People Before Profit sends solidarity to UK Labour leader

The future of Britain will be shaped by the battle that is taking place inside the UK Labour Party, People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith told the Dáil.

She wanted to send solidarity to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn "from the left in the Irish parliament".

She said Mr Corbyn “has a vision for change that involves redistributing wealth and getting justice for the British people” and the leadership would either remain with him or “pass to the warmongering, racism and austerity of his opponent, Angela Eagle”. Ms Eagle has since delayed her challenge.

She said that if Mr Corbyn “wins this important battle between the right and left of the UK Labour Party, the future of British politics will be blown open”.

Ms Smith was speaking during the ongoing Dáil debate on the UK referendum result in favour of exiting the European Union. The Dublin South-Central TD said the Brexit vote was part of a wider revolt against the EU, "the European Union of war, wealth, powers and economic bullyboys who have shaped Europe as a haven for the very wealthy at the expense of the people".

She described the vote as “a slap in the face for the Europe that forced Irish, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese workers to bail out bankers and bondholders”.

Ms Smith said: “We have to continue the fight for democracy and against the EU in this country. We might even see an Eirexit at some future stage.”

She hit out at the “startling hypocrisy of the Government in eulogising the EU despite the savagery it has imposed on us”.

But Fine Gael TD Michael D’Arcy said he wanted to contradict Ms Smith’s view and he was “astonished by the amount of ignorant and uninformed rhetoric” she used. The Wexford TD said the subsidiarity of national law to the EU law was in place when Ireland joined the EU.

Mr D’Arcy said the UK had made a mistake that would have significant repercussions elsewhere.

But he said people should not forget that when Ireland was facing its worst ever economic crisis in 2008, the UK provided a bilateral loan of billions of euro to the State and “that is something we should not forget”.