A Stern Critique of Tommy Hickey

A disgraceful article was published last month by Tommy Hickey arguing that the militant left is as bad as the militant right. It is disgraceful because it argues that militancy is always illegitimate, that the content of one's beliefs doesn't matter, and that squatters who try to house homeless refugees are as bad as fascist heroin dealers.

Despite Hickey's posturing as being against culture wars, he is in effect arguing for a return to respectability politics. This leads him to stand on the side of right-wing bastards that call leftists paedophiles and against earnest activists trying to house the homeless by his own admission.

He begins his article by listing off people he considers to be the protagonists of performative culture wars. He lists Chloe Power, a fascist who literally spits on the homeless, and Anthony Duggan, the convicted heroin dealer behind the fascist propaganda page This Is Dublin. He also lists Andre Buchanan, a Jamaican immigrant who began advocating violence and terrorism after his family, according to Buchanan, had been victims of racist harassment; and Stephen Bedford, a comrade from the RHL who served prison time for hitting a man with his car during a protest.

Mr. Buchanan's calls to go house to house with a gun are vile, no doubt, but they are born out of pain. Countless are the scores of people who in their frustration with chronic mistreatment lash out. It is wrong to lump him in with conscious purveyors of hatred of the right. It is also wrong to call him performative.

According to Comrade Bedford himself, the street was filled with people antagonistic to him and he was attempting to leave. The judge ruled that he could have made a U-turn and avoided hitting the man he hit. The story is in any case more nuanced than what Hickey presents. Hickey frames it as Comrade Bedford driving into a crowd, which is simply not backed up by the footage presented. One can criticise him for this action, but he has served prison time for it already. He has gone on to continue doing productive work for the movement. He has spent enormous amounts of time and effort before and after his time in prison helping people and fighting for good causes. To Hickey, this doesn't matter. He considers him on par with heroin dealers and fascists. It is not horrible beliefs and actions that advance said beliefs that make Hickey repulsed by someone. It is instead that they are "performative".

Hickey goes on to describe an incident in 2023, in which squatters of the RHL attempted to provide housing to refugees. He describes this as the RHL "endangering" the refugees by getting them in a squat, but when the right-wing forced them out and threw eggs at them, they were described as "angry locals", who Hickey stood with. In a time when refugees' tents are slashed, when people attempt to burn down IPAS centres, and the right wing literally forced refugees out of their home, Hickey stood with the right and against the left while describing the slogan "all refugees welcome" as slop. These "angry locals" chanted that those they were forcing out are paedophiles. Hickey did not confront them. He did not aid the refugees. Instead he stood by and continued watching, because to him being uppity is to engage in culture wars and respectability triumphs all.

His article then proceeds to criticise anti-racist efforts during the 2023 riots. He mentions that the stabber who sparked it was Algerian. That two of the three bystanders who stopped him were immigrants too of course goes unmentioned.

Throughout the article, Thomas Hickey is repeatedly soft and forgiving of right-wing anti-immigrant sentiments while trying to frame any leftist response to such sentiments as equally bad. Thomas Hickey is not a comrade.

Works Cited

Hickey, T. (2026, May 26). The performative left and right are as bad as each other. Aontacht Media. https://aontachtmedia.ie/the-performative-left-and-right-are-as-bad-as-each-other/