to be utterly sick of protests, marches, rallies, and riots

[NameChangeMay2026]

What happened today in Belfast was dreadful. Of course it was.

When Sarah Everard died, there were marches. But a day before she died, an Indian woman Sarah's age was knifed to death in the street in Leicestershire. It was an "honour" killing, I think.

Where was HER lantern on the doorstep of Downing Street? Where was HER march?

My point is, dreadful things happen every day and I am so sick and tired of news items sparking so much public rowdiness. It used to be that the media could report on current events without starting a riot. I know that we have always had riots, but they were the occasional one. And because they were not common, they helped effect change. They were a desperate measure reserved for when nothing else had helped.

Now, together with marches, rallies, and protests, society is constantly disrupted, and I am so, so sick of it. I live in a major city and I can't go anywhere without checking what march, rally, protest, or riot is happening, especially at the weekends. And they are so common that they don't help effect change anymore.

The riots are terrible. Thousands and thousands of pounds' worth of lost property in fires, injured bystanders, police calld away from other duties to attend them. And there are "professional" rabble-rousers who travel to marches, protests, and riots. It's not because they're passionate about a cause. They're just passionate about causing trouble.

I travel for work to major American cities and it's even worse over there. Another day, another riot/protest/march/rally.

They have become a feature of today's society, and I wish they would just stop.

Edit: I actually stay in more because of them. I don't go out of my hotel as much when staying in America, and I don't go to the city centre where I live as much. It's so bad when regular people are put off from walking around city centres because of all these annoying dickheads.

I think it is worse in America, and I'm tired of feeling scared to go out when there, in case I run into an uncontrolled crowd - where the police have guns, and the protestors might, depending on the state.

The burning buildings in Belfast are a disgrace. It's not the owners' fault that this happened.

No one is saying we need to accept violence from anyone. That is a strawman argument you have created

Tell me one thing that the Just Stop Oil marches have achieved, or the pro-Israel/Palestine marches, or the marches for and against the far-right. Or this riot in Belfast. What have any of them achieved? They're not real protests asking for clear, feasible aims, like when the French wanted to fix their state pensions.

You can accept that if you want. That’s up to you.

People here are arguing that we don’t need a to bring in more rapists and violent offenders and add to the numbers. It’s basic math.

Multiple people in this thread are. May I suggest you go back to school?

Being a racist is one of the worst things anyone can be. Along with misogynist.
Being bigoted against someone because of their skin colour is a terrible thing to be.

You can be concerned about immigration policy and not be a racist. That involves assessing the policies and developing solutions that actually deliver the policy objectives while respecting the dignity of individuals who are immigrants.

Small boat arrivals are falling.
The rise in non European migrants post Brexit was due to government policy and many of those policies have now been reversed. The people who moved here under those policies did so entirely legally.

It does not involve setting fire to people's homes because they have a slightly different skin tone - those targeted into Belfast include Romanians who aren't asylum seekers and aren't even Muslim.
Or marching to the homes of Sikh families who are not immigrants and menacing them.

That's not being concerned about immigration policy - that's hating people with a different skin colour or ethnic background.

Whilst public execution isn't really the right term, in the sense of what I think you are referring to, Jo Cox will always stick in my mind. That was absolutely horrendous.

You made a point earlier about when a white British male commits a crime we have to accept it, but we absolutely don't. I get that likely wasn't the crux of the point you were trying to make, but just want to be clear that we never have to accept vawag.

Show us one example of a poster saying we need to accept male violence

Yourself? That Danger whatever poster saying it’s worse when foreign people commit attacks?

I think as we all live in different parts of the country some issues affect some communities more than others so we can’t always quite understand the intense frustration that’s brings a whole community together to protest. In the case of Belfast the fact that Protestants and Catholics united, which is a huge deal in itself, against their enemy ie crazed knife wielding unknown entities in their midst capable of decapitating a neighbour. The fact that neighbours acted together to protect the victim with a hurling stick means it’s a close knit community. And at least in this case there was no confusion as to whom the perpetrator was. It’s hard having people from a different culture who think it’s perfectly normal to behave in extreme ways endangering everyone especially the vulnerable.

So when you go over to the US, you would prefer it if nobody was protesting the downfall of democracy? Do you have any kind of threshold for when you think it might be responsible to protest against injustice/ dictatorship / genocide…. Or no limit at all?

I would define a public execution as a murder that is committed in public.

Most stabbing deaths - especially those committed in public which tend to be gang related are not murder.

I was responding to a poster who stated:

“there are multiple examples of (mainly) women being killed by white men in unprovoked attacks that have drawn none of this level of attention”

and I’m pointing out the huge differentiator here is the public nature of the attack.

you could ask why the Sarah Everard case got so much attention given the tragically routine nature of femicide in this country and one of the reasons is because the CCTV of her walking home made it feel like something we the public witnessed.

i’ll ask again, where are the posts saying we have to accept male violence?

And there it is.

You are happy to accept additional levels of crime from an increase in migrants coming to the UK with very different cultural attitudes to women.

You are willing to accept additional sex crimes against women and children in order to virtue signal your pro immigration stance and "diversity is our strength" bollocks.

I don't support riots, I support protests. I can see why there is so much anger which is then released at various opportunities like this.
I think most people do or should

They start peacefully but usually turn into violence. They cost millions of pounds in additional policing. The UK can't afford the luxury of protests ATM.

The only information provided is that her attacker was white, British and public school educated.

And you have concluded from those facts, that the attack was not preventable.

Given there was an initial attack and then.ater an attempted murder, it does feel like the second attack might well have been preventable?

Or is violence by British public schoolboys just entirely natural and we must just let them get on with it?

You have a habit of making stuff up. Like saying that a dead 18 year old was racially abused during his lifetime when there is no evidence of that. It’s quite disturbing actually.

Where has someone said we should accept violence?

No. Don't march. The marches are constant and are huge, thanks to social media. The constant, endless disruption is not fair on society. Gather to form a demonstration in a park. You can fit tens of thousands into the London parks, if not hundreds of thousands.

There is a two-mile parade planned for my city this weekend (bangs head in despair) and on Monday some Just Stop Oil fuckwits glued themselves to a road in a major square. There is also an anti-immigration march planned and a counter-march from the other side.

That's three fucking marches just this weekend. And they will achieve precisely nothing, because they're not asking for something clear and feasible. What they're asking for is only achievable by the election of different politicians.

They really have nothing better to do with their time but cause trouble for residents. I bet the vast majority don't even live here.

Most stabbing deaths are not murder?!

People setting fire to houses last night were endangering lives, more lives than the barbaric act they were protesting about. The people they were attacking were as innocent as the man attacked. What makes them better than the attacker?

I absolutely did not say we had to accept white male crime.

We have to accept that we do not have a choice about British citizens being in Britain and thus available to commit crime. British citizens are not exclusively white.

They’re predominately charged/pleaded to as manslaughter.

I never said any of that. I’m not the one saying white meb are fine to commit crimes because they’re British.

My city is being absolutely destroyed by them. There are three this weekend alone.

And do you remember when some protestors went into Fortnum's and poured milk all over the floor, and also some against-meat group started going into restaurants and hassling people eating? It's all part of the trend for civil unrest.