It’s astonishing that Irish and British commentators are trying to hold on to these old familiar tunes.
"Very poor white people” are being convinced that “very poor, hard-working brown or Black people” are responsible for the “problems caused by billionaire white men”, Allison Morris, Crime Correspondent at the Belfast Telegraph, says in the wake of the riots that spread through… pic.twitter.com/cqF0v0w1O8
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 10, 2026
Progressives in Ireland and, until recently, the UK prided themselves on their European identity. And yet, they are the last countries in Europe holding on to the taboo that immigration is an unmixed blessing. Increasingly, to maintain this, they have to resort, like this commentator, to conspiracy theories about billionaires brainwashing the masses, whom they also miscast in their contempt as easily-manipulated and gormless.