Boris Johnson a ‘vile opportunist’ - Richard Boyd Barrett

British Leave campaign leader Boris Johnson is a "vile political opportunist who must be defeated", said Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett.

He also described Ukip leader Nigel Farage as a "vile racist and xenophobe who must be defeated".

This would be done by addressing the “deep alienation, inequality, poverty, unemployment and the disaffection of millions of people in Britain and across Europe with the utterly undemocratic, corporate-dominated, increasingly militarised and increasingly racist EU”.

Speaking during the Dáil debate on the UK’s vote to leave the EU, Mr Boyd Barrett said it was also necessary to address the “far right-wing and Nazi manifestations of them in other parts of Europe, to which the European Union’s own political failures have given birth”.

Official financiers

Hitting out at the Remain campaign, he said its official financiers in Britain were “Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and the hedge funds of the City of London”.

He said they had resourced the campaign to stay in the EU “precisely to preserve their interests”, those of the elite, wealthy and super-wealthy at the expense of millions of ordinary Europeans.

The Dún Laoghaire TD said: “If we show contempt and if we insult the English people for the decision they have made, we are more likely to drive them back into the hands of the right, the racists and xenophobes”, rather than direct their justified anger against an increasingly undemocratic EU.

Socialist Party TD Ruth Coppinger said she understood the progressive instincts of very many people in Britain who voted to remain, particularly young people.

The majority of them “voted against the little Englanders, the nationalism and the racism that they saw and wanted co-operation and unity in Europe”.

Immigration issues

Ms Coppinger said there was racism in the official Leave side but there was also racism in the Remain side.

She also said there had been a stoking of immigration issues in this country since this vote took place.

Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae said he had been asked if Dundalk would become the new Calais in reference to large numbers of immigrants in camps at the French border.

He said he would welcome “thoroughly vetted refugees” but the State had to be able to cater for them and “we do not have sufficient housing for our own people”.

Independent TD Catherine Donnelly said the EU project, "led by an unaccountable elite", was "utterly deaf to what people in different countries, including Ireland, have been saying about the EU: its growing size and power, its overall control and the volume of legislation emanating from the EU, notwithstanding the constant bombardment from the establishment to remain".