Ray Bassett is an Irish former diplomat. Bassett was born in Dublin and attended

O'Connell School The O’Connell School is a secondary and primary school for boys located on North Richmond Street in Dublin, Ireland. The school, named in honour of the leader of Catholic Emancipation, Daniel O’Connell, has the distinction of being the olde ...

. He then attended

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

first earning a B.A. (mod) in biochemistry in 1973 and then a PhD in biochemistry in 1979. He served as an ambassador from

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

, and the

Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. ...

and joint Secretary to the

British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference The British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC) is an intergovernmental organisation established by the Governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom under the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. It first met in London in 1999, and the la ...

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

before retiring in October 2016. He is the senior fellow for EU affairs at the centre-right think tank

Policy Exchange Policy Exchange is a British conservative think tank based in London. In 2007 it was described in ''The Daily Telegraph'' as "the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right". Policy Exchange is a registered charity; it most ...

. He is also the author of ''Brexit: Options for the Border'' and ''Brexit and the Border''. In 2020 Bassett published a book, ''Ireland and the EU Post Brexit'', which was sharply critical of Ireland's former Taoiseach

Leo Varadkar Leo Eric Varadkar ( ; born 18 January 1979) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 2017 to 2020 and from 2022 to 2024, as Tánaiste from 2020 to 2022, and as leader of Fine Gael from 2017 to 2024. A Teachta Dála, ...

. Bassett alleged that Varadkar "had done everything in his power to thwart the democratic outcome in the UK he Brexit vote in 2016... The gamble failed and Ireland is now facing a very difficult situation ... Opposing a fair deal for the UK was never in Ireland's interests. It was a huge blunder." He is not involved with any political party and has addressed groups from the far-right

Irish Freedom Party The Irish Freedom Party sometimes referred to as IFP and initially known as the Irexit Freedom To Prosper Party, is a minor far-right, hard Eurosceptic political party in Ireland, launched on 8 September 2018. It advocates Irish withdrawal fro ...

, mainstream political groups, and the

Communist Party of Ireland The Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) is a Marxist–Leninist party, founded in 1970 and active in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland following a merger of the Irish Workers' Party and the Communist Party of Northern Ireland. It ra ...

on the left. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2022 Dublin University by-election.

References

External links

The death of a Pope plus 50 years in the EU

The Government is misleading us on the border with Northern Ireland, Ray Bassett at Irexit Cork
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bassett, Ray Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century diplomats 21st-century Irish male writers 20th-century diplomats Ambassadors of Ireland to the Bahamas Ambassadors of Ireland to Jamaica Ambassadors of Ireland to Canada