Making Mercosure to win Trump fans

Straight talking...

- NEIL LESLIE

I'M sure she might have had better places to be on a dark January Saturday than a nondescript conference room on the Dublin-Meath border.

But EU chief Ursula von der Leyen may have found it useful had she rocked up at Ashbourne's Pillo Hotel for the first gathering of something called the IRL Forum last weekend.

For the €50 entrance money she could have listened to a lineup of speakers from millionaire businessmen to right-wing firebrands.

She could have heard calls for people to march to Dublin and "shut down the Dail" that might have you wondering was the meeting taking place on January 10 in Meath or January 6 in Washington.

She could have listened to host and failed politician Eddie Hobbs tell those who want Irish regime change that they need to look west to Donald Trump's MAGA movement to help them do it.

The EU Commission chief would have been in good company. Trump's man in Ireland, US ambassador Edward Walsh, was one interested observer.

He must have been happy to be able to report back to the boss that there are indeed a band of useful Irish “patriots” ready to sell the nation out to the new MAGA world order.