“There are very few calls for peace in the countries of power, and given what’s happening in Gaza, we need those calls for peace now more than ever,” Sarandon said in the video, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
“So I’m asking everyone to remember to cast your vote this June for either Clare Daly in Dublin or Mick Wallace in the South of Ireland.”
The pair have become Ireland’s best-known politicians abroad, thanks to Mr Wallace’s distinctive pink shirts and unkempt grey hair, and Mr Daly’s fierce polemics against American hegemony and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has become Beijing’s darling in Brussels.
Their massive followings on X, the former Twitter platform (Wallace has 376,411 and Daly has 422,776 at the time of writing) dwarf those of any mainstream Irish politician – current Prime Minister Simon Harris has 248,559 – while on TikTok their videos receive millions of views.
But both Daley and Wallace face significant challenges in winning reelection to a second term in Congress, with voting set to begin on June 6.
A recent poll in Ireland’s leading newspaper, The Irish Times, put Wallace on 3% of the vote in his constituency, compared with Daly’s slight lead of 6%.
Under Ireland’s transferable voting system, this gives her a chance to win enough transfer votes from candidates who drop out, but she is still fighting for her political life.
“Mick gives up, but Claire still has a small chance of being re-elected,” said Jane Suter, a political scientist at Dublin City University.
Their support for Gaza is popular with voters in Ireland, Europe’s most pro-Palestinian country, but Daly and Wallace’s close ties to countries such as China, Syria and Russia could be contributing to their declining support in the polls, Souter said.
Both Daly and Wallace had been vocal defenders of Russia even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. According to the Irish Times, Wallace described Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution, which led to the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, as a “US-orchestrated coup” and tried to erase the European Parliament’s condemnation of Moscow’s “illegal annexation of Crimea.”
They have since made several joint public appearances with Tatjana Zdanoka, a Latvian member of the European Parliament who is under investigation for allegedly spying for Russia, but have sought to distance themselves from her.
Neither Daly nor Wallace would grant interviews for this story, but during a recent appearance on the I4C Trouble podcast, Daly said of Zdanoka: “We’re not connected to anybody but ourselves. We’re independent, and we love our independence.”
The pair have been lobbying the EU to lift sanctions against Syria’s Assad regime, but have been criticised for visiting the headquarters of an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, described by Irish Senator Malcolm Byrne as “an embarrassment for Ireland”.
Mr Souter said “what began as knee-jerk anti-American sentiment” was beginning to raise concerns about the kind of cronies Ireland’s elected representatives were associating with, leading to increased media scrutiny.
Since being elected in 2019, the colorful pair have also established themselves as some of the most pro-China lawmakers in the European Parliament.
An analysis of 2019 voting records by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week found that the party, Independents4Change, within the left-wing group – it was the only one of two parties – voted against resolutions criticising China 86 percent of the time.
The only time Wallace has voted in favour of such a resolution in the past five years was when he gave a surprise “yes” vote to a motion criticising the detention of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, although the Wexford native later amended his vote to abstain.
The two visited China last year, a trip that was favorably covered in state media.
Mr Wallace, a former property developer who built wine bars across Dublin, got his first tattoo in Xi’an – black Chinese characters on his wrist that translate to “No to War” – and images of the tattoo were shared on social media by senior Chinese officials.
This stance has alienated the lawmakers from many in their own caucus.
Sources within left-wing groups said there was no guarantee that Daly and Wallace would rejoin the party if they were re-elected, something that now seemed unlikely.
“Only a small number of people [in the group] “We don’t believe a word they say about China,” one staffer said, adding that their visit to China had prompted other senators to try to cut down on speaking time on the topic.
“We saw this and thought it couldn’t be serious. People are now afraid of what they will say about China. Many don’t want them to speak for the group at a debate after what appeared to be a paid tour,” they added.
Since the Russian incursion, parliamentary aides have advised their European MPs not to have their photographs taken next to either candidate because their pro-Russian rhetoric has not gone down well in the country, the sources said.
Mick gives up, but Claire still has a chance to come back.
A second source described them as “outliers” who do not represent the majority opinion within the group.
A third congressional source said Daley and Wallace were initially viewed as “harmless thugs” but were now viewed with suspicion.
“They appear to be using European platforms as launch pads to advance the national interests of Russia, China and Iran,” they said.
“They have become stars in authoritarian state media circles and are now considered some of the most extreme voices in the European Parliament. They are staunchly anti-European.”
China has barely featured in EU election discussions, but some other member states are in hot water over the nature of their relationships with Beijing.
An aide to Maximilian Kurler, the Brussels representative for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, was arrested in April on suspicion of spying for China.
A few weeks later, Kula was banned from making public appearances on behalf of the AfD and resigned as AfD leader after telling an Italian newspaper that he did not believe all members of the Nazi SS were criminals.
