Cork academic warns how far right ‘can skew protests’

A Cork academic has said the recent fuel protests across Ireland showcased how legitimate protests can potentially be co-opted by far-right actors.

Last week, justice minister Jim O’Callaghan spoke about how the fuel protesters were being “manipulated” by “outside actors”.

Mr O’Callaghan added that the British right-wing activist Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was “referring to and relying upon these protests to advance his own political measures”.

Yasmine Ahmed, from the School of Society, Politics and Ethics at University College Cork (UCC), has conducted research into the far right, both globally and in Ireland.

“I think we had the chance to observe a pattern there,” she told The Echo. 

“These protests are not inherently far right, regardless of the organisers, per se. The protests are around fuel cost, which is something that impacts everybody, directly or indirectly, because we have people driving their cars to work and taking their kids to school. But, of course, actors can engage with the protest and skew the focus.”

Ms Ahmed added that various articles have highlighted how national and international actors have joined the call for protest.

“This doesn’t make them directly, openly far right,” she said. “It is just when then the focus of the protest goes from the fuel in itself to other issues, that it can become co-opted by far-right actors.

“From our own understanding — and it’s the way we saw it playing out in the past — there is a crisis and there are fears around a specific issue. In the crux where there is no clear action taken, sometimes these actors can fill those gaps.”