Debunked: The UN didn’t publish plans to replace Irish people in Ireland or Europeans in Europe

A VIDEO SHARED widely on social media falsely claims that a publicly available UN document details plans to replace European people in Europe, and Irish people in Ireland.

The document, which is freely available on the UN’s website, says nothing like this.

This claim in the video appears to be a variation of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which is widespread in online racist communities.

“It’s been decided at the highest level,” a man says in a video, “to displace and replace the Irish people living in Ireland.

“In 2018, the Irish government along with all other European governments were at a meeting in Marrakech, Morocco — a conference on migration.

“The document that came out of it — a 177-page document — it’s called the UN Marrakech Compact.

“It’s in that document that they would displace and replace the European population.”

One version of this video has been shared more than 3,000 times since being posted to Facebook on 6 November.

The person who posted this video also included a link in the comment section to the UN document mentioned in the video — the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, sometimes called the Marrakech Compact.

Like the man in the video said, this document was agreed upon at a conference in Marrakech in 2018, and then-Minister for Justice Charles Flanagan represented Ireland at this.

However, unlike what the speaker claims, it has no reference to replacing European people in Europe — in fact the word “Europe” does not appear in the document.

The document actually lists 23 objectives that were agreed so that migrants are treated in a “safe, orderly and regular” manner — noting that it is largely a separate agreement, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, that deals with the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.

The 23 objectives are available in full on the UN’s website. Its first objective is to collect accurate data on migrants.

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However, rather than promoting migration, many of these resolutions actively discourage it, or certain types of it, such as illegal migration.

The second objective is to minimise the “adverse drivers and structural factors that compel people to leave their country of origin”.

The fourth objective is to “ensure that all migrants have proof of legal identity and adequate documentation.”

The ninth is to “Strengthen the transnational response to smuggling of migrants”. The tenth is to combat the international trafficking of people.

Objective 11 is to “manage borders” better.

Objective 21 is to “cooperate in facilitating safe and dignified return and readmission”, meaning that migrants should be allowed to return to their home countries.

There are no objectives that say or imply that Europeans, or any other people, should be displaced or replaced.

It should also be noted the compact itself, which is freely available online in multiple languages, is less than 40 pages long, not 177 as the speaker in the video said.

Other documents from the conference are also available online, such as a report on the proceedings, though this is only about 60 pages long.

It is unclear what, if any, document the 177-page detail referred to.

In either case, the speaker in the video names as his source the compact itself, which is the central document to come from the conference.

The claim in the video echoes the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, variations of which have been popular in fringe groups through the latter half of the 20th century, though the term Great Replacement was coined by a French writer around 2010.

The Great Replacement theory posits that the native people of Europe are being replaced by non-white immigrants, often Arab or Muslim people, and that this is orchestrated by a group of clandestine, powerful elites.

As with this case, these theories often rest on claims that are false. 

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