[DoughnutHole]

Why not both?

The mercantilist economic policy of the UK was an abject failure that made its people poorer and prevented the import of cheap food.

But the UK’s unwillingness to provide sufficient aid once the famine had already started was motivated by laissez-faire politics and a Malthusian belief that the famine was the Irish’s own fault for overbreeding.

Remember that the government with the support of the Whigs and Radicals actually repealed the Corn Laws, it was just too little too late. Ironically the Whig’s free market beliefs if enacted in policy much earlier might have prevented the famine from happening in the first place, while simultaneously meaning they weren’t interested in properly mitigating it once it did happen.

[ETH_start]

The blame has to ultimately be placed at the feet of the mercantilist policies. Once they restricted trade, they were responsible for the welfare of the Irish. So, these arguments that they made, that the Irish were responsible for overbreeding, were not a product of laissez-faire ideology, just their bastardized understanding of it.