Clare Daly

Clare Daly (born 16 April 1968) is an Irish politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency from 2019 to 2024. As a member of Independents 4 Change (part of The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL) during her period as an MEP, Daly gained attention for her foreign policy opinions, particularly on Russia and China, which became contentious.

Quotes

 * There's no doubt about it, we're living in times where…the lives of innocent civilians are sacrificed in the wars of their masters. Yes in Ukraine, but not only. Since the last plenary tens of thousands of Afghani citizens have been forced to flee in search of food and safety, five million children face famine, an agonizing and painful death, a five hundred percent increase in child marriages and children being sold just so they can survive, and not a mention of it, not here, not anywhere, no wall-to-wall TV coverage, no emergency humanitarian response, no special plenaries, not even a mention in this plenary, no Afghani delegations and no statements. My God, they must be wondering what makes their humanitarian crisis so unimportant. Is it the color of their skin, is it that they’re not white? They're not European? That their problems come from a U.S. gun or a U.S. invasion? Is it that the decision to rob their country's wealth was taken by a despotic U.S. president rather than a Russian one? Because my God, all wars are evil, and all victims deserve support and until we get on that page, we have no credibility whatsoever.
 * Quoted by Eve Ottenberg in "Starving a People, Committing a Genocide: Biden’s Sanctions on Afghanistan" CounterPunch (18 March 2022)

Many people in Ukraine are fighting to defend their country, and that's actually legitimate in many ways. But I highly doubt that any of them are fighting or dying for European values – in a sense, because it is not stopping the war, Europe is forcing them to die. The president of Zambia came in … and he criticized the war. He said we should be for peace. He spoke about food insecurity in Africa and the global consequences of this war. He obviously was sympathetic with the victims in Ukraine, and said that we need to work together as an international community to end the war and to have a negotiated peace. Yet the overwhelming majority, like 95% of the Parliament, sat on its hands and did not applaud that sentiment. These are warmongers. And the tone in the European Parliament, being led mainly by the Baltics, is that they want the war to continue. They're deluded. Anybody who argues for peace is being accused of appeasing Russia, of being a Putin puppet, when in actual fact the continuation of the war is killing and damaging Ukrainians more than anyone else. So it's utter lunacy.
 * Our point of view is if people from Ukraine or anywhere else want to join the European Union, and that’s a free choice decided by the majority, and it's done on terms that don't bankrupt its populations, well, then that's a matter for them. Of course, that's not what's on the table at the moment. The vote is being used to ratchet up the tension with Russia.
 * Quoted by James W. Carden in "EU playing a dangerous game in Ukraine" (8 July 2022)
 * The simple answer is this war will end when the US wants it to end. You might have thought that Europe, because it's engaging in a sort of a collective suicide, at least economically, with this war, might be pushing for it to end. Right now there’s a whole wave of strikes all across Europe, which will only escalate the longer the war continues on. I think turmoil in the Global South has to be a cause for concern for all of these actors. I suppose Italy, France and Germany have been less warmongering than the others, and are getting enormous abuse for that, by the way, by their European friends. You'd hope that maybe they could take the lead.
 * Quoted by James W. Carden in "EU playing a dangerous game in Ukraine" (8 July 2022)


 * At this precise moment, of course, as usual, the voices challenging the rush to war are attacked and silenced, smeared as traitors, cronies, Putin puppets, Kremlin stooges, Russian agents. Frankly, it's pathetic, And I don't make the comparison lightly, but the crudeness and cynicism of these slurs coming from mainstream E.U. parties might as well have been written by [Nazi war criminal] Hermann Goring, who infamously said that even though people never want war, they can be brought to war with threats and smears. This house should be ashamed of this debate. Words are being twisted, meanings subverted, and the truth turned on its head. Opposing the horrible madness of war is not anti-European, it's not anti-Ukrainian, it's not pro-Russian: it's common sense. The working class of Europe has nothing to gain from this war and everything to lose. And I find it laughable that those calling for arms to Ukraine never call for arms for the people of Palestine, or for the people of Yemen. Unlike you, I oppose all war. I want it stopped. I make no apology for that.
 * Quoted in Jake Johnson "Decrying 'Horrible Madness of War,' Irish MEPs Call for Diplomacy in Ukraine" CommonDreams (7 October 2022)


 * State sponsorship of terrorism is a term of US law. It doesn’t exist in EU law, but a Zelensky advisor called for it in the Parliament... And here we are again reporting for duty. And all it will do is make peace harder to achieve. Exactly, of course, what the extremists want. No peace. No off ramps, all bridges burning and Ukraine a permanent abattoir in a suicidal holy crusade against Russia. So, if you want to start naming state sponsors of terrorism, let's do it. European sponsorship of Israeli terrorism in Palestine, Western sponsorship of Saudi terror in Yemen, ISIS, the product of French, American, British, Turkish and Gulf sponsorship in Syria and Iraq, decades of right-wing US-backed terrorism against the Cuban Revolution. The Contras in Nicaragua, death squads in Guatemala, in El Salvador. Remember Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, horror after horror, terror after terror. There's nothing constructive about the pot calling the kettle black, would ye ever cop on, start championing peace, an end to the war which is patently in the interests of the EU, Ukrainian, and Russian citizens.
 * Quoted in "Must-watch video: Irish MEP slams Western state-sponsored terrorism!" The Hindu Post (21 October 2022)


 * You had no interest in talking to me for five years, so I've no interest in talking to you.
 * To a reporter from RTÉ, as cited in "Clare Daly: 'No interest' in talking to media after losing MEP seat", PA Media/Yahoo News (11 June 2024)
 * Comments after the 2024 European Parliament election in Ireland.

About Daly

 * Reality star George Galloway has dubbed Irish MEP Clare Daly a "Joan of Arc who has come back to walk among us" for her take on the war in Ukraine. The ex-MP called the politician "crusading" for speaking "so powerfully the walls of the European Parliament shake." Big Brother star George played a clip of Clare Daly addressing the European Parliament on his online talk show The Mother of All Talk Shows.
 * Maeve McTaggart "George Galloway says Clare Daly is ‘Joan of Arc’ reborn over Ukraine war stance" Sunday World (Dublin, 11 October 2022)