The New IRA expelling the Migrants and other tall stories!

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Every now and then we get a story that suddenly gains traction but which lacks any virtue! So it goes with the sensational story now making the rounds that the NEW IRA has had enough of mass migration and is about to take matters into its own hands!

Yes, really

We are told that Ireland’s hundreds of thousand of migrant are going to be given 24 hours to leave. To add extra value, we are also even hearing ridiculous talk of “civil war”.

Well, I have looked into this matter and I have a big problem with it!

In truth the more I look at it, the more suspicious of it I become.

That isn’t because the New IRA is incapable of violence. It plainly is.

It isn’t beached anger about mass immigration across Ireland isn’t growing. It plainly is.

But it’s because a remarkably convenient narrative appears to be emerging here and we need to think about it

The Irish people have very legitimate concerns about immigration and these just keep growing. But all of a sudden, one of the most notorious terrorist organisations on the island of Ireland is supposedly attaching itself to exactly those concerns.

That’s a stretch for me.

Where is the evidence?

So let’s start at the very beginning.

This story first popped up on a Mail on Sunday report and that is where the first red flag pops up. It cites “intelligence sources” claiming that the New IRA wants to exploit community anger surrounding immigration. One anonymous source makes the extraordinary claim that the organisation now has two objectives:

Irish independence and getting the migrants out.

Let that sink in, We are being told that an armed republican organisation has undergone a Damascene transformation and that opposition to mass immigration is now one of its two principal objectives.

OK, if true, where’s the statement? Where’s the republican publication carrying the declaration? Where is the evidence of a formal change in strategy?

It’s just not there. Instead all we have is anonymous intelligence sources and I seriously question what they are claiming.

Indeed given what we already DO know about dissident republican organisations, there is another reason to be cautious.

The New IRA is hardly operating in a vacuum

All Irish republican terrorist groups are intensely monitored by the security services and have been for a very long time indeed. They are subjected to surveillance, infiltration, informants and intelligence operations for decades. Between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic security services devote enormous resources to penetrating these violent republican organisations precisely because these groups do remain a terrorist threat.

However when I read a sensational story about what the New IRA supposedly intends to do, my instinct isn’t simply to say:

“Well, intelligence says it, so therefore it must be true.”

Quite the opposite. I want to see evidence. Any evidence will do!

If an organisation is heavily monitored and penetrated, then presumably the security services know plenty about its internal workings. So seeking a substantiation about the claim seems fair enough to me

Remember we are now being asked to believe that a tiny, heavily watched dissident organisation has suddenly adopted an entirely new political priority. The New IRA is reputed to have around 200 members of which 20 are hard core. Could that be really true? Just for clarity, I am not claiming that intelligence agencies invented this story. I don’t know that.

Any history of intelligence operations against Irish republican terrorism gives us good reason to approach anonymously sourced claims with a degree of scrutiny rather than reverence. Scepticism shouldn’t vanish just because the word “intelligence” appears!

Then there’s the mysterious video

This is where the whole story becomes even less credible and makes me even more suspicious. An unidentified man appears in an online X video and talks about the IRA taking control and giving migrants 24 hours to leave. Thus is then hyped up into;

“THE IRA GIVES MIGRANTS 24 HOURS TO GET OUT.”

Woah, we need to take a breath here. Who is this man? What is his name? What position does he hold? Which organisation does he represent, if any? Who authorised him to speak? What evidence connects him in any way to the New IRA leadership?

Absent answers, why on earth should I regard his words as a legit IRA declaration?

Yet one unidentified man saying inflammatory things online is being treated in some quarters as though the IRA Army Council has issued a press release..

The politics don’t fit very well either

There is another massive problem that totally undermines this claim. Militant Irish republicanism is not historically a right-wing anti-immigration movement.

Its political DNA has long contained powerful strands of socialism, revolutionary internationalism and anti-imperialism. Let’s think about some of the international causes with which republican activists have traditionally aligned.

1. Palestine.

2. Socialist movements

3. Anti-colonial struggles.

4. Revolutionary politics.

Then all of a sudden we’re supposed to believe that the New IRA’s programme has become:

Brits out. Migrants out.

Could that happen? Well, it’s not impossible. After all organisations do evolve. But it would be a remarkable ideological pivot. And remarkable claims require something more substantial than “sources say”.

And this is where I think the story becomes dangerous

You see there is another consequence of linking the New IRA with opposition to mass immigration. It risks creating an association between legitimate public concern about immigration and terrorism.That association must be absolutely rejected!

You don’t have to support the New IRA to believe that immigration into Ireland is too high. You don’t have to support violence to question asylum policy. You don’t have to approve of attacks on migrants to believe governments have lost control of their own borders. And finally you aren’t a terrorist because you believe communities have a democratic right to object to rapid demographic change.

Yet this anonymously sourced claim does seek to link these things and in a way it will de-legitimise perfectly valid immigration concerns.

It’s not just the island of Ireland but right across Europe many millions of perfectly ordinary people have deep concerns about immigration. These concerns are manifest through elections, protests, public meetings and political debate. This is what we call democracy.

But Violence and intimidation are entirely different.

Imagine that you are a Government embarrassed at your failure to deal with mass migration. Consider how useful the association can become.

Immigration concerns become associated with “extremism”. Extremism becomes associated with the New IRA. The New IRA means terrorism.

And before you know it, perfectly legitimate political arguments risk being viewed as a security threat.

Legitimate concern is not terrorism

Sensible people can see that the distinction matters enormously.

There are many questions governments in Dublin, Belfast and London should have to answer.

How many people are arriving? Who are the people arriving? How does the asylum system operate? What happens when claims fail? What pressure is being placed on housing, schools, healthcare and other public services? What level of immigration, if any, does the public actually want?

And perhaps the biggest of all;

Do the people who already live here have any meaningful say in any of this?

These are political questions but not terrorist questions.

You can take the strongest possible democratic position against mass immigration while simultaneously condemning anyone who burns somebody’s home, attacks migrants or threatens people with violence. And I do.

You can see that there is no contradiction whatsoever here but conflating those two positions is suspiciously convenient for anyone who would prefer not to debate immigration policy at all.

Rather than try to answer people’s concerns, simply move the discussion from politics into “extremism”. THAT is why this “New IRA” story deserves scrutiny.

There is genuine anger

Let’s also not kid ourselves into thinking that the situation in Ireland, North and South, is not volatile. The savage stabbing of Stephen Ogilvie in north Belfast back in June caused enormous community anger.

A man who had previously claimed asylum and been granted leave to remain was subsequently charged with attempted murder. In this age of universal mobile phones, footage of the attempted decapitation circulated widely online and yes, disorder followed. Honestly, the fury here was palpable. That resulted in homes believed to contain immigrants being attacked. In the ensuing melee, vehicles were burned, Police officers were injured.

I think that that ALL those acts of violence should be condemned.

It’s possible to condemn uncontrolled immigration policy and violence against immigrants.

In fact, that’s precisely my position.

Watch how the narrative grows

There’s another key lesson here that ‘s worth considering.

A major newspaper publishes an anonymously sourced intelligence claim. Other websites then repeat it. Platforms like X Removes the qualifications.

All of a sudden “Intelligence sources believe…” becomes: “Reports indicate…” then: “The New IRA plans…” and finally:

“IRA ORDERS MIGRANTS TO LEAVE IRELAND WITHIN 24 HOURS.”

See how it works? By that stage, the allegation has become fact simply through repetition. But you and I KNOW that repetition isn’t corroboration!!!

Ten thousand people sharing the same original allegation doesn’t give you ten thousand sources. It still gives you one allegation.

So what do we actually know?

Well, we know that the New IRA exists. Sort of. So does the IRA, Continuity IRA, the Real IRA AND I can’t believe it’s not the IRA! We know it remains violent. It tried to blow up a police station in my local town not that long ago. We also know it is monitored intensely by the security services. We know that all forms of dissident republicanism have been subject to intelligence penetration for years.

We definitely know that immigration has become a hot potato issue across Ireland.

We know there was serious disorder following the horrific north Belfast stabbing.

And the final thing we know is that anonymous intelligence sources have reportedly claimed that the New IRA wants to exploit those tensions.

But we don’t know if there is ANY evidence that the organisation has officially adopted removing migrants as a strategic objective?

Until somebody produces it, I remain profoundly sceptical.

Something about this doesn’t add up

There is always the outside possibility that this story will turn out to be true. Maybe evidence will emerge tomorrow proving that the New IRA really has undergone this extraordinary ideological transformation.

If it does, I’ll judge that evidence when I see it but for now I am not buying this.

I’m particularly uncomfortable with the wider implication that concerns about mass immigration are somehow drifting into the territory of terrorism because that is untrue

The New IRA does not speak for people concerned about immigration.

Any planned violence against migrants would be terrorism, and anyone contemplating it should face the full force of the law. That’s fair

But demanding controlled borders? Questioning asylum policy? Opposing mass immigration? Demanding that politicians listen to the people whose communities are being transformed?

That’s called politics.

No vague and anonymous intelligence briefing should be allowed to blur the distinction between the two.

So when somebody tells you:

“The IRA has given migrants 24 hours to leave Ireland.”

Ask the simplest question of all.

Show me the statement.

Until then, I remain deeply sceptical.

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