CLARE DALY’S ENEMIES IF Clare Daly manages to claim victory in the EU Dublin election it will be a remarkable feat given the serried rows of opponents on the right, the centre right and even the far left that have combined against this implacable enemy of militarism in Ireland, the EU and even globally. Far better, of course to describe her and close collaborator, Mick Wallace MEP, as agents of Russia, China and other enemies of the western civilisation. The Irish Times did at least have the decency to admit that it had spent nearly a year trying to dig the dirt on Daly and Wallace. As The Phoenix reported as far back as May 6, 2022, the newspaper boasted, “A 10-month investigation by the Irish Times to track the international footprint of the two MEPs has revealed their outsized profile in the state-controlled media operations of various authoritarian regimes”. Deary me. The 10-month research produced a number of statements from the couple denouncing western militarism and their contacts with apparently unsavoury people and entities that oppose the west. And in a faintly ridiculous passage the self-styled ‘paper of reference’ came up with the killer punch that Wallace had received nearly twice the number of mentions (81) in Chinese language news than MMA fighter Conor McGregor (44). Double deary me! The media assault on Daly was not confined to the IT but that newspaper led the charge and many other media followed by describing her and Wallace as supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When Daly several times outlined in crystal clear terms that both of them had voted to condemn the invasion the message in much of the media —­ including RTE — was changed to the Jesuitical statement that ‘many people believe you support Russia against Ukraine’. The Sunday Times, though, Whitehall’s favourite newspaper, which regularly lectures the Aawrish about not defending western (i.e. British) interests went on full frontal assault against Daly recently with a scare story about her links to a dissident IRA prisoner and a Russian ‘spy’. Daly told the RTE EU Dublin election debate this week that her prison work with dissident Republican prisoners was done in tandem with a cross party Oireachtas group. Nothing subversive after all — how disappointing. The IT has been the principal attack dog against Daly because that newspaper is in thrall to all things EU and if that means abandoning neutrality then so be it. But sometimes ignoring a politician can be as damaging as repetitive denunciation — as during an election. When former Greek finance minister (and left-wing celebrity in his own right) Yanis Varoufakis came to town recently, the IT interviewed the economist – and spun a tale placing him “in Dublin this week for an event hosted by Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, or DiEM25, the pan-European political movement he co-founded”. But there was no such event. Varoufakis’s office demanded and got an edit in the online version of the story to reflect the reality. He was speaking at an event hosted by Daly, his close ally. (Daly followed up with a visit to Athens to return the favour.) When Bernadette McAliskey – one of Daly’s ‘alternates’, if she relinquishes her seat – launched the Dubliner’s campaign, calling her the “aspiration and hope of a generation”, RTÉ and the Press Association (PA) wire picked it up, but the IT was silent. When an official parliament scoreboard showed that Daly and Wallace had the best environmental voting record of any Irish EU grouping over the last five years, higher even than the Greens, the IT was silent. In April, Francesca Albanese, the UN human-right rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, finally broke the EU’s omertà on the Gaza genocide – by speaking to a massive Brussels meeting organised by Daly and Wallace. The Irish Times was silent. By contrast, Fianna Fail MEP Barry Andrews hosted a small ‘legal discussion’ on Gaza – and the IT duly published a 700-word report from PA, with a friendly headline highlighting Andrews’ criticism of Ursula von der Leyen. Could this sniffy silence relate to Daly and Wallace’s consistent attacks on NATO and an EU army now in gestation along with their defence of Irish neutrality? The climactic assault on the couple during this period indicates that certain political forces in Brussels, London and Dublin are determined to rid Ireland of these most effective MEPs. Quite how People before Profit and Brid Smith found themselves involved in a pincer operation that saw them eroding Daly’s large left-wing vote in Dublin is harder to explain. However, Daly’s campaign team, slender though it is compared to other parties, even on the left, has fought back and according to the polls increased her support by two-thirds within a fortnight to within striking distance of retaining her seat. She will likely reclaim her seat if her support comes out in fo