Footage of a horrific knife attack in Belfast began to circulate on social media on Monday evening. A Sudanese asylum-seeker in his 30s, who entered the UK in 2023, has been charged with attempted murder. Meanwhile, the far-right was quick to exploit the situation to further an anti-immigration agenda.
Violent unrest followed on the streets of Belfast and beyond on Tuesday evening. Houses, cars and a bus were set alight, and masked men were seen smashing in windows. Some of the attacks on property were reportedly racist in nature.
Posting earlier on social media, activist Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) urged supporters to join street protests against this “invader attack”. Robinson provided a list of locations across Great Britain and Northern Ireland where protests were planned on Tuesday night.
His post on X was shared by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who called for citizens to protest “repeatedly and loudly” to change government policies around immigration. The leader of Restore UK, Rupert Lowe, pledged that his party would begin mass deportations and reintroduce the death penalty to prevent attacks committed by “barbarians”.
At the same time, WhatsApp messages from anonymous accounts began to circulate, calling for men aged 18 and over in Northern Ireland “be prepared to fight or be arrested”.
Calls for calm
Politicians from across Northern Ireland’s political divide appealed for calm with some condemning rightwing English politicians like Lowe for appearing to exploit the attack for their own ends.
And chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Jon Boutcher urged citizens not to be “duped” into violent disorder by people online intent on provoking trouble.
The fact that a man had been charged with attempted murder did little to deter the crowds of mostly young men who gathered across Belfast, setting a bus on fire on the Lower Newtownards Road and engaging in sporadic clashes with police across the city.
There were reports of violence in towns such as Ballyclare and Portadown. In Ballyclare, the premises of a Turkish barber was attacked. There were also arrests made after demonstrations in Glasgow where three members of the public were injured.
You could be forgiven for thinking this playbook has been seen before. In the past two years, far-right actors have used online platforms to weaponise incidents involving minorities as part of their anti-immigration campaigns. These incidents include allegations of an attempted rape of a teenage girl in Ballymena, the murder of three young girls in Southport and the murder of Henry Nowak in Southampton.
Misinformation frequently circulates in online spaces as authorities come under pressure to confirm the ethnicity and asylum status of suspects. The PSNI were very quick to give these details, presumably to avoid creating an information vacuum in which falsehoods might spread quickly.
Emergence of a toxic discourse
Facts don’t appear to matter to those leveraging shock and trauma to advance their claims that immigration is to blame for acts of violence. Condemnation of online far-right agitators from politicians usually follow amid criticism of big tech companies for not doing more to stop agitators inciting violence on their platforms.
Politicians and public figures must do more than say “not in our name”. They must take some of the blame for helping to create a toxic discourse around immigration that “others” asylum-seekers and migrants.
The Overton Window, the barometer of what is considered a politically acceptable argument, has shifted towards the right, as demonstrated by Lowe’s remarks. Mis- and disinformation about immigration take root in some communities because they frequently hear how asylum-seekers receive priority access to already under-funded public services.
A frequent refrain among politicians is that these are “legitimate concerns”, even when there is little evidence to support these claims. This often leads to minority communities being blamed for issues that are nothing to do with them.
The mainstreaming of rightwing views on immigration is reinforced by media coverage that frequently fails to fact-check claims about issues such as asylum-seekers and welfare benefits. In this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that immigration features among the issues of most concern to voters in Great Britain.
It is now for politicians to decide how to respond to the violence seen in Belfast and elsewhere this week. While online platforms can clearly do better when it comes to removing inflammatory posts, public figures must also fix the problem they helped to create. The public needs a fact-based narrative on immigration that stops blaming asylum-seekers and refugees for broader societal problems.
Paul Reilly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.