Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who is in
Dublin for the meeting of the British-Irish Council, says there’s an onus on
elected politicians to combat the rise of the far right.
Heaton-Harris adds that he is not in a position “to suggest to the Irish as to how they could and should react”.
But he referred to the rise of the British National Party in England.
“We had in English politics the rise of the British National
Party only a few years ago, they were elected to the European Parliament, MEPs
were elected to the European Parliament in two regions of the United Kingdom,”
he says.
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“On the rise of the far right, it is up to democratically elected politicians to be able to articulate the concerns of their electorate and we need to do that better.”
He says when mainstream politicians fail to properly debate issues around migration and immigration they “leave a vacuum for other people who might not be as benign as we are”.
