The rioting in Belfast and the appalling attacks on Black and Asian people is a direct consequence of the right-wing political establishment doing its utmost to ‘normalise’ racist rhetoric and racist violence right across the UK.
The poisonous language of the Tory right, Reform and its companion party, Restore, would have been universally condemned just ten years ago, but it is now, disgracefully, becoming legitimised as part of the mainstream political discussion. It poses a stark warning to the labour movement of how far the right wing will go to undermine the solidarity and cohesion of the working class.
The rioting in Belfast was triggered by a horrendous knife attack for which a Sudanese man has been charged. A loyalist MP, Jim Allister, referred to the attack as the result of an “alien” immigration culture. It is comments like this, along with a denial of the blatantly racist character of the rioting, which are in practice fanning the flames of racist riots.
There cannot be the slightest doubt that the masked rioters in Belfast – and their copy-cats in Glasgow the day after – were targeting anyone with dark skin. The family of the Belfast victim even released a statement condemning the rioting. “We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country” the statement said, “including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector and we depend on them to make our country work. We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility”.
In Belfast, foreign-owned restaurants like Pizza take-aways and even a Turkish barber were attacked. In the worst incidents, families of migrants – some who have lived in the UK for decades, but had the “wrong” skin colour – had to leave their homes, for their own safety as their homes were set on fire. Several cars in the vicinity were torched.
Nurses chased in Belfast
The Belfast Telegraph reported that a nurse who happened to have a “different skin colour” was chased by four masked white men into the Ulster Hospital. Similarly in Glasgow, Asian-owned shops were attacked and worshippers at the city’s largest mosque had to be locked inside the building for their own safety.
Northern Irish loyalist politicians have implied that immigration has brought with it a “new” level of street violence, but they clearly have short memories. As an opinion piece in the Belfast Telegraph noted, the kind of brutality seen in this knife attack is far from “new” to Northern Ireland. “Anyone saying otherwise”, the author wrote, “is suffering from historical amnesia”.
The nature of this horrendous knife attack was par for the course among loyalist paramilitary gangs forty years ago. The notorious Shankill Butchers were responsible for the torture, mutilation and murder of at least 23 randomly chosen Catholics between 1975 and 1982, mostly with knives and hatchets.
For loyalist MPs to now deny that there is an “issue of racism”, that there is only “an issue of immigration” is yet another example of their staggering hypocrisy. It is fanning the flames of the hatred and rioting they claim to condemn.
Keir Starmer’s reaction to these outrages is in contrast to the moral panic around recent antisemitic attacks, with talk of a national crisis of antisemitism, and calling an emergency “Cobra” meeting. It is small wonder, with a clear ‘heirarchy’ of racism within the leadership, that Labour has lost so much electoral support.
Throwing petrol on the flames
Unfortunately, what is happening in Northern Ireland, has become a UK-wide phenomenon and in that sense it is a new and very alaming development. Reform MPs, and the one Restore MP on their right flank, regularly throw petrol on the fires of racism.
In Southampton, the police bungled an arrest by handcuffing the white victim of a stabbing, Henry Nowak, because his assailant, a Sikh man, had alleged he had been racially abused. When this was revealed and there were racist riots in Southampton – again targeting anyone with a black or brown face – Nigel Farage’s only response was that “British People” should respond “with pure, cold rage”.
Farage argued that the response of Hampshire police and their treatment of Nowak was proof of “a two-tier culture in this country, where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities”. In fact, as the Guardian pointed out, “recent figures show Hampshire police officers are more than five times more likely to stop and search black people than white people”. Farage’s disgraceful comments are partly a response to pressure from his rival on the far right, Restore, whose only MP, former Reform member, Rupert Lowe, wrote on X “Millions must go”.
The “millions” Lowe is talking about – a figure, incidentally, bandied about loosely by Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch – includes essential workers in the NHS and in the care sector, as well as in hospitality. The press reports that in the Northern Ireland town of Portadown, a rioter accidentally set himself on fire while trying to throw a petrol bomb. The irony of his situation will probably be lost on this idiot – as he is treated in hospital by nurses and doctors from an immigrant background.
There is irony too, in the pronouncements of Farage, striding to the defence of the family of Henry Nowak, the son of a Polish migrant and no doubt one of the families listed among Rupert Lowe’s “millions”. During the toxic Brexit campaign in 2016, Farage himself and his party at the time, UKIP, made Polish and other East European workers the main target of their xenophobic smears.
Badenoch, too, is happy to play the immigration card, but had she been in the wrong street in Glasgow or Belfast two nights ago, she herself would have been the target of vicious racist thugs.
A warning to the labour movement
All of these harrowing events must serve as a warning to the labour movement. The far right of the political spectrum – and in this we would include Restore, Reform and some of the Tory party – cannot be compared yet to the fascist parties of the prewar years, although they no doubt have outright fascists in their ranks. But in the face of an insurgent labour movement that seriously and fundamentally challenged the power, profits and privileges of the capitalist class, they would unleash a fascist movement.
Multibillionaire Elon Musk, amid the riots in Northern Ireland, tweeted on his X platform, “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!“. Likewise Trump and his courtiers, Hegseth and JD Vance – all political representatives of the billionaire class – last week made incendiary comments around the D-Day commemoration, citing “invasions” and “waves” of immigrants coming into Europe.
These creatures and the billionaires who finance Nigel Farage are not doing so out of altruism or moral principles. They fear for their future and the security of their ill-gotten riches and political power, so they seek to sow division and discord as a means of protecting the interests.
In 1930s Germany, the target of right-wing Nazi thugs were Jewish people, whereas the British fascists of the future will target all those with a black or brown face. But the fundamental historic mission would be the same – to create division within the working class and ultimately to smash its organisations. The masked rioters of Southampton and Belfast are a prelude to a much darker future, unless the labour movement reacts to the threat.
A number of trade unions have spoken out about the violence in Belfast and the threat to their members. Belfast City Council trade union group. Complosed of four unions, has issued a statement condemning the threats to their members and pointing out the vital role played by migrants in public services.
Unite itself issued a statement saying it is “in conversation with our workplace rep network across Northern Ireland to ensure we are reaching out to and supporting all our ethnic minority members and their families who will no doubt be feeling extremely fearful and anxious…No worker – regardless of ethnicity race or anything else – should have to fear for their safety either in work or at home with their families.”
Statements and actions such as these are very welcome, but the trade unions cannot rely on their employers, or for that matter on the police, to protect their Black and Asian members. There needs to be more than just a moral condemnation of racist thuggery.
The trade unions must actively defend workers in the workplace from violent racists, and, if necessary, reach out into working class communities to do the same. All socialists and trade unionists have a duty to do what they can to support and protect immigrant or black and Asian communities.
But reacting to the threat of growing racist attacks must also means fighting against the Labour and trade union right wing who are often lulled into the same debate around immigrant numbers, when immigration has never been the cause of a declining NHS, or unaffordable housing or other social ills. It must mean fighting inside the labour movement for socialist policies as an answer to the insecurities and uncertainties that workers face.
[Feature picture shows a scene from a riot in Southport two years ago, when the far right again targeted Black and Asian people. From Wikimedia Commons, here]
