If you’re among the 7% of the electorate who believes that Ireland should abandon its membership of the European Union and follow the United Kingdom into glorious diplomatic and economic isolationism, congratulations. From next Saturday you will have your very own political representation in the form of the Irexit Freedom Party, a new anti-EU grouping which The Irish Times reports:
…intends to run candidates in the next national and European elections.
Backers of the party include former Irish ambassador Ray Bassett, UCD professor Ray Kinsella, former journalist Hermann Kelly and Paddy Manning, who came to prominence as a gay man who opposed the 2015 same sex marriage referendum.
I was tempted to dismiss the maverick, right-wing organisation as the the “West Britain and Commonwealth Party”. However, there may be some hope for it. From a 2016 report by The Mirror newspaper in the UK:
A key Euro aide to Nigel Farage is a hardline Irish Republican who spent a boozy night in a Brussels bar as other drinkers sang pro-IRA songs .
Derry-born Hermann Kelly was pictured sitting among a 10-strong party in the Ketje pub just minutes from the European Parliament , where he is the UKIP leader’s most senior political adviser.
When quizzed about the gathering by the Sunday Mirror, Mr Kelly insisted he had been drinking with three UKIP party employees.
Mr Kelly, UKIP ’s Director of Communications in Brussels, was introduced to our reporter by a political pal who joked: “Meet Hermann, the only Irish Republican on Nigel Farage’s payroll. Now that’s a story!”
Confirming he did hold Republican beliefs, Mr Kelly said this stemmed from his roots in Northern Ireland’s second largest city and asked: “What else do you expect from a man from Derry?”
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
How does one pronounce Irexit? Quitting Brussels never had the appeal in Dublin that it held in London.
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Something like, “Err.. Exit” or “I.. Wrecks It“? 😉
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It’s a weird project. Theoretically PBP/SP and WP are close to Irexit parties, or at least were (PBP has rowed back a fair bit of the way and WP and SP haven’t made that much of it subsequent to the referendum). Even today SF is (rightly in my view) Eurocritical, as distinct from anti-EU. I suppose if one is on the right there’s no vehicle there. But given the track record of one issue right wing or far-right parties (abortion, immigration, etc) it’s difficult to see how this would take light. And then there’s the question of who would be activists, and where would they seriously have a hope, either at council or state or EU level. And it just looks like a mess.
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I’m eurocritical myself. After the period of the Troika how could a thinking Irish voter be any other way? But the idea of exiting the EU is ludricous. Irrational in fact.
Ironically the people who will be most supportive of this new venture will be the same people who view any serious advocacy for a reunited Ireland as backwards and irrational.
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I fully support both a United Ireland and Irexit. FYI, the Irexit Freedom Party’s manifesto includes this:
“Irexit Freedom positively desires and supports all democratic endeavours to achieve the consent of the voters of Northern Ireland for a re-united and independent Ireland under the control of the Irish people and not that of London or Brussels.
Irexit is necessary to prevent a second Partition of Ireland being implemented by the addition of new EU dimensions to the North-South border and the consequent creation of major new obstacles in the way of securing consent to future Irish reunification.”
https://www.irexitfreedom.ie/manifesto
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Yet many of those associated with the IFP, directly or in public support of it, come from the “West Britain and Commonwealth Party” side of Irish politics, if I may frame it so. Green DUPers and UUPers, as it were. I would take any declarations of fealty to a reunited Ireland with a large grain of salt.
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I agree that many of the “big names” within the party are from a somewhat Unionist background, but why would they “declare fealty” for a United Ireland if they were searching for the support of Unionist voters?
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Because it is a meaningless soundbite? Like mom and apple pie. The reality would be somewhat different.
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Thankfully we are not Austrian. Auxexit??
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Why the hell not???
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Wow what a well researched and un-biased article. Would you rather Irish cities become like Luton, Leicester and many other British cities? Cities which have seen mass muslim immigration and mass British exclusion, with Sharia Law courts and taking young girls as sex slaves because that is exactly what’s happening.
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