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Former UFC champion Conor McGregor announced he plans to run for Irish presidency in elections scheduled to be held later this year.
McGregor, 36, who spent St. Patrick's Day at the White House as a guest of President Donald Trump's administration and has emerged as a figurehead in far-right Irish politics, said he plans to run a platform opposing the new European Union migration pact, which will intent to share the burden of processing asylum claims more evenly across the bloc.
“Who else will stand up to Government and oppose this bill?” McGregor wrote on his Instagram account. “Any other Presidential candidate they attempt to put forward will be of no resistance to them. I will!”
McGregor was the latest European ally of the United States to promote the same anti-immigrant sentiment as Trump during his White House visit earlier this week, which drew controversy and censure from his home country.
“Ireland is at the cusp of potentially losing its Irishness,” McGregor said Monday (July 17) via CNN, claiming the country's government had “abandoned the voices” of the Irish people and rural towns had become overrun by migrants.
Irish leader Micheál Martin condemned McGregor's White House comments, claiming they “did not reflect the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, or the views of the people of Ireland" via CNN.
McGregor, who was once the world's highest-paid athlete in 2021, hasn't fought in an MMA match since his back-to-back UFC losses four years ago and faced accusations of sexual battery at the 2023 NBA Finals, as well as a civil jury awarding the accuser who claimed he "brutally raped and battered" her nearly 250,000 Euros ($257,000 USD) for an alleged incident at a Dublin hotel in 2018.