What the heck is going on in Belfast?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the circumstances of this Sudanese man being in Northern Ireland?

This is what presumably prompted the outrage: locals are fed up with the back door immigration that allows people to enter and easily seek asylum through a seemingly unguarded, porous border (at least that’s what two articles I read earlier today pointed to).

Everyone has a tipping point when it comes to immigration (ahem…look at the US). And incidents of violent crime often prompt attention, and sometimes prompt a strong reaction.

I think the pp who racialized this really missed the point. Aggressively protesting (like this) is directly attributable to pent up frustration. I mean, look at the post-George Floyd riots/protests.

If you don’t want such an unnecessary, dangerous reaction then the government needs to do a better job of taking the temperature of voters and anticipating where the tipping point is.

Its porous because of the situation with the UK. Something they have no problem with if you are a white person. And again the rates of violence by immigrants is less than the native born population. We are talking about Northern Ireland here!

I am going to ignore your comparison to George Floyd riots.

How many beheadings has the native population attempted in the last couple years?

More than you might think. I'm guessing you think that only Africans or Arabs do it.

When you have to go back 50 years to find another example of it, you’ve lost the argument.

When you focus on one incident of a black refugee harming a white Irishman and ignore other types of violence that are much more prevalent in Belfast, you show your true colors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate to break into the usual racially-charged picking of sides, but there are very real problems with housing being caused by the influx of immigrants.

I sincerely hope that people can look at history and figure out how to better handle migration crises in the future. Calling people racists and mud-slinging isn’t it. Hope this helps! Now, be sure to get back to your robotic responses and aforementioned mud-slinging. Quick! Pick a side!

There may be real problems but the data on the riots/protests show the following:

The CAJ report, he said, found no clear correlation between the areas where violence has flared up in Northern Ireland since 2023 and poverty rates or high immigration rates.

“When you look at the pattern of where attacks are taking place, they’re not in the most deprived areas,” Holder said. “What this points to is that attacks involve particular far-right elements, including some elements of loyalist paramilitary organisations, rather than this being tied to either migration levels or deprivation.”"
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/13/why-...-in-northern-ireland-

[Anonymous]

I’m curious whether the people rioting are provo types or orangemen….or have they finally found something they can agree on?

People on this thread keep talking about Northern Ireland as if it is Ireland. It is not. It is the UK and governed by their policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The UK economy is flatlining. This is a culmination of a sequence of events - the global financial crisis, Brexit (especially!!!), Covid and now Iran. However, there were substantial structural problems which were evident back in the 2000s. This is particularly evident when comparing the wealthier south east with other areas, especially the traditional manufacturing towns.

Anti-immigrant sentiment surged with the accession of Eastern European countries to the EU. There was a large influx of white Eastern European migrants, especially Poles, which was particularly noticeable. Germany opened its doors to Syrian refugees and, given the open borders of the EU, led to fears of a further migrant flux into the UK. Brexit led to an exodus of Europeans and the previous conservative government allowed entry for up to 2 million non-white migrants from outside the EU. I don’t know why the numbers were so high.

Government services are struggling. Youth unemployment has hit 15%. When the economy is sh*t, people are unhappy and look for someone to blame.

A friend in British finance said the Brit economy had been substantially propped up by Russian oligarchs parking their money there. I think that dried up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The video off murder of an english student recently didn't help. He was handcuffed while bleeding out while the police officers denied he was stabbed by an ethnic minority. The police were called because said person claimed they were verbally abused.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlpyw05l75o

The government is trying to clamp down on these videos due to racial tensions.

The murderer falsely claimed racism and his family covered up the crime. It was an ugly and horrific incident in which the outrage is justified but also being fanned by anti-immigrationists.

Ironically the Sikh murderer was born in the UK and the Polish victim was an immigrant.

..which clearly shows that the outrage is about a brown person attacking a white person.

The outrage is mostly about the police handcuffing, mocking, and arresting the dying victim because they reflexively believed his attackers.

There's also a secondary issue of Sikhs being given an exemption to the general prohibition on carrying knives. The murder weapon was an 8" supposedly ceremonial knife.

That people like you minimize what happened and try to de-legitimize the complaints only feeds into and amplifies the far right's agitation.

No, the ultra right's outrage is about nonwhites attacking whites. That's why the ultra right are anti-immigrant.

All fascinating especially since the incident involved a Polish immigrant. Poles (and I am one) and others that were stuck behind the iron curtain have been treated as ‘other’ in Europe for centuries, then again after the fall of the Berlin Wall and as easterners migrated west for jobs post EU formation. My cousins went to UK but eventually had to leave.

[Anonymous]

STOP calling these “riots.”

They are civil rights protests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:STOP calling these “riots.”

They are civil rights protests.

What civil right are they protesting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:STOP calling these “riots.”

They are civil rights protests.

Plus, they have been mostly peaceful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The UK economy is flatlining. This is a culmination of a sequence of events - the global financial crisis, Brexit (especially!!!), Covid and now Iran. However, there were substantial structural problems which were evident back in the 2000s. This is particularly evident when comparing the wealthier south east with other areas, especially the traditional manufacturing towns.

Anti-immigrant sentiment surged with the accession of Eastern European countries to the EU. There was a large influx of white Eastern European migrants, especially Poles, which was particularly noticeable. Germany opened its doors to Syrian refugees and, given the open borders of the EU, led to fears of a further migrant flux into the UK. Brexit led to an exodus of Europeans and the previous conservative government allowed entry for up to 2 million non-white migrants from outside the EU. I don’t know why the numbers were so high.

Government services are struggling. Youth unemployment has hit 15%. When the economy is sh*t, people are unhappy and look for someone to blame.

A friend in British finance said the Brit economy had been substantially propped up by Russian oligarchs parking their money there. I think that dried up.

Rubbish. The UK is the sixth biggest economy in the world. Maybe they were thinking of Malta.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The UK economy is flatlining. This is a culmination of a sequence of events - the global financial crisis, Brexit (especially!!!), Covid and now Iran. However, there were substantial structural problems which were evident back in the 2000s. This is particularly evident when comparing the wealthier south east with other areas, especially the traditional manufacturing towns.

Anti-immigrant sentiment surged with the accession of Eastern European countries to the EU. There was a large influx of white Eastern European migrants, especially Poles, which was particularly noticeable. Germany opened its doors to Syrian refugees and, given the open borders of the EU, led to fears of a further migrant flux into the UK. Brexit led to an exodus of Europeans and the previous conservative government allowed entry for up to 2 million non-white migrants from outside the EU. I don’t know why the numbers were so high.

Government services are struggling. Youth unemployment has hit 15%. When the economy is sh*t, people are unhappy and look for someone to blame.

A friend in British finance said the Brit economy had been substantially propped up by Russian oligarchs parking their money there. I think that dried up.

Much like Trump's family. Oh, nvm, not it's ME money propping up that family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate to break into the usual racially-charged picking of sides, but there are very real problems with housing being caused by the influx of immigrants.

I sincerely hope that people can look at history and figure out how to better handle migration crises in the future. Calling people racists and mud-slinging isn’t it. Hope this helps! Now, be sure to get back to your robotic responses and aforementioned mud-slinging. Quick! Pick a side!

There may be real problems but the data on the riots/protests show the following:

The CAJ report, he said, found no clear correlation between the areas where violence has flared up in Northern Ireland since 2023 and poverty rates or high immigration rates.

“When you look at the pattern of where attacks are taking place, they’re not in the most deprived areas,” Holder said. “What this points to is that attacks involve particular far-right elements, including some elements of loyalist paramilitary organisations, rather than this being tied to either migration levels or deprivation.”"
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/13/why-...-in-northern-ireland-

Are you kidding me? I know about the housing problems, and I live thousands of miles away. It doesn’t need to be happening in your yard to know it’s happening.

[Anonymous]

I’m curious about those that post statistics propagated from an authority.

What makes you believe those stats? You think they wouldn’t alter the parameters to give people the impression that things are not as bad as they seem?

Cancer clusters get covered up by official stats. Crime gets covered up by official stats.

What makes you think the entities that publish those stats that you cling to like gospel are not manipulating things?

If I were a betting person I’d wager that the frustrations that people are reacting to are based on real life experiences that get white washed because authorities don’t want the population to think that foreigners from a vastly different culture are causing problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious about those that post statistics propagated from an authority.

What makes you believe those stats? You think they wouldn’t alter the parameters to give people the impression that things are not as bad as they seem?

Cancer clusters get covered up by official stats. Crime gets covered up by official stats.

What makes you think the entities that publish those stats that you cling to like gospel are not manipulating things?

If I were a betting person I’d wager that the frustrations that people are reacting to are based on real life experiences that get white washed because authorities don’t want the population to think that foreigners from a vastly different culture are causing problems.

Youre refusal to acknowledge far right infiltration in these events is something when you post about impressions/stats/white wash authorities.
Do you believe ANY stats?

[Anonymous]

We were in Belfast about a month ago. We found the local Belfast citizens to be exceptionally clannish.

It was tough for us to get a taxi driver to take us to a Protestant church on Sunday.
The driver we had told us that he normally did not drive on that side of town. He also made disparaging remarks about the union jacks that were flying at every block.

We were kind of clueless Americans but after a while figured out the situation.

I’ve never had a problem getting a taxi driver to drive us to church on Sunday any place in the world ever.

Uber is weird in Belfast too. Before we went to Belfast, I thought yay there is Uber in Belfast.
I think the Uber drivers just stay in there particular side of town. We could never get an Uber driver to show up but we could see them driving around.

Belfast has been open for tourism for the last 20 years, but there is a lot of local clannishness bubbling just below the surface.

The UK props up Belfast with a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The images emerging are really quite disturbing. Is this situation going to spread to nearby locations? Anyone have friends / family there for context??

Seems like another incident of far-right anti-immigration tactics stoked by Musk/X and bots.

POV: A Sudanese man is appropriately charged and detained after stabbing another man. No other details are given. Out come the anti-immigrants because how dare an immigrant harm one of us...only WE WHITE MEN are allowed to do the harming.

What’s your opinion of protests / riots in the US in 2020 regarding police brutality being stoked by Twitter, bots, and foreign governments like China and Russia?

Social media and bots are a scourge. So is the relentless killing of unarmed Black men and women. Violent protests have no place and Ill remind you that our own government stated that many of the violent protests had far-right agitators flaming the violence.

[url]https://www.counterterrorismgroup.com/post/threat-pattern-analysis-assessing-risks-of-protest-infiltrations[google]
[/url]https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110775/documents/HHRG-116-JU00-20200610-SD019.pdf[url]

The common thread I can find is the far-right.

Except the supposed epidemic of killings of unarmed black men by whites has been exposed as a hoax. There are lots of black men being killed, but the inconvenient truth is that the vast majority of the killers are other black men.