Charlie Kirk-founded Turning Point keen to bring their poison to Ireland

A spokesperson for Turning Point (TP), the right-wing US movement founded by the assassinated demagogue Charlie Kirk, has reiterated the organisation’s desire to bring its particular brand of bile to Ireland. The chief executive of Turning Point UK, Jack Ross, was speaking to the Sunday Times where he claimed that TP has “a lot of interest from Irish people“.

Ross tried to distance the organisation from the far-right by saying:

I know you’ve got some crazies down there — some sort of white-nationalist types — which we’re not interested in. But certainly Fine Gael: that’s what we’re looking for.

Despite this, he went on to advocate exactly the sort of views and tactics used by the worst reactionaries in Ireland:

There’s a real effort to bury the hatchet between the two communities and unite to respond to common grievances such as Islamist terror or, particularly in Ireland, mass migration.

US hate group hope to push far-right narrative

By “two communities”, he is referring to the Catholic, nationalist, republican (CNR), and Protestant, unionist, loyalist (PUL) groupings, mainly in the north. While the far-right has been primarily associated with loyalists, recently fascists have been seen turning up to rallies with tricolours to try and push exactly the narrative Ross describes.

Fine Gael don’t quite fit the bill for what he seems to be after there, but Turning Point organisers will no doubt approve of their lack of redistributive policies, landlord boosting, and slavishness before US big tech and militarism.

The Belfast Telegraph had previously reported Erika Kirk’s intention to visit the North of Ireland. She is the widow of Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk, who was murdered in September at a university in Utah while giving an outdoor talk.

The chances of the now CEO of the conservative grifters getting round Northern Ireland uninterrupted seem pretty slim. Turning Point have typically focused on universities, and Queen’s University in Belfast has seen frequent protest of late. The socialist feminist group ROSA North have declared that Kirk’s visit “cannot go ahead without challenge“.

Her main backer thus far seems to be former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Ian Paisley Jr, who said:

…it would be most welcome [as it was] creating a space where difficult things can be said and debated.

Turning Point look to continue Charlie Kirk’s ugly legacy

Translation: I’d like someone to join me in saying toxic, hateful shit. Charlie Kirk was certainly a specialist there. Shortly after his death, the Guardian did a good job listing his odious views. These include the following quotes:

– If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.

– Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.

– Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor [Swift]. You’re not in charge.

– The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.

– We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilisation.

The attempt to export the Turning Point model to Britain has largely been a flop. The fact its UK head Jack Ross seems pretty clueless about Irish politics bodes well for it making a balls of things on the other side of the Irish Sea too. The Sunday Times quizzed him, finding that when he was:

Asked about prospective candidates, Ross said his “knowledge of Irish politics isn’t the best”, so he would not be able to “name names”.

The malign influence of the US is already present to an excessive degree in Ireland, from toxic fast-food, to mind-numbing reality TV, through to tax dodging big tech, and neutrality wrecking militarism. We can do without the grifter Erika Kirk adding to that with the foul stench left from metaphorically dragging her husband’s corpse round this island.

Featured image via the Canary