After Belfast Burns: Statement on Recent Racist Violence

This violence did not emerge from nowhere. There is strong evidence to suggest that there is an alliance between far-right figures and loyalist paramilitary groups. Only last month in Northern Ireland, a self-confessed Nazi and ex-National Front leader, Mark Brown, met a local council chief exec­ut­ive to discuss "immigration concerns".

But this is not unique to Northern Ireland. Yesterday in Glasgow, worshippers also barricaded themselves inside the city's largest mosque as racist riots took place, allegedly in sympathy with Stephen Ogilvy, who is Scottish. It has also been fewer than two years since we saw pogroms across England and Northern Ireland following the Southport attacks. We need to question how these coordinated racist mob attacks have become a normalised and repeated pattern across the United Kingdom.

The blame for this violence does not just lie with the far-right. Political leaders have been laying the groundwork. Keir Starmer made a speech about Britain being at risk of becoming an "Island of Strangers". A speech that laid the path for the most vicious immigration policies being proposed by the Home Secretary. Here is Kemi Badenoch, Conservative leader, speaking after the attack:

"Why are ethnic minorities being targeted? It is because a large number of people have come into the country and a percentage of those people have committed heinous crimes... [Conservative pledge on] leaving the [European] convention on human rights is just the beginning. We're going to need to do some very difficult and tough things to police our borders."

Only the person who attacked Stephen Ogilvy is responsible for his actions, not the Belfast children who were made homeless and are now too frightened and traumatised to go to school. Badenoch adopts far-right talking points when she claims that Black and Brown people are being made unsafe by immigration policy. It is not a logical consequence for pogroms to follow knife attacks by people racialised as non-white. It is a deliberate and rehearsed racist strategy to create folk devils to control the wider population and legitimise their false solutions.

This strategy doesn't function when we remove the white supremacist frame. Last year when Paul Doyle, a 53‑year‑old, rammed his car repeatedly into a Liverpool FC parade crowd, he injured over 130 people. Tommy Robinson and others were quick to incite people to take to the streets assuming the attacker was non-white. But Doyle was white, a former Marine and a father of three.

Once these facts were established, there were no attacks on marines or white men in cars. Imagine if, following Doyle's attack, the national conversation had started on why are middle-aged white men prone to road rage. With talk shows trading statistics about white middle‑aged men's high risk factors for impulsivity, alcohol abuse, and suicide rates as evidence that all white middle-aged men are a suspect population. It would be absurd. It would be fiercely resisted. Yet that same logic – with less material evidence and based purely on racist stereotypes – is applied to migrants and the "migration" debate.

By linking criminality with migration, politicians are fueling the real fires being set on government owned homes with multiple occupancy and the so-called "migrant hotels". If the agreed logic is that entire populations should be punished, for the act of individuals who share arbitrary traits. Then when politicians condemn and disavow racist mobs, the condemnation isn't on principle of collective punishment but on tactics. We also note this lack of care and concern for the racist attack victims from authorities.

Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR), a local Belfast based NGO, has published a statement on the attacks and the state's official response. They have said:

"We are deeply disappointed by the response of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to the needs of families whose homes were attacked and property destroyed"

Citing that volunteers have witnessed PSNI officers not offering support to get trauma-stricken families to safe accommodation. Housing homeless families has been left to the efforts of small under-resourced charities and communities, the Northern Irish executive has been absent from rehousing those in need.

What is needed is consistent anti-racist politics that rejects the vicious hatred of the far-right. Right now, a climate of fear shrouds Black and migrant communities across the UK. Black Lives Matter UK will be supporting organisations offering mutual aid and support for people who have been burned out of their homes. We will also be pushing back by supporting initiatives of communities on the frontline.

We ask our supporters to donate to this fundraiser by Anaka Women's Collective. They have been showing up for their community, acting in solidarity to get targeted families out of danger from racist attacks. If you can't donate, please share their crowdfunder. We will also be talking with our friends at Migrants Rights Network and Migrants Organise who are linked with people on the ground in Belfast.