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.

Every country in the world has misogynist cultures. Ireland's domestic abuse stats are horrifying.

Yes, on average, there are one or two murders in the UK per day. It’s revealing to see which ones get the publicity, vigils and protests.

Let’s just say that if you’re a woman who is murdered by her white partner, there are unlikely to be any protests or vigils in your name.

We have doctors coming to our SUTR meetings now - hardly their natural home - but they are looking how to work on making it so their current non white colleagues don’t feel unwelcome and/or harassed.

These drs believe the NHS would collapse without immigration - I reckon I’ll take their word for it.

The OP has made some very clear, valid points. Just because you can't follow them doesn't make it "word salad". I think you just like that expression. I like it too, but it's not fitting in this instance.

As someone who had worked in medical recruitment and workforce planning in the NHS, I can tell you with confidence that you are wrong.

The femicide census list was read out at our counter protest yesterday - the protestors were not at first interested until one or 2 with a brain cell realised it wasn’t a great look.

Complete nonsense. NHS pay scales don’t differ according to the nationality of the employee.

A range of views have been expressed on related threads. Not just objections to illegal migration. Objections to accepting any refugees. Objections to accepting any immigrants, including legal ones, from particular areas. When people talk about racism they generally mean those who are lumping everyone ‘foreign’ in together or suggesting some behaviours are inherent in every person with a particular background. If you, or anyone else, isn’t doing that, then it isn’t you who is being referred to.

I thought the government had brought in laws making it more difficult to protest? Presumably so people are powerless when things really start going wrong.

I've never seen a protest except for when I was living next to Cambridge mosque and the Turkish president visited. There were police in full riot gear, in two lines holding back about 20 middle-class protesters. Me and the dogs had to be escorted to our front door by a police officer which was quite amusing.

It's not been reported why the man attacked the other is there? Was yer man just ambling along minding his own business to be attacked by a rabid migrant for no apparent reason.

Would be interesting to know what the background was.

No one is intentionally bringing in murders and rapists - you do realise that don’t you?

Unfortunately, men are the problem and men can be dangerous regardless of race, religion or nationality.

If known convicted criminals were being brought into this country, then I would understand why people are protesting.
But they’re not, so the protests are idiotic and an excuse to be racist.

The men who saved the man in Belfast were immigrants too, so you cannot imply that it’s immigration that’s the issue.

The Belfast attacker was not born in this country - it caused riots.
Digwa was born into this country - yet it still caused riots.
Alina Burns was born in this country - yet there have been no protests/riots over it.

I totally agree with this. I've worked in mental health units where many patients have carried out the sort of deranged attacks that happened in Belfast. They were not followed up with riots and hand-wringing! They were understood to be the actions of very unwell people.

I totally see where you're coming from OP, and YANBU to be sick of it at all, but removing the right to protest, especially in times like these, would lead society into a very frightening place. I think we probably all agree it's tighter supervision of protests that's needed, together with tackling the root causes of what's fuelling people's anger. (And as usual, a lot of the difficulty with these measures lies with austerity.)

But if we remove people's right to voice anger and dissent, we might as well declare ourselves a totalitarian state and have done with it. Our right to a voice is terribly, terribly important, more important than the annoyance caused by traffic congestion, unfortunately.

That said, the hijacking of protests as an excuse for rioting/looting etc needs to be tackled far more effectively. And I agree that the selectiveness that's sometimes seen around which causes are protested over, and the fact that protests could be used to so much more constructive ends such as the ones you suggest, are frustrating issues.

I have been feeling like this for a while because I live in London. The fact that it is now spreading to other places was foreseeable. That is why I raised it previously but was told I was being undemocratic.

A couple of weekends ago a middle aged female animal rights activist thought it was OK to approach my 12 year old DS and his friends (all still small short boys) and ask them if they are enjoying the breast milk from the cow they are eating. She had two people with aggressive looking dogs with her. My DS was eating a sorbet icecream. In what world do we live that that woman thought it was OK to indoctrinate my child and make him feel intimidated on a sunny half term day when he was doing nothing wrong at all and was just enjoying his time and an icecream with his friends. That is not free speech. It is aggressive and completely unacceptable and this kind of thing needs to stop, full stop.

For what it's worth, I think some politicians regard this kind of bloodletting as a "safe" outlet for all the public discontent over everything from immigration to cost of living to tech controlling our lives. Safe, that is, for them, not their constituents. The elite imagine their money will protect them. Marie Antoinette thought the same.

Also...Why do you think migrants would be cheaper to employ? You clearly know absolutely nothing about how NHS employment works

Riots and demonstrations are not the same thing, not sure why you’re conflating the two. One is controlled protest, the other is uncontrolled chaos. Both speak to dissatisfaction but in totally different ways. Be grateful you don’t live in France.

So let me get this straight.

Despite international laws and treaties, we should stop allowing. immigrants/migrants/asylum seekers into the UK.

I've now seen this ' don't need to add to our homegrown rapists and murderers' comeback a few times now, and that's what it means, because these people do not arrive with ' I'm a rapist' signs around their necks, so there would be no way to identify them anyway.

So a blanket ban on immigration. Don't come back with the ' tougher routes' rubbish, if that was possible it would be in place by now, and Reform /Restore would have a proper, workable and costed, plan for immigration instead of howling from the side lines whipping up civil unrest.

Our country would collapse with this policy. Economically and financially ruined. The racists will have got they wanted and will be even more empowered than they are now.

That's not a country I want to live in. Intolerant, uncaring and elitist.

Nobody has to remove the right to protest completely. We can have laws where you have to give X notice and can only stand in Y place without marching and disrupting others. And we can have squares allocated for that specifically. Then those who want to go see what is up can. And the police can monitor it easily. And the rest of us who do not want to be involved do not have to be! Like the OP says, this is now making people angrier.

Look in the past nobody could reach an audience of many millions instantaneously. Nobody could post etc - we all can protest extremely easily online now anyway.

We also cannot have a situation where they outlaw face coverings for some people but allow others to do it for religious reasons (which some people will hijack to keep anonymity). It is too divisive.

Social media has a lot to answer for. People are easily manipulated. This is particularly scary when those doing the manipulating don't even live in the UK. Have a read of this and see what Musk is up to: ‘There’s wee girls inside’: panic as masked men storm house in Belfast | Northern Ireland | The Guardian

The Valdo Calocane inquiry has revealed a "catastrophic collapse of responsibility" because the attacks were avoidable - he should never have been let out on the streets.

This Sudanese guy should never have been let in the country; it's the same principle of protecting us from harm.

The fact that people like him are slipping through the system shows that it's not fit for purpose, and no government seems to address this problem.

Yes, the mobs are ugly and incoherent, but I completely understand their frustration and anger.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8d932zl27o

There have been over 500 murders in this country this year alone, only a handful of these have been caused by immigrants

It must be more than a handful each year - there were nearly 1,000 foreign national offenders serving prison sentences for ‘causing death’ as at June 2025, although I don't know how many are Irish. In addition, these stats would not include those offenders who had acquired UK citizenship;

Hansard
Homicide: Foreign Nationals

MP for North West Norfolk · Question · Tabled 24 February 2026 · 115572
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national offenders in UK prisons have been sentenced for causing the death of one or more people.

Answer · Ministry of Justice · 4 March 2026
As of 30 June 2025, there were 989 Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) in prison in England and Wales serving a sentence for a principal offence involving ‘causing death’.

https://westminsterbrief.co.uk/archive/pq/115572

Why don't you consult the history books? Maybe start with Lebanon. Or listen to a war analyst like David Betz.

Many of the people protesting/rioting last night weren't distinguishing between different types of immigration. I bet they weren't asking the people whose homes they torched last night what their right to live in this country was, they saw the colour of their skin and burnt their house down.

There could quite easily have been a white family of immigrants but they would have been safe.

Eastern European countries have issues with misogyny and domestic violence, should we have a blanket ban for them, to protect our women and children?

First of all Henry Novak wasn't murdered with a ceremonial blade carried for religious reasons, he was murdered with an illegal weapon nothing to do with Sikhism.

Secondly, yes, there have been some shocking crimes committed by 'immigrants' and 'refugees' (though the Sikh guy that murdered Henry Novak was British born). Each of those crimes is a terrible tragedy. However, violent crimes committed by 'immigrants' and 'refugees' don't even remotely move the dial when it comes to overall violent crime rates. In fact, the last 20 or so years has seen a real & steady decline in violent crime rates (and that is based on the very reliable and accurate British Crime Survey, not crimes actually reported to the Police). This factual information is just a couple of clicks away via google.

There is no meaningful sense in which immigration has 'sent our country back to the Stone Age' - although there are characters out there who will be delighted that you believe this, and that you've said so on a forum like this one. The same characters that exploit a tragic murder or grievous assault, and encourage trouble in the streets.