Coalition Minister Noel Grealish attends political conference dubbed ‘anti-woke Davos’

Government Minister of State for Agriculture Noel Grealish attended a conservative political gathering in London earlier this year, cofounded by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and dubbed an “anti-woke Davos”. The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) gathered more than 4,000 delegates from over 75 countries, including figures from conservative and libertarian groupings, Trump administration officials, and was addressed this year by Britain’s Reform leader Nigel Farage.It was also addressed by more mainstream figures, including British Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch. Grealish, a Galway West TD, entered Government as part of a group of Independent TDs supporting the Coalition – some of whom were rewarded with ministerial office. READ MORE“The department can confirm that this conference was attended in a personal capacity by Minister Grealish,” said a spokesman. The department referred queries on funding of the trip, and whether Grealish had meetings with any other attendees or speakers, to his office. A spokesman for the Independents in Government, Grealish and his Oireachtas office did not respond to queries. The Arc describes itself as an international movement “with a vision for a better world where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together”. It has been referred to as an “anti-woke Davos” by segments of the British media. Peterson, who has criticised political correctness and threats to western values, was a co-founder of the conference and listed as a member of its advisory board on its website. In a video promoting the conference in 2023, Peterson said he and others developed the concept as “a vision that would be an alternative to the globalist woke utopian nightmare that threatens to engulf us all”. Other speakers promoted by the event this year included Sebastian Gorka, a senior official in the Trump administration, former British prime minister Boris Johnson, and former Australian prime ministers Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison.David Quinn, the Irish social and religious commentator and chief executive of the Iona Institute, said he was due to attend the event by invitation this year but could not, although he has done so in previous years. He described the conference as a gathering of conservative or libertarian people and as broadly on the right.“What they’d be united in would be a rejection of a general leftist or liberal leftist view of the world and would see the need to challenge that.” Quinn said this viewpoint was marginalised in Irish public debate and the event allowed access to a “bigger knowledge pool” and wider expertise. Patricia Casey, a conservative commentator, professor of psychiatry and consultant psychiatrist at the Mater hospital, attended the event and said the speakers were “public intellectuals who all have the capacity to make strong arguments for their position”. Casey, who is also a patron of the Iona Institute, said the event was “definitely right of centre politically” and that the themes “generally focused on breakdown in social cohesion and how that can be restored and the changing face of society more generally in respect of attitudes, values and the arts”.