Dear IRR News subscriber,

The election result signalled a move towards a progressive riposte to neoliberalism and austerity, one not based on the politics of fear and division, as the Brexit vote seemed to be. But the end result, a hung parliament, leaves a minority Conservative government probably dependent on a party whose constituency is avowedly extreme in its Christian fundamentalism – for whom marrying a Catholic, let alone a person of the same sex, is ‘an abomination’. Ironically, with such allies, the PM may find it hard now to implement her plans to criminalise non-violent extremism, as suggested already in a 2015 piece for IRR News by Daniel Holder. And on 26 June, at a meeting at the IRR, he will be examining what a Conservative-DUP alliance could mean for Brexit and ethnic profiling in the Irish context. 

Raising our eyes beyond Britain and Ireland, the tragedy of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean continues, leading a group of lawyers, some of whom have been involved in rescue work in Greece, to call for international legal standards for the proper and decent treatment of the migrants who die at Europe’s borders and their families. We welcome their statement as a vital campaigning tool. 

Racial violence has surged in the wake of the Manchester and London Bridge attacks and it is detailed in our regular calendar of racism and resistance. 

IRR News Team