A MEME, THE text of which begins “Ireland will change forever depending on who you vote for” before discouraging readers to elect mainstream parties has become popular on social media pages, despite making little sense.
The image is divided into two sides with the left of the image showing an Ireland shaded in the tricolour and a list reading: independents, the Irish Freedom Party, Liberty Republic, The National Party, and Ireland First.
Campaigner Ben Gilroy has said, in a promotional video, that he is relaunching Direct Democracy Ireland under the new name, Liberty Republic. In the clip, he rallies against “globalist elites attempting to put us all under the UN, EU and WEF fascist control through elected traitors”.
(Direct Democracy Ireland is a registered political party, an officer for the party confirmed that it is transitioning to Liberty Republic)
All of the groups have leaders who are anti-migrant, have spread misinformation, and many have claimed that Ireland’s democracy is not legitimate.
The left hand side goes on to list out promises of what these parties will deliver, including rights, privacy and freedom, was well as “cash”, “culture”, “exit the EU”, “controlled boarders” [sic] and a United Ireland.
This is contrasted to an alternative Ireland at the right side of the image, which is emblazoned with a World Economic Forum (WEF) logo directly in its middle, surrounded by the stars of the European Union.
To the top-left, a World Health Organization (WHO) logo appears, while to the bottom-right can be seen the logo of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, altered to include the flag of the Soviet Union.
Again, a list of political groups is listed: Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Green Party, the Labour Party, Social Democrats, and People Before Profit.
And again, the consequences for voting for these are listed, beginning with “no rights, no privacy, no freedom, no cash, no culture”, before going on to include “social credit system”, “Digital ID and CBDCs” and “facial recognition”.
A CBDB is a Central Bank Digital Currency, a type of government-issued money that is valued the same as regular fiat money, but without a physical form, such as a banknote or coin.
The Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria are the only countries that have launched a CBDB, according to the Atlantic Council, a US-based think tank.
“Globalism is a one world communist government,” a warning at the bottom of the page reads. “History tells us that the people promising you a utopia while taking away your rights and freedoms are never the good guys.”
It is not clear who first posted the meme.
Ireland, the UN, the EU, the WEF, cash, freedom, communism and social credit systems: there’s a lot in this meme, but it’s not clear how it’s supposed to fit together coherently.
Exploring just three of its themes is sufficient to show some of the glaring contradictions in the image’s message.
The logo featured in the meme most prominently, the World Economic Forum or WEF, is a non-governmental organisation which describes itself as an International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. However, it is primarily known for organising an annual meeting of powerful figures at Davos in Switzerland each January or, in the words of The Economist, “the ultimate A-list bash for plutocrats”.
The WEF and its founder, Klaus Schwab, are the target of significant criticism, often levelled from a wide array of political positions, as well as being the regular subject of misinformation; The Journal has previously debunked claims that it had advocated for reducing the age of consent to 13, and that it has ordered governments to ration water, and that it was responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic.
The “Ireland will change forever” meme appears to touch on similar sentiments. However, it is also incredibly misleading: the WEF does not control Irish policy, it does not endorse the positions stated in the meme, and rather than being controlled by the WEF, some Irish political parties have voiced opposition to the organisation.
A pretty thorough snapshot of the WEF’s interactions with the government can be gleaned from a series of Minister’s questions by Carol Nolan in March 2022, asking various departments if they had “engaged in any form of communication with the World Economic Forum or representatives of the World Economic Forum”.
The vast majority of ministers and their departments answered that they had no communication with the WEF.
An official in the Department of Housing attended two webinar events and one video conference call with representatives in relation to the World Economic Forum.
Some departments said that they had been invited to attend discussions and events and the the Minister of Transport and Energy said he had spoken at some smaller WEF-organised events.
Varadkar has attended the forum as Taoiseach and while Micheál Martin answered that he hadn’t at the time, he has subsequently also attended Davos.
Explaining why he had attended Davos earlier this year, Varadkar addressed the conspiracy theories about the WEF:
“There are lots of conspiracy theories about Davos and the World Economic Forum, and particularly online,” Varadkar told the Dáil.
“No big decisions are made there. In fact no decisions are made at all. If that was the case I would stay for the whole thing.
“As it happens I had to leave early and arrive late. I arrived late because the Chinese Prime Minister was visiting Ireland, and I had to leave early because I wanted to get to an event in Galway.
“I can guarantee that if the far-right were correct I would not have arrived late and left early; I would have been there for the whole thing to sit in some secret room and make all these decisions they believe we make.”
Varadkar said he met with political leaders and representatives of businesses with interests in Ireland, as well as speaking on a panel about Artificial Intelligence and attending a foreign policy event arranged by The Washington Post.
“With regard to what happens there, it is a gathering of political, business and NGO leaders, along with academics and experts,” Varadkar explained.
“It is worth attending. It is run very efficiently. There are 30-minute meeting slots, which start on time and end on time. They stick to the agenda. To organise those kinds of meetings with the people who attend – perhaps 10 meetings in one day – would take weeks to organise.”
However, some TDs took the opportunity given by the Taoiseach’s answer to criticise the very existence of the WEF, including members of the political parties that were implied by the “Ireland will change forever” meme to have been controlled by the WEF.
“I have a fundamental problem with the World Economic Forum as a gathering where the world’s most profitable and richest companies and billionaires rub shoulders with politicians from around the world, primarily to pursue their own interests rather than the wider interests of society,” People Before Profit–Solidarity TD Richard Boyd Barrett said.
Paul Murphy of People Before Profit–Solidarity also criticised the forum, saying that it was an opportunity for multimillionaires and billionaires to communicate their interests to political leaders, which he said was typical of how capitalism functions.
It is not surprising that two socialist TDs would criticise the WEF. Unlike what conspiracy theories claim, policies the WEF promoted have been far from communist.
The forum began in the 1970s as a gathering primarily of business managers to discuss management techniques – an unlikely origin story for a communist conspiracy.
Even today, the few countries that don’t see invitations to the WEF are the successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia (due to the sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine), as well as a famous 2016 snub to North Korea, one of the few remaining states to still adhere to a communist-style planned economy.
As well as the criticism levelled at it by Boyd Barrett and Murphy, the WEF has been described as a “PR shield” for large companies to pretend that they care about the public good, as well as a “a club for capitalism’s elites” who make up the “high priests of plutocracy”.
However, the label communist is not just applied to the WEF, but to every political party feature on the right hand side of the “Ireland will change forever” meme.
While the term “communist” can be applied in a loose sense to describe all sorts of left-wing groups, there is very little justification for how it is used in the meme.
To take just one particularly egregious example, Fine Gael does not appear to share any of the hallmark beliefs of communism and is generally considered a right-wing party which has generally favoured low taxes, including in the most recent budget.
A party whose origins feature notoriously far-right association, which is part of a European parliamentary group dedicated to “the promotion of a free market economy”, and that has slashed taxes should not be labelled as communist, as that would be to stretch the word beyond meaning.
Some of the policies that the “Ireland will change forever” meme lists as consequences to voting for mainstream parties refer to realistic outcomes; the possibility of a central bank digital currency version of the Euro is being explored.
Others, however, make little sense.
The first consequences listed is “no rights”. This does not reflect the policy of any of the parties on the right side of the image.
The first party on the list, Sinn Féin, has instead publicised plans to expand the rights that the government recognise.
Similarly, the three parties of government all published commitments to upholding rights as their primary aims.
Another listed consequence, “no ownership”, again seems to be baseless as, like many rights, these are not just guaranteed by the government of the day, but strongly protected by the constitution of Ireland, which has a specific section on “private property” and cannot be changed by a general election.
As one last example, “no cash” is also listed as a consequence of voting for any mainstream party, despite the fact that the government is currently pursuing “Access to Cash” legislation, which is intended to secure the use of cash by expanding access to ATMs to dispense physical money, as well as plans for a National Payments Strategy looking at ensuring cash should be accepted wherever possible.
Update: This article was amended on 26 March 2024 to confirm that Direct Democracy Ireland was in the process of re-branding to Liberty Republic.
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