Ireland has about a month left to comply with the European Union’s anti-free-speech laws or risk being dragged into international court.
The EU is going after Ireland because it has refused to criminalize free speech. In its monthly violations report, the supranational organization said the following about Irish noncompliance:
The Commission considers that Ireland still fails to transpose the provisions related to criminalising the public incitement to violence or hatred against a group or a member of such group based on certain characteristics, as well as the conducts of condoning, denial, and gross trivialisation of international crimes and the Holocaust.
Ireland is accused of violating laws outlined in the EU’s 2008 EU Framework Decision, which requires member states to criminalize “hate speech” based on race, color, religion, descent, or ethnicity, as well as the aforementioned Holocaust denial. The justification? Supposedly the law is intended to prevent the incitement of violence.
The EU says that if Ireland doesn’t comply, “it may decide to refer the cases to the Court of Justice of the European Union.” One of the possible repercussions Ireland faces is fines. The EU’s Court of Justice has doled out fines to several member states for breaking its rules. In June of last year, it ordered Hungary to pay a lump sum of 200 million euros plus a penalty of 1 million euros per day for failing to comply with the open-borders policies that have plagued other major European powers, such as Germany and France. Hungary has refused to pay the fines.
Ireland’s Response
The likelihood that Ireland will comply by the deadline is low. The government enacted a new law, the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024, just before last year’s end. The legislation came about as part of an attempt to appease the EU. However, efforts to implement a proposed anti-free-speech portion failed. Current law includes enhanced penalties for crimes deemed motivated by race, skin color, religion, sexual orientation, gender, and essentially every other protected identity attribute.
Attempts to include a speech element were rejected in response to backlash on the obvious basis that such laws are a violation of free speech. Notable critics included the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump Jr., who dubbed the bill “insane.” Irish Parliament member Willie O’Dea blasted the bill as an attempt to “play to the woke gallery.” Free Speech Ireland spokesman Sarah Hardiman said the proposal was so vague that it would criminalize “comments and memes on the internet.”
Move Toward Global Governance
This blatant attempt to usurp the free-speech rights of Irish citizens is one of the many consequences this magazine and members of its parent company, The John Birch Society, have been warning would come about. In its “infringement packet,” the EU threatens to penalize several member nations for failing to follow a plethora of decrees. Many of them are related to a gamut of climate regulations. But there are also violations regarding member nations’ economic regulations and laws on civilian firearms and migration.
The elites built the EU as a major steppingstone toward global government. The plan was never to spring that global government onto the world suddenly and altogether. It is being propped up piece by piece. The fact that an international entity issues a monthly report stacked with the violations that undermine the laws of sovereign nations is a sign of things to come. The citizens of Europe’s nations would be wise to follow in the path of the United Kingdom, which left the alliance exactly because the EU intruded on their sovereignty.
