Disgraced Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon says Ireland is ‘powder keg’

Bannon told right-wing broadcaster Tucker Carlson that Irish politicians “were the worst” for being “bought off by the EU”.

Bannon, who was sentenced to months in prison in October 2022 after being convicted of contempt of Congress charges, previously served as Chief Strategist in Donald Trump’s White House.

Now, ex-Fox News presenter Carlson has posted an interview with Bannon on his ‘X’ channel entitled: ‘Dublin in flames. What’s happening in Ireland will happen here, at scale. Steve Bannon explains’.

Carlson begins the interview by stating that, “several days ago a man in his 50s, for reasons that are still not clear, stabbed five people outside a school in Dublin, Ireland, including three children.

“And almost immediately after, parts of that city erupted into rioting. What exactly is going on here. Well, the Washington Post stepped in to explain.”

Despite Carlson's claims, the man is suspected of stabbing four people, not five.

Carlson then reads out a tweet by the Washington Post that stated: “Online rumours claim that the perpetrator of the stabbing attack was an immigrant.

"The BBC found the man was an Irish citizen who had lived in the country for 20 years.”

Carlson states: “Police blamed, quote, ‘a lunatic faction driven by far right ideology for the riot in Dublin’.”

Carson then states that the man is, in fact, “from Algeria”, and, as it turns out, “he's been living in Ireland for 23 years at public expense”.

He then asks, “what does this mean, what is happening here and what's the right response? We thought it would be worth talking to Steve Bannon, he's the host of War Room, and an old friend of ours.”

He says to Bannon: “It seems like Ireland, of course, a small country, an island in Western Europe, is kind of almost a metaphor for what's happening across the West. What do you make of the rioting there and the government's response?”

Steve Bannon replies: “Ireland's probably one of the worst, if not the worst, because the political class has totally sold out the people.

"They've had, I think 125,000, immigrants in the last year that that is the same equivalent if all of Joe Biden’s nine million illegal alien invaders here in our country all came within one year.

“That's the impact it's had on Ireland and they're all on the public dole. There's been 100,000 Ukrainians in the 18 months or 20 months since the war started, 100,000 Ukrainians all on the public dole, all paid for out of the Irish budget.

“Now some of that money's given by the EU but the Irish politicians are by far the worst that are bought off by the EU,” he adds.

Bannon then describes Irish politicians as “the biggest globalists”, who have sold off the sovereignty of the Irish people.

“And you're seeing a natural blowback and you're really seeing it among working class people in the cities, Irish nationals, Irish citizens, whose family have been there for generations and generations and generations and have nothing to show for it.

“And also in the rural community. So Ireland is a powder keg.”

Carlson then suggests that the Irish government is “trying to replace the population of Ireland with people from the third world”.

Bannon answers: “I think you're seeing this because the political class is very tied to Brussels.

“There's really no true opposition party. We think from a populist nationalist perspective they've got a couple of small parties that are starting to grow, of course you got Sinn Fein who's the political arm of the IRA, they're more and more taking on a nationalistic bent.

“You’ve also got a couple of small parties, the ones kind of Trump inspired to combat this. But look, you talk about the great replacement theory, and people get very upset when you talk about it."

Despite the claims made by the US commentators, experts have claimed the riots were organised by far right agitators.

Institute for Strategic Dialogue senior analyst Aoife Gallagher said she saw the far-right agitating begin immediately after the attack became public.

Ms Gallagher is an author of new research on the spread of online misinformation and disinformation in Ireland. The research paper was published last week and revealed the influence of the far right is growing.

Speaking to The Indo Daily podcast from the Irish Independent, Ms Gallagher said she noticed the mobilisation began straight away on social media.

“Immediately, as I got the breaking news alert on my phone, I obviously went to see what was being said about it, and it was already kind of rumours and speculation… at that point that the attacker was a non-national or a foreigner,” Ms Gallagher said.

“And I’d say within less than an hour after that breaking news alert that I got, there were calls from prominent figures within the anti-immigration movement to get people into the city centre that evening and to essentially mobilise people to fight back.”

Ms Gallagher said the techniques she uses are not really high-tech and it is all down to the data available on social media platforms.

“There’s nothing special about the tools that we use,” she said.

“I think they can probably be built by anyone that have a really good knowledge of how high-tech platforms work and how API [application programming interface] access works.

“So, really, I would think that hopefully the gardaí, or anyone who is involved and kind of looking at these spaces, would have access to the same things that we have.”