 of those. So I can hardly complain. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't for immigration and my mother 0.93

00:16:02.580 hadn't come here from Jamaica when she did to marry my father, who's Irish. So I am part of that whole

00:16:08.460 process. And Irish people have been incredibly welcoming and tolerant. And that's, I think,

00:16:14.000 one of the best things about Irish people is that we are a very kind-hearted people. We're very warm-hearted

00:16:19.180 people. We have no axe to grind with anybody. But one of the things that we've been doing as a society

00:16:25.940 in the last few years and the policy that's been pursued is to give certain privileges to people

00:16:34.920 who have just arrived in the country that we don't afford to citizens. So, for example, if you receive 0.89

00:16:40.380 a medical card, this is a kind of a medical benefit that we give out to some people. That is a thing that

00:16:46.380 many people struggle to get here. If you turn on Irish radio at any point during the week, you'll hear

00:16:51.860 every single day people complaining about how, you know, they can't get a medical card and they

00:16:57.060 seriously need it because they're just under a certain threshold or over a certain threshold or

00:17:03.860 this bureaucracy causes them to be just slightly ineligible and so they can't get it even though

00:17:11.980 their child has a debilitating medical problem or whatever it might be. You hear about these stories

00:17:16.860 all the time and yet anybody who comes to Ireland and claims asylum automatically receives a medical

00:17:22.720 card and that was told to us by the Minister for Health just last year. And so, while of course you

00:17:28.640 would never begrudge somebody who needed medical assistance, particularly somebody who maybe is

00:17:33.860 fleeing a war-torn country, let's say, of course you want to help those people. I think to simplify it and

00:17:40.780 to make an analogy that people can easily digest, it would almost be like if you have children and

00:17:47.060 you're a parent and then you were to do the wonderful and humane thing of adopting a new child,

00:17:52.720 which we all agree is a wonderful thing to do, and then you proceed to shower that child in all kinds of

00:17:59.480 special privileges and benefits that none of your other children receive, it is an unfortunate but

00:18:07.420 inevitable consequence of such an approach that you're going to create resentment within that

00:18:12.980 household, you're going to create conflict and strife and division within that household, and that's

00:18:19.460 something that I think we run the risk of by pursuing things in such an obviously unfair way that people

00:18:26.480 have an inherent sense of justice that's offended by that, where you think, I'm a citizen of this country,

00:18:32.200 I pay taxes my whole life, I was born here, I was raised here, my parents and my grandparents are

00:18:37.760 from here, and yet I feel like I am less favoured than somebody who showed up five minutes ago,

00:18:43.540 this isn't fair, I mean, and it's not fair, and so I want to continue living in a country where people 1.00

00:18:50.720 are open to strangers and are hospitable, I mean, the Irish unofficial slogan, if we had a slogan as a

00:18:58.180 nation, it would be, which in Irish means 100,000 welcomes, that's kind of our natural inclination as

00:19:06.620 a people, I feel like we're at risk of diminishing that and like people's welcome and their sense of

00:19:13.880 welcome is quickly evaporating the more we perceive the way we are. One of the things I've noticed,

00:19:20.020 and I follow your account on Twitter and your colleagues, and I follow the main

00:19:23.520 Gript account, and again, that's spelled G-R-I-P-T dot I-E, which is sort of an old-fashioned way of

00:19:30.140 saying grip, you know, to grip something, I didn't know what that word meant, do you learn something

00:19:34.060 new every day? One of the things I learned from following Gript is the way in which asylum seekers 1.00

00:19:40.480 are housed has got to be the worst community relations I've ever seen in my life. It's almost like

00:19:49.820 it's a ta-da, surprise, hello town of 500 citizens who have been cohesive and coherent for centuries.

00:20:00.040 We've got news for you, we're bringing in 200 migrants, and we're putting them in the local 1.00

00:20:06.660 hotel, and we're telling you this after the fact, it's been decided, and we're having police there,

00:20:12.600 and don't you, and we'll, and don't, like, it's just so, unless I'm reading it wrong, the way that

00:20:19.020 communities are sort of secretly selected, because it doesn't seem like there's a kind of consultation

00:20:24.600 process that you would normally expect, like you build a, you build an overpass, you build a school,

00:20:29.180 you build a parking lot, you have consultations, how's it going to affect traffic, how's it going

00:20:33.320 to affect crime, I mean, how's it going to affect schooling, there's a hundred things you ask.

00:20:38.380 When we were in Dublin a few weeks ago, there was a huge warehouse that they were proposing to put in

00:20:44.820 modular homes inside this warehouse in an already poor part of town where people are already concerned

00:20:51.120 about lack of social services, and it's right across the street from a bunch of kids stuff, kids movie

00:20:57.040 theater, kids play places, and people are saying, this is insane, it's not even zoned for that, and I just

00:21:04.260 think of all the other kind of community relations, if, you know, they're digging up the street in my

00:21:10.460 neighborhood, Ben, and the city comes, like, months in advance, here's our plan, do you have any

00:21:15.200 feedback, here's a phone number, we're going to take this tree out, don't worry, like, like, there's so

00:21:21.160 much consultation, enough already, whereas it sounds like there's almost no consultation, and towns that

00:21:28.560 are, it's a shock treatment, like Newtown Mount Kennedy, tell me if I've got my facts wrong, or, or, or give me

00:21:36.500 more facts to help paint a fuller picture on that.

00:21:39.180 No, that's exactly right, and to give you an extra shocking detail, Leo Varadkar, who up until very

00:21:48.340 recently was the Taoiseach, basically the Prime Minister of Ireland, and he recently resigned and has been

00:21:53.420 replaced by successor Simon Harris, but when Varadkar was the Taoiseach just a few months ago, he actually said

00:21:59.820 that, you know, we've heard people are complaining about a lack of consultation when it comes to these asylum

00:22:05.360 centres, and we've heard the people loud and clear, so we've got these community engagement teams who

00:22:10.900 are going to be sending it out, and they're going to be speaking to people about what's happening, but

00:22:15.200 he says, I also want to be very clear that it's not about seeking permission when we send out these

00:22:21.440 community engagement teams, it's really just about giving you information and dispelling misinformation

00:22:27.640 that might arise about the situation, so effectively, it's not, it's less of a negotiation,

00:22:35.360 it's less of a asking you, hey, is this something you're comfortable with, do you have any objection

00:22:40.920 to what we're doing, they're more sitting you down at a table and saying, this is what's going to

00:22:46.400 happen to you, and the people who live around you, you don't have any say in it whatsoever, we're just

00:22:52.580 letting you know in advance, and if you have any kind of alternative takes on the situation, we'll be 0.99

00:22:59.820 happy to tell you why you're wrong, and explain to you like you're an idiot, how you've completely 0.99

00:23:05.740 misunderstood the situation, so I think when you look at situations like that, and that style of 0.99

00:23:13.220 governance, is it any wonder why tensions are sky high in a country like this? You know, I'm just

00:23:18.800 thinking of, I used to do a lot of journalism about oil and gas, and other fossil fuels, and that involves

00:23:25.080 mining and drilling, and sometimes some, a farmer's field has deep underneath it, oil and gas, and how do

00:23:33.180 you, you know, protect everyone's interests, and treat everyone fairly, because if you don't, you're going

00:23:38.460 to have, and, and I'm familiar with how they do it in different jurisdictions, the amount of notice, the

00:23:44.280 amount of, you know, friendly chats, and, and, and town hall meetings, and here's the plan, and should we

00:23:51.020 change it, like, the astonishing lengths that we go to for other development, how much parking, who, who's

00:24:00.480 coming there, like, like, to put a thousand military-aged men, like, that's bizarre to begin with, that

00:24:05.620 they're refugees, I mean, in my mind, refugees are women and children, I'm not saying there can be no men

00:24:10.820 as refugees, but, but I went to one of these tent encampments in downtown Dublin, they're all guys,

00:24:17.500 and one of them told me he was from Palestine, okay, maybe, another guy told me he was from

00:24:21.740 Pakistan, these are military-aged guys, um, just plunked there, I don't know, I, I find it 1.00

00:24:28.960 astonishing, and no other industry or project would be so, um, hostile to the host community, like, I, I just

00:24:39.000 think of, if the oil and gas industry said, we're just going to start drilling in your neighborhood to

00:24:45.380 hell with you, it's just unthinkable, like, there's years of, of, um, you know, how's it going to

00:24:51.400 affect the economy, how's it going to affect the environment, how's, in Canada, we even have gender 0.96

00:24:54.940 studies, how will this pipeline have a gender impact, now, that's insanity, but compare that to 1.00

00:25:01.220 what you're, what's happening in, in Ireland, sorry, I'm ranting about it, we were going to drive to

00:25:06.560 Newtown, Mount Kennedy, one of the towns that is having a migrant center built there, we were told,

00:25:10.740 don't bother, they've got a barrier on the road, they won't let you through, I said, who's they, the police,

00:25:14.780 I don't know if that's accurate anymore, but I was told, do not drive there, they will not let you

00:25:18.900 through, even to take pictures. Yeah, I, I wouldn't be surprised, uh, Fatima has been going down there

00:25:25.160 quite a bit, my colleague Fatima Gunning, who's been doing a lot of coverage on that story in

00:25:28.840 particular, because that's become kind of a, a focal point, this town of Newtown, Mount Kennedy,

00:25:33.900 which is in, uh, the county of Wicklow, which just so happens to be the Taoiseach, the prime minister's

00:25:39.720 constituency, so this is all unfolding on his front lawn, effectively, metaphorically speaking,

00:25:45.680 and, uh, uh, we have an election coming up, and so I think the government lately are in panic mode

00:25:52.260 when it comes to the immigration issue, because the word on the street is that they are being

00:25:55.820 slaughtered on the doors every time they knock on a door to canvas, it's just immigration, 1.00

00:26:00.500 immigration, immigration, because unfortunately for them, one of the net consequences when you airdrop,

00:26:06.820 you know, dozens, hundreds of asylum centers all over the country in every town and village,

00:26:13.060 is you suddenly bring the immigration issue in a very real and tangible way into the homes of people

00:26:19.500 who maybe never would have thought about it, you know, I think about a couple of years ago in,

00:26:23.880 I believe it was 2022, there was a poll done where they asked Irish people, where do you, uh,

00:26:29.860 what is the most important issue to you, the, the number one top issue, and I think something like

00:26:35.640 five percent of people said immigration, you know, it was a concern, but it was not a big concern

00:26:41.740 relative to other things like housing and so on, that number in a more recent version of that poll

00:26:47.040 had jumped to 41 percent in just a couple of years, and it's only on the rise still to this day, so,

00:26:54.660 uh, the only reason I say that is just that they have successfully, I don't want to say radicalized,

00:27:00.600 because there's nothing radical about wanting, uh, you know, to control your borders as a country,

00:27:05.380 but they have successfully accelerated the immigration debate that other European and, uh,

00:27:10.980 American, North American countries have been having for years now, they've accelerated it greatly

00:27:15.940 here, uh, in, and truncated that whole decades-long conversation into about a year.

00:27:22.680 Yeah, I, it's, it was something, well, let me refer again to my one, I was only in Ireland for 25 hours,

00:27:29.480 Ben, I don't want to come across as an expert at all, but I, I certainly saw a week's worth of stuff

00:27:35.180 in that, um, 25 hours, and I met some very interesting people. I met a candidate for the

00:27:41.540 European Parliament, because Ireland is still in, uh, Ireland was not part of Brexit, even though I know

00:27:47.580 there's some people in Ireland who want to get out, um, I've forgotten his name, uh, Maliki, uh, was his

00:27:52.900 first name, I, I've just forgotten his last name. Maliki Steenson. That's exactly right, I, I, I, I was

00:27:57.780 walking in the march next to him, and I thought, here's a handsome gentleman who seems very nice, and I

00:28:02.080 started chatting with him, and he told me a few things. A few days later, uh, an Antifa type was

00:28:08.600 arrested, uh, planning to assassinate him. I, I heard something about that, I don't, I don't know the

00:28:16.280 details, and obviously I, I, I would assume, uh, it's a, it's an ongoing legal case. Yeah, like, there's a lot of

00:28:22.440 drama there, uh, I, I guess the reason I mentioned that she's a candidate, I think he's running for

00:28:27.000 European Parliament, sorry, I'm going off the fly here without checking my notes. I met a number of

00:28:30.800 candidates for the European Parliament, and other candidates for local elections, but here's the

00:28:35.360 thing about all of them, Ben, they all felt sort of independent. They all felt, some of them felt a

00:28:41.140 little bit fringe, to be honest. Uh, I mean, I, they had a lot of heart, and a lot of passion, but I thought,

00:28:46.080 no, that's, that guy's not going to win. I can tell that right now, and, and the reason I say that

00:28:50.820 is not to be disparaging, it's that all the established parties with the political machinery

00:28:55.600 behind them seem to be in sync on this. Sinn Fein, um, I, I'm not even sure, I don't want to mispronounce

00:29:03.160 the names of some of the other parties. All the parties in power, correct me if I'm wrong, are unanimous

00:29:11.580 that they're for this immigration approach. If, if I've missed something in my 25-hour visit to

00:29:17.660 Dublin, let me know. But I, I seen, you mentioned the 41% of the Irish say this is a big problem.

00:29:24.360 I've seen some of these very passionate independent... And by the way, sorry to interrupt you,

00:29:28.740 because I don't want to minimize the issue. 41% of people said it was the number one issue for them.

00:29:33.640 There are a lot more people than that who are seriously concerned about it, but it might,

00:29:37.380 they might say, oh, housing is number one, and then immigration number two. And by the way,

00:29:41.580 those are linked. Those are linked issues. Exactly, yeah. So, uh, when they do polling on it,

00:29:46.460 about 80% of the country says that immigration is too high. So way, it's, we're, we're getting near 1.00

00:29:51.800 unanimous agreement at this point. Except for in the political class. And that's, I guess,

00:29:55.800 the question I want to ask you, um, because I felt some energy there. I felt real people,

00:30:03.100 like moms who had never done anything political in their life scared because there were kids being

00:30:08.500 stabbed by, by migrants. And maybe that's an anecdote. They shouldn't expand beyond a rare few 1.00

00:30:15.100 cases, but people feel how they feel. You can't tell people stop feeling that way. That makes them

00:30:20.800 feel it even more. And if, and if you shame people for being far right, like, like I saw some of the

00:30:27.660 insults by the establishment thrown at the marchers and they were insane. I mean, we had the same thing

00:30:32.720 here in Canada, you're called racist, you're called whatever. I had never seen the insult of,

00:30:38.420 oh, you're working with British intelligence. I thought, okay, right. I don't know enough about

00:30:42.280 the Irish British, um, conflict, but that seems like the kind of insult you throw at anyone to

00:30:49.100 shut them up. I mean, I didn't see any British, uh, MI5 or MI6 there, but what do I know? I'm from

00:30:54.640 Canada. It's just, I guess what I love about that particular angle that they sometimes tried to

00:30:59.860 bring out is you go, okay, in your scenario, are you trying to say that it's only because of

00:31:06.640 alleged MI5 propaganda that Irish people have a problem with 150 tents popping up right in front

00:31:14.840 of their house while they're trying to like leave for work. And that there's all these adult men from,

00:31:20.880 you know, who are largely unvetted, who we know very little about, who have destroyed their documents

00:31:26.220 and they've all moved into your area and there's no accommodation for them. And they're living there 0.97

00:31:32.040 in front of your house in a tent with no, even like a port-a-loo or something to, you know, there's

00:31:38.100 no toilet facilities. There's no anything. The only reason somebody would have a problem with that

00:31:42.880 is if there was some kind of nefarious foreign intelligence operation to tell them that that's

00:31:48.800 bad. Is that the position that we're supposed to believe? Because it's so self-evidently absurd

00:31:54.040 what's happening. I don't think we need Russia or the UK or the CIA or anyone else to influence

00:32:02.500 things to make people upset with what's happening. I know it's so nuts to me. I'm just, it was funny

00:32:07.720 as a Canadian to discover that card to play because it reminded me of how stupid the insults here are 1.00

00:32:13.460 in Canada. By the way, I don't know almost anything about Sinn Féin, but I would have thought that 1.00

00:32:18.920 they want Ireland for the Irish. That would be sort of a motto of theirs. I mean, if you're fighting to

00:32:23.780 get the Brits out, but you're fine with a hundred thousand migrants a year and a population of five 1.00

00:32:29.200 million, I don't know how that fits. Like, I don't know how it's in the Irish national interest,

00:32:34.240 but, but I'm, I'm not sophisticated in my Irish history. My, but come to come back to my, my long-winded

00:32:39.540 point, you have all this passion, you have all this energy. People are speaking out about it. You see

00:32:43.840 marches, you see lads taking things into their own hands. Sometimes there are protests that turn into

00:32:50.560 fisticuffs and you have, which is not good by the way. I know, I know, but that's what happens

00:32:56.440 when people say, I no longer believe in all the institutions, including the Garda, including

00:33:01.180 the police. I no longer trust anything. Who's there to help me because the political system isn't

00:33:07.480 working for these folks. And how is that going to change? Is a political opportunity seeker going

00:33:13.800 to say, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm going to start a political party, or I'm going to change my existing

00:33:20.000 political party to, to get in front of this parade that's marching. Because if, if the entire political

00:33:25.640 class locks out the people, the people will get more desperate. And I, and Ireland has a history of

00:33:32.780 taking things into their own hands. What is there? Is there a political path out of this? Or are all the

00:33:39.620 establishment parties saying, no, we're going to tell you how it is. And we'll explain how you're

00:33:44.300 a bigot. If you disagree. There's most certainly, I mean, the, the, the fact of the matter is as it

00:33:50.500 stands, independents are polling higher than any political party, uh, about a quarter of the public

00:33:59.100 when they're asked, we've got an election coming up in about a week and about a quarter of people

00:34:03.300 when they're asked, who are you going to give your first preference vote to? Because we have a,

00:34:07.240 a very unique voting system in Ireland where instead of, you know, in America, let's say

00:34:12.220 you vote one time and then that's it, you're done in Ireland, you vote in order of your preference.

00:34:17.600 So hypothetically put it in an American context. So people might understand from abroad, you could

00:34:22.860 hypothetically vote for libertarian number one, and then Donald Trump number two. Right. And then

00:34:29.980 if the libertarian, the libertarian guy gets your vote, but then if he loses, then your vote goes to

00:34:34.720 Trump, that kind of thing. And so there's benefits and there's downsides to that system. I personally

00:34:39.900 quite like it because it means that smaller parties, one of the biggest things that stops

00:34:45.280 people in countries like America from starting a third party or putting their weight behind a third

00:34:50.440 party is because you feel like you're wasting your vote in the Irish system. You don't, you can vote

00:34:55.520 for total, no hopers, a guy who you like his ideas. You'd like if he did well, but you expect them to

00:35:02.300 bomb and go nowhere, you can still justify voting for him, knowing that your vote will then transfer

00:35:07.480 to somebody who's a bit more serious down the ballot. So, so that's a whole other conversation.

00:35:12.440 But the only point I'm making is, uh, independence, people who don't subscribe to any party are, uh,

00:35:19.900 making up 25% of the vote, according to the latest polling. And that's bigger than all of the other

00:35:26.560 parties. Uh, uh, uh, you know, and that think about how astonishing that is. Think about that

00:35:31.980 in an American context where independence were outstripping the Republicans and the Democrats and

00:35:38.760 the Greens and the libertarians. And the, the only people who were getting any kind of political

00:35:44.620 traction were people who said, I'm not with a party. I'm just some guy. That's the level of

00:35:48.660 dissatisfaction people have with the establishment.

00:35:50.780 I did not know. That's how Ireland shows people. What level of office is the election being held

00:35:57.080 for? Is it the European parliament alone or are there other votes? It's the European parliament

00:36:02.940 and it's the local election. So that's for like count, like city councils and town councils.

00:36:07.880 I met a few candidates for, well, that's very, and what's the date of that? Is it both on the same day?

00:36:13.360 Yeah, both on the same day. There'll be, uh, uh, two different ballots, but, uh, it'll be,

00:36:18.440 the vote will be held concurrently. And that's going to be on the 7th of June, I believe.

00:36:23.480 And so this is not, it's not hugely practically important because councils have relatively limited

00:36:31.460 power. The European parliament, I mean, we're a drop in the, uh, uh, ocean when it comes to

00:36:36.580 the massive behemoth that is the European parliament. So kind of, no matter what happens

00:36:41.840 at these elections, not a lot is going to change tangibly. It's not like they're going to start

00:36:46.680 lashing through amazing policies or terrible policies. Things will probably not be impacted

00:36:52.140 in that way. But the, the difference it will make is hypothetically, let's say all of the major

00:36:58.280 parties get completely crushed and independence nationwide surge to the top. That's going to

00:37:05.700 send the political system into chaos, potentially in a good way, because next year we've got, uh,

00:37:12.180 the general elections, they, they have to be held legally by March or, or possibly even a little

00:37:17.480 bit earlier than that. And so this, I think the government are holding this one as a kind

00:37:21.340 of a feeling out process to see how bad is the damage going to be, or, or will it be bad? You

00:37:26.400 know, could they maybe salvage it? And so if independence do well here, that will completely

00:37:32.040 change the complexion of the general election coming up and who knows how, whether that'll be

00:37:35.840 good or bad or what the impact of that might be. Isn't that amazing? Well, I'm so excited because

00:37:41.540 although there's a lot of terrible things happening, I think it sounds like Irish folks 1.00

00:37:46.760 are waking up little green shoots of hope. And it, it sounds like my concern about, well,

00:37:52.480 there's no real force behind these independents. What you're telling me is that the transferable

00:37:57.920 ballot actually allows independent people a chance. And from what you say, they're doing strongly in

00:38:03.840 polls. Very exciting. That's not far away, June 7th. Ben, I don't want to take up any more of your

00:38:08.620 time, but it's so, I, I have no family or ethnic or, I have no connection to Ireland at all.

00:38:17.140 But I, I find it so interesting and I, I so enjoyed my visit there and I was surprised by people who,

00:38:24.020 I mean, of course everyone loves Gripped, but I was also surprised that people there follow Rebel

00:38:27.920 News, even though we really haven't focused on Ireland in a very long time. So, uh,

00:38:33.840 I'm grateful to you for teaching me and teaching our viewers along with me what's going on there.

00:38:40.080 And I'm hopeful for Ireland. I know that sounds crazy because it's bad news every day,

00:38:44.420 but, uh, you know, they do say it's darkest before the dawn and maybe June 7th. I mean,

00:38:49.660 first when the referendums happened a few weeks ago, when that crazy referendum to take the motherhood,

00:38:56.040 literally to take the word mother out of the constitution, when those were slapped down

00:39:00.140 by three quarters of the population, when the entire establishment was behind it, I thought

00:39:04.680 Ireland is waking up. They're not buying the BS anymore. And by the way, Ben, I really think

00:39:09.480 Gripped is part of the reason people are waking up because finally they can hear the other side of

00:39:14.120 the story from Irish people. They can trust. I really think you guys are making a big difference

00:39:18.780 there. And I'm not just saying that to be friendly. I, I really saw it when I was there. People trust

00:39:24.960 gripped because you're not part of the regime. Well, I really, really appreciate that. It's,

00:39:30.640 uh, I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll like, it's not my job to, and I'm not suggesting that you're saying

00:39:35.500 I should, but you know, I, I feel like my job is just to, to tell the truth as I see it and then

00:39:40.680 let, let the people make up their own minds and hopefully in a democracy, people make good

00:39:45.220 decisions. That's all, that's all we can do, isn't it? Yeah. You're making, well, you're, you're doing

00:39:48.880 that very well. And we have a motto here at Rebel News, telling the other side of the story. You

00:39:54.360 guys, I think are one standard deviation, less hotheaded than us. I'm joking around. I mean,

00:40:01.420 we love what we do here and we do it for a reason, but I, but watching you engage one-on-one with the

00:40:06.420 cabinet ministers, it's very impressive. And I think that's, that goes to the authoritative

00:40:10.960 and credible, um, journalist, high quality, ethical journalism that you do. And it really pays off.

00:40:18.360 We're at a time, which is too bad because I was going to ask you about this one line in your tweet

00:40:22.920 about that anti-racism conference, quote, attendees running around in a circle,

00:40:28.800 silently wearing COVID masks with their fists raised while Tupac rap music played in remembrance

00:40:36.560 of George Floyd. And that's just such a crazy image. And the COVID-19 masks is just the,

00:40:42.760 the chef's kiss to that whole thing. We'll have to talk about that another day.

00:40:46.840 Ben, thank you so much for joining us. And when I'm praising, I mean, I praise some of our guests

00:40:52.400 yesterday, we had the Taxpayers Federation on, and I love those guys, but I really, really mean it.

00:40:58.480 My, my two favorite news outlets in the whole world, I love GB News in the UK. I think they need

00:41:06.220 to strengthen their Irish department. And I love gripped.ie. And maybe it's because I see some

00:41:12.860 kinship there, the issues we're covering, the fact that we're the underdogs. And so I really

00:41:18.420 encourage all of our Rebel News viewers to take a look at gripped, G-R-I-P-T dot I-E. There are so 1.00

00:41:25.940 few good guys out there that when you find them, you got to support them. And, and, and it's just a

00:41:31.300 few euros. I mean, most of their stuff is free, but you can sign up to be a page to subscribe,

00:41:37.180 to support them. And I encourage it. Ben, we'll let you go. Thanks a million for, for making us

00:41:42.680 smarter. Thank you so much, Ezra. Great talking to you. All right. There you have it. Ben Scallon,

00:41:47.180 he's the senior political correspondent for gripped.ie. Well, that's our show for today.

00:41:54.000 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,

00:41:57.880 good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - May 30, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Irish voices rising： A feature interview with Ben Scallan from GRIPT

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