"Race-based pogrom" and "huge act of self-harm by mindless idiots who are actually only damaging their own futures".

Well I wonder if this means immigrants will avoid NI.
Which means they will have succeeded.

Yes, we have been through that.

My comment was in response to a now deleted post re immigration. The open border argument that the rightwing likes to use.

Is he actually in Belfast in the riots now? Gross. I didn't know that. It's amazing noone wants to protect their women and girls from him.

Haha, so true The rioters are scary, but they're not committed. Fair weather "politics" while the sun is out.

GB doesn't have open borders simply because we are an Island nation but the U.K does have an open border with Ireland in Northern Ireland.

What do you mean with illegal immigration?

Unfortunately when reasonable people don't get control of a situation then unreasonable people will step in. The people to blame are successive governments of multiple European countries that have allowed this mass movement of people from third world countries onto our shores.

Immigration is fine. It’s the illegal immigration that no one wants.

You wouldn’t get this in the middle of winter

Yes, I think most of us got that. We're saying the analogy doesn't hold up. And also that loyalists waving union jacks probably don't see Ireland as colonised "again", even if they mistake immigration for colonisation.

The changes here have only been superficial and nothing has been done to address the deep social and economic inequalities in NI. We have generations of families who have had no prospects and have been left to fester in social housing that's inadequate with little prospect of employment or improvement of their prospects. The boundaries between communities were drawn decades ago and walls/barriers put up to prevent as little interaction as possible and then just left that way.

In my view, our post conflict society needs serious investment to promote societal change that will benefit both sides of the divide here.

Conor McGregor is leading the charge 🤷‍♀️

Clian is likely referring to Ireland's history of being colonised by Britain over the last 800-900 years e.g. the Anglo-Norman invasion, the Plantation of Ulster, Cromwell's murderous campaign in Ireland, the Tudors' forcible moving of large numbers of the population off their lands, the banning of Catholic worship and of teaching Irish in schools etc. Irish history has been very unsettled because of multiple invasions from viking times onwards.

I'm not from NI either. But I know enough to know that a hardcore loyalist in Belfast is unlikely to consider himself a Celtic victim of British colonisation.

I think he was killed in a Catholic area but the rioting was happening in a Protestant area? Based on the kerbstones but I'm not expert. I was more responding to the comment about "the Celts" not wanting to be colonised again. It shows a huge lack of understanding of anything really.
Granted there are also anti immigrant protests in the Republic of Ireland. But it's not where the rioting is happening right now.

I don’t know about you, but despite my SM history being largely cronching dogs and left wing political commentators, I and finding more and more very right wing content being served up to me by the algorithm. It so sneaky though, it will be 15 seconds in before what looked like someone just talking about something of interest, it will bait and switch to racist, misogynistic or homophobic ranting. Then of course because you watched a bit of it, that clicks something somewhere saying you like it so more and more pops up.

If I were an “on the fence” type person who didn’t ever check sources, I’d be convinced by the arguments and who knows what I’d believe.

If you think that isn’t deliberate by the people who make billions off it, you haven’t been paying attention.

Given where the attack happened, I assume not. I'm not from NI. Would the response have been different in West Belfast?

It's such an own goal from the protestors. So many people have worked so hard since the Good Friday Agreement to rebuild NI and make it an attractive place to start a business, take a holiday, film a TV series or film, and so on. And in one night of mindless violence we're right back to the sort of terrifying images we used to see on TV week after week during the Troubles. I feel very sorry for the vast majority of decent, law-abiding people in NI.

I don't think the people rioting consider themselves Irish/Celtic in the main.

This is just terrifying. Driving people from their homes because of the colour of their skin.

I think the Celtic countries have, until now, had a very lofty view of themselves as far more pro immigrant and tolerant than the English. However, that was all well and good when they had far less immigration than us.
Now their own numbers are rising, suddenly they’re displeased by it and acting in the same way the English have for some time now. 🤷‍♀️

Its been pishing down here for the past half an hour. Hoping it keeps up all day.🙏

Invaded and colonised? Get a grip. 1.93m people live in NI and just under 97% are white. The vast majority of those were born in NI. 2379 people are estimated to be in receipt of asylum support. https://www.lawcentreni.org/news/refugee-facts-and-statistics/

It was part of the statement by the Demo ratio Unionist Party leader in the HoC, iirc.

They're not even bothering to be subtle about their ultimate agenda, and to heck with the facts.

It's very important to note the strong links between loyalist/ unionist gangs and political parties (especially the DUP) and fundamentalist Christian nationalists in the US.

I agree OP. On the radio this morning, one guest described needing to take in a family including children who'd been burned out of their house in the middle of the night. The next guest was asked to condemn it, and started with "My thoughts are with the innocent victim of the attack on Monday".

How could children fleeing an arson attack not be considered innocent victims too?