Dylan Moran Quotes

People are worried about what’s going to happen to their jobs. There’s a lot of off-shoring and out-sourcing taking place. There’s a lot more mobility of labor and of people. Unless we explain what’s happening, people will resort to protectionism and xenophobia.

The open borders position may sound new and radical, but it is simply a call for the return of lost liberties. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, most of the world’s borders could be freely crossed without passports. Passport requirements had sometimes existed before and were still in place in backward Tsarist Russia, but the more liberal governments of advanced European nations regulated migration, as modern democracies regulate speech, only rather lightly and in exceptional cases, if at all. Comprehensive restrictions on international movement, which almost everyone today regards as a normal and necessary government function, are really an innovation of the twentieth century, which emerged as liberalism gave way to nationalism and socialism in the wake of World War I. Although the reasons for border control were The open borders position may sound new and radical, but it is simply a call for the return of lost liberties. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, most of the world’s borders could be freely crossed without passports. Passport requirements had sometimes existed before and were still in place in backward tsarist Russia, but the more liberal governments of advanced European nations regulated migration, as modern democracies regulate speech, only rather lightly and in exceptional cases, if at all. Comprehensive restrictions on international movement, which almost everyone today regards as a normal and necessary government function, are really an innovation of the twentieth century, which emerged as liberalism gave way to nationalism and socialism in the wake of World War I. Although the reasons for border control were often explicitly racist—such as the national origins quotas of the 1924 U.S. Immigration Act—the restrictions were also motivated by bona fide national security concerns, as well as a desire to protect native wages and welfare states from immigrant competition and foreign dependents.

Britain's withdrawal from the E.U., like Donald Trump's proposal to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, is based on a false belief in self-reliance.

Brexit is a harbinger for Trump, really.

As the world transforms, moves closer together, jobs are displaced, and the world of work completely changes the way we live, the way we think. As that revolution goes on around us, it is going to pose political challenges of which immigration is one very obvious one, which are going to be extremely difficult to deal with. But it's like free trade. You know, in the end, if we go protectionist, we'll make a mistake.

It would be a mistake to overstate the similarities between the Brexit vote and Trump's win - but there are common themes, not least in the rallying cries that the winning campaigns used. They focused on a supposed economic threat posed by outsiders, as immigrants or as trade partners. This fuelling of anxieties underpinned a narrative centered on the need to "regain control," whether of borders or of economic forces.

Where does Donald Trump come from - and it's not just Donald Trump. It's a whole movement of right-wing extremism, not just in this country but also in Europe, which is a response to globalization, to the financialization of our economy, you know, to the trade agreements that throw working people under the bus.

Ironically, xenophobic nationalists are utilizing the benefits of globalization.

At the same time as we are closing our borders we are sending mixed signals to countries where we are helping the rich, and the poor will cross the borders to come here.

Put baldly, city officials don’t want migrants stealing local resident’s rice bowls.

There is less and less of France abroad, and more that is foreign in France.

The reason that America was a First World nation was that we had a First World population, and as we continue to be inundated with people from Third World nations, we are going to become a Third World nations….Desperate situations call for rash actions!

There cannot be the slightest doubt that migration barriers diminish the productivity of human labor.

The progeny of the immigrants of yesterday have always feared the immigrants of today would usurp their jobs and lower their standard of living. All Americans have been the progeny of immigrants except for those who were immigrants themselves.

European right-wing parties are in fact surprisingly fragmented, disagreeing over almost everything except ultranationalist sentiments and xenophobic opposition to non-European immigrants.

America must be kept American

To advance his administration's agenda with its protectionism and cultural nationalism, Donald Trump needs to spread the notion that the polyglot metropolis is a dangerous failure.

You can't keep bringing people in from other countries, finding them jobs when Americans need jobs first.

Why is Mexican nationalism a good thing, but putting American interests first needs defending?

We want to make our own Netherlands, to close our borders and to keep all that money that we give to the foreigners, there is billions, to Africa for development, to Brussels, to Greece, to asylum seekers in the Netherlands, we will stop that and give all that money to the Dutch people living in the Netherlands.

Without hesitation, I'm voting Emmanuel Macron. Everything about the campaign of Marine Le Pen, despite its dressing of sovereignty, exudes fear and weakness.

The Brexit vote, the presidential elections in the U.S., a number of the other regional political movements - that's not a flash in the pan.

The Brexit and Trump phenomena are informed by similar forces and social and economic movements. I think it's been really stressful; it's been really scary.

President Donald Trump's policies are not global but inward-looking.

We would like to preserve Europe for Europeans.