In a recent Answer a Broadsheet Reader session with outspoken lockdown critic Dr. Marcus De Brun, the question was put to him: why have the left remained so silent on all this stuff? Though already having been the subject of his consideration in a broader sense, his brief response perfectly encapsulates the current situation:
the left used to tell us to be careful of ‘the man’, to be critical of ‘the man’, and the new voice from the left is telling us to shut up and do everything ‘the man’ is telling us to do
Since Ireland went into lockdown, prominent left wing figures and organisations — ranging from Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and Labour to the more “anti-establishment” parties of People Before Profit / Solidarity — put their efforts into important endeavors such as defending workers’ health and safety, introducing a rent freeze and insisting on the continued issuance of Covid-19 welfare payments. Such efforts are entirely consistent with the general trajectory of left wing political positions in pre-pandemic times.
But from the outset, the left also decided to unquestioningly promote the so-called scientific consensus which underpins a range of enforced measures such as school and workplace closures, mask wearing, social distancing, ‘coocooning’ of the elderly, and so on. The left were on board with the flatten the curve strategy, and once that plan was dropped in favour of the eradicate all Covid-19 cases strategy, they were on board with that plan too. All of this having been completely in tandem with the mainstream political parties, the HSE, NPHET, the WHO, RTÉ and ‘experts’ like immunologist Luke O’Neill.
For the left, HSE guidelines and recommendations in relation to Covid-19 are fundamentally correct and their role is to act as enforcers; to ensure there is sufficient PPE and testing for workers, highlighting problem areas where Covid outbreaks have occurred such as meat packing and direct provision centres, along with holding Government ministers to account, as seen most recently with the #GolfGate scandal.
The only problem, as far as the left is concerned, is that the Government have not done enough to end the pandemic. The idea of questioning the fundamental scientific basis for the lockdown and its measures would simply put public health, workers and the vulnerable at risk. As the months have unfolded, sections of the Irish public have increasingly questioned multiple aspects of the lockdown, yet the left remains steadfast in their defense of the establishment position. They insist on labeling anyone who questions it as being “far right” or prey to “far right” conspiracy propaganda. As a result, the left are rapidly losing support from the people they claim to represent.
The Shallow Big Pharma Critique
Back in May, biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences came under fire for trying to secure a de facto monopoly in the US for an experimental drug seen as a potential coronavirus treatment. In an article entitled “The Profiteering of Big Pharma”, the Socialist Party denounced the actions of the company:
Their callous actions shine a light on a simple truth: that profit has no place in healthcare and that the prioritisation of corporate welfare before the real needs of ordinary people is a symptom of a sick system. During this crisis we are seeing governments across the world sacrifice the lives of heroic healthcare workers and vulnerable sections of the population in order to keep the economy going and to protect the profits of the bosses.
In a similar article, People Before Profit argued that the major issue with Big Pharma is that vaccine patent pools would set the prices at which vaccines could be sold
This ‘compromise’ with profit is totally unacceptable. We need maximum co-operation to produce drugs and vaccines at the cheapest possible price. That means removing profit from the equation.
This is as far as the left appears to be willing to go in terms of a critique of Big Pharma. Many in the anti-lockdown movement argue that the Covid pandemic is being used as a cover for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with the WHO, to introduce a worldwide mandatory vaccination program. Others have pointed out Luke O’Neill’s corporate interests in vaccine production through his GlaxoSmithKline funded company Sitryx. It’s also worth remembering that the scientists who advised the WHO to create a swine flu pandemic were proven to have had close ties to companies that manufacture vaccines and antiviral medicines like Tamiflu.
These arguments are simply not worthy of concern to the left. It’s not relevant to them from either a profiteering “corporate welfare” standpoint, or a “real needs of ordinary people” standpoint. In a nutshell, the argument goes: profiteering on vaccine patents is bad, but profiteering via the creation of new vaccine markets isn’t bad. Because “the science” — whose findings are somehow independent of the funds received to prove it— says so.
Masked Hysteria
Since the beginning of the Greta Thunberg / Extinction Rebellion era of climate change activism, left-liberal voice of a generation Blindboy Boatclub has positioned himself as one of the crusaders of science and reason. A glance at his twitter feed routinely displayed anxiety filled statements about how he is scared for the future of humanity because of impending ecological disasters. Once Covid-19 emerged, that same anxiety transferred directly onto the fear of people refusing to wear face masks, as the thread below from June demonstrates:
On May 13th, before the Government enforced mask wearing in shops and public transport, he issued a plea to his 1 million listeners to follow “science” and “the facts”. Deferring to expert advice in the form of Luke O’Neill, a previous guest on his podcast who had once advised the public against the wearing of face masks, Blindboy gave an impassioned address to his audience:
What we need to do, all of us, we need to absolutely and utterly normalise the wearing of cotton masks in public spaces…consider yourself a warrior of normalisation.
Those who are against the lockdown are often critisised for forming their opinions based on viewing false information which leads to them experiencing hysterical fear. Sentiments in relation to combating “conspiracy propaganda”, like Blindboy’s “anti-mask brain worms” comment are commonplace. His problem is that people who question the lockdown are simply motivated by the wrong kind of fear — one which could lead to more questioning as opposed to less. Now is not the time for questions, after 6 months of being in lockdown, because people might die.
“Anti-Mask is Anti-Worker”
People Before Profit’s recent statement in defense of mask wearing said that those who have been “vulnerable to anti-mask rhetoric, anti-vaccine, conspiracy theories, pushed by certain sinister figures” are in fact to blame, should any healthcare worker get sick.
But refusing to wear a mask is not an act of defiance against the government. It is an act of harm to the healthcare workers who have already risked their own safety to keep us all safe. Anti-mask is anti-worker.
It goes on to state that:
We must direct our anger against this government properly -not in a way that puts other workers at risk. We should be fighting for rigorous testing, for more resources for our schools, for housing, and for a National Health Service.
But what this statement fails to even acknowledge is that this “we” they attempt to address — namely the movement of people against the lockdown — do not want rigorous testing. This “we” does want a health care system if it’s run under the same premise as the current one. This “we” is challenging the entire premise of the lockdown.
Effectively, the left are attempting to use the health and safety of healthcare workers to bully people into accepting the wearing of face masks in public. There’s no point looking at the fact that Sweden’s citizens don’t have to wear masks, and their healthcare workers are doing just fine. There’s no point listening to the advice of Professor Carl Henegan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, who recently told the Oireachtas Special Committee on Covid-19 Response that there is no real-world evidence that masks even work.
Everyone is “Far Right”
Activist-centered organisations such as People Before Profit, the Socialist Party and the anarchist Workers Solidarity Movement have put considerable effort into critisising the recently well attended Health Freedom Ireland anti-lockdown protest outisde Custom House. Centre-left parties have been less inclined towards the same relentless criticism, presumably because they are not as reliant on using social movements to recruit new members to their cause.
The Socialist Party’s Report on the protest interprets the reason for the large numbers in attendance as follows:
- the “far right” simply capitalised on the anti-Government outrage due to #GolfGate (as if this incident could be separated from the lockdown measures more generally): “#GolfGate gives belated boost to “Health Freedom Ireland” protest”
- people are, understandably, scared and angry about having been locked down for months on end, so this was an “outlet” for them: “the mental health impact of the lockdown measures and economic insecurity, can make people who seem to authoritatively claim that the lockdown is unnecessary and that a return to ‘normal’ is possible now appear appealing”
- the left needs to send out a stronger message to prevent the anti-lockdown movement from gathering any more momentum: “What is needed is a principled response by the left and trade union movement to the government’s mishandling of the Covid crisis — one that is firmly rooted in science”
Entirely missing from left wing analysis is the possibility that ordinary people have made their own decisions to attend such a protest for any number of reasons. Perhaps it was concerns over forced vaccination, or the need for a public inquiry into the Nursing Home deaths, or the new school social distancing protocols, or the legal ramifications of lockdown measures. How do they know what brought people there?
The Fact-Checkification of Discourse
Some concerned journalists have busied themselves preparing detailed ‘explainers’ and ‘exposés’ on the true political motivations of prominent figures in the anti-lockdown movement. Such lists hope to dissuade gullible members of the public from future participation.
The reason this movement is labeled as “far right” appears to be due to the participation of individuals like Ben Gilroy and Yellow Vests Ireland. Gilroy has been the subject of an extensive “fact find” exercise at theJournal.ie over a recent video taken of him outside Custom House:
A VIDEO THAT has been widely shared in the last 24 hours claims just 100 people have died from Covid-19 in Ireland.
The video, which was recorded live outside Government Buildings in Dublin last night, has been viewed around 400,000 times, shared 13,000 times and commented on almost 4,000 times to date.
The article goes to great lengths to explain the mechanics behind how deaths are actually recorded, and how Gilroy was completely wrong to deliberately misinterpret the figures to make out as if only those with no underlying health conditions should actually be counted as Covid deaths. Implicit in this article is a nervousness about how popular these alternative opinions have become (note the reference to the numbers of views for Gilroy’s video). The article even contains a “STOP, THINK AND CHECK” footnote offering tidbits of advice to dissuade the public from “misinformation”:
Secondly, get the whole story, not just a headline. A lot of these messages have got vague information (“all the doctors at this hospital are panicking”) and don’t mention specific details. This is often — but not always a sign — that it may not be accurate.
The Journal could do well to heed their own advice. As one commentator pointed out, the entire premise of their article is false because Gilroy never even claimed what they said he claimed.
As for the group known as Yellow Vests Ireland being labeled as “far right”, make what you will of their latest messaging on this leaflet advertising an upcoming demonstration:
Prominent Figures of the Anti-Lockdown Movement
Missing from the left’s narrative is an acknowledgement of the political diversity of the movement. It’s two leading figures — Professor Dolores Cahill, who is chair of the Irish Freedom Party, and Dr. Marcus De Brun, the self-professed “proud lefty-liberal” — were able to stand side by side on stage, and deliver somewhat different messages under the same broad theme.
This political diversity is mirrored in the UK with leaders such as Piers Corbyn, brother of former UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn. Piers has publicly supported his brothers electoral campaign but is nonetheless labeled “right wing” because of his views on climate change. Germany’s enormous anti-lockdown movement has suffered a similar fate, with added levels of absurdity due to the mainstream media and the German left labeling them as “Nazis”. Addressing the crowd of the August 29th protest in Berlin, Robert F Kennedy Jr opened with this statement:
The newspapers in the US are claiming I came to Berlin to speak to 5000 Nazis and when I will return, they will write I spoke to 8000 Nazis. But when I look at the crowd, I see no Nazis. I see people who want real democracy and freedom!…I look at this crowd and see all the flags of Europe! I see people of every color, every religion, and every political party. All they care is about human dignity, about children‘s health and political freedom, which is the opposite of Nazism.
A key figure speaking out against the lockdown in Germany is epidemiologist and chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Health Committee Wolfgang Wodarg, who back in 2010 made headlines when he helped expose the WHO’s involvement with pharmaceutical companies in the creation of the swine flu pandemic. Wodarg also happens to be a politician for the Social Democratic Party.
The left won’t talk about these kinds of people because it doesn’t suit their narrative. When individuals don’t fit the traditional “far right” description they are either entirely ignored, or the definition gets reclassified in order to encompass them.
Whats their Problem?
At some point, the left made a choice. They chose to side with the medical establishment. They refused to take the position that science itself is a contested field, where conflicting studies and statistical data can be weaponised to suit competing agendas for the justification and implementation of political objectives. Of course, they only think this kind of weaponisation is happening on the “conspiracy” side of things; the “real science” relied upon to inform Government decisions is always correct.
Why did they choose to side with the ‘man’? Perhaps they desire greater legitimacy. Or, perhaps, they can’t afford to lose any more legitimacy. They have decided to lead the masses from the ignorance of conspiracy theories into the enlightened defense of “public health”.
Perhaps they think they are just another counter-demo away from convincing people of the errors of their ways? This relentless counter-demo strategy will, most likely, just end up reinforcing two fringe movements which increasingly require each others aggression to maintain their own identities. This is a side show to the real anti-lockdown movement of ordinary people.
As time goes on, the number of people who are likely to question the Government and media’s response to the Covid-19 crisis will increase. In their eyes, the lockdown measures either don’t make sense or are actually intended for malicious purposes far beyond the curtailing of a virus. This is a broad spectrum and no two people think exactly alike. It’s not too late for the left to consider the question: perhaps these concerns actually have some validity to them?
By not asking these questions, the left is running into a serious problem. Their traditional support base — broadly of the working class and naturally inclined towards anti-establishment sentiment —continue to be met with disdain, dismissal and ridicule from the very politicians they’ve voted in to the Dáil. The further the left backs itself into this corner of “everyone who questions the Covid narrative is either on the far right or so stupid that they can’t see that they’re being led by the far right”, the more they will permanently lose electoral and ideological support.
Only a left that is genuinely open and truly listens to the concerns of ordinary people is worthy of being their representatives. Sadly, such a left is nowhere to be found.
