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.

The evidence is in the lived experience of those affected, but if you want "numbers" the closest you'll get is those actually imprisoned and the disproportionate % from cultures not always aligned with UK expectations

For politicians, of course, the charm of not collating numbers is the opportunity to pretend something isn't actually happening, and that those insisting it is - or have even experienced it personally - are liars at best

You’ll note I said immigrants and not illegal immigrants. The reality though is that even amongst the illegal immigrants, most eventually contribute positively to society once there immigration status is settled. And we do need them, with a declining birth rate and ever increasing out of work population, we do and will continue to need immigration. Maybe that’s where the rioters efforts should be, instead of burning ordinary people’s homes down?

Do you set fire to your neighbours house when you are angry at an unrelated matter?

Do you thrown bricks at elderly people and children who have no connection to your anger?

Do you go and attack police officers and dog because you’re angry about something that happened to someone else?

What if the Belfast attacker was angry?
Is he allowed to hurt someone just because he’s angry?

You can be angry but you don’t need to get violent.

Violence or hate speech should absolutely be banned, especially if you’re claiming you want a safer country.

It’s a contradiction to say you want safer streets, whilst being violent on the streets.

Not two tier justice? So why has Starmer once again announced the NI rioters will be fast tracked in the courts? Isn’t that treating them under a different tier of justice to other alleged offenders?

So if 7 million isn’t enough, how many before we call the job done? Do we just allow the population to spiral indefinitely with the chaos that causes?

Being traumatised is not the only issue here.

I've no idea what the answer is, but pretending apples = oranges is just perpetuating the problem.

Farage is an absolute tool in my opinion. But he is literally a politician who is quite happy to agree that everything wrong with the UK is caused by immigrants. I can call him an idiot .... Because of free speech. He can blame everything on immigrants because of free speech.
You are free in this country to express your concerns but not incite violence.
We don't live somewhere like Russia where the government are gonna come for you because you said you hate them

Actually, on almost all platforms, if you write anything criticising immigration, you'll get accused of racism and often you'll be kicked off the platform.

That happened 100% of the time before Elon Musk bought X. It's not as bad now but still happens on platforms like Facebook, Reddit and Mumsnet.

How are they expressing their anger in order to be banned or getting arrested?

By inciting violence maybe?

The issue there, JHound, is that they'll simply claim to have come from a country not on the list, and with documentary evidence disposed of - and useful idiots from "refugee charities" panting to supply them with scripts - it won't be easy to prove either way

Yes.

But saying things like "we must deport all illegal immigrants" or "boats must be told they have to go back" is seen as "inciting violence".

He also fast tracked the 2011 rioters following Dugans (a black man's) death. Fast tracking is the standard procedure now for perpetrators in wide scale public disorder. I'd also point out that the man who killed Novak was brought to court and prosecuted very speedily as well. I don't know if it was fast tracked. Likewise the attacker in Belfast was arrested and will now be tried.

What other alleged offenders were you thinking of? The court system in general is too slow/overburdened. But the procedure for wide scale rioting is quite consistent.

Exactly.

The home secretary said in November that even in regards to the 'health and care visa' designed to invite HCPs to England to fill possibly 6-40k jobs in the care sector, 616k arrived between 2022 and 2024, more than half were not even filling care sector jobs but were dependants. Abuse of the system was rife.

It was made public last year that 1.5 million immigrants are in receipt of state benefits.

The Home secretary also said last year that half of refugees were on benefits 8 years after arriving in the UK.

I see plenty of Facebook comments complaining about immigration. The boat people coming over and ruining everything etc so not exactly true is it

No.

Saying "we should burn down their houses" is seen as inciting violence. Especially if the post goes viral and an angry mob does then burn down some buildings.

This. I live in an area of high immigration and the things that government - at both local and national levels - are telling us don’t happen, I see happening every day. People feel that their concerns are not being taken seriously, and any objections are met with shouts of ‘racist’.

I don’t condone what happened in Ireland last night - and by the way there were also protests in Scotland and Southampton - but I do think that if the relevant authorities don’t start addressing peoples’ concerns properly this kind of thing is going to become more and more prevalent. Politicians are out in force condemning the violence, but no-one wants to be honest about the reasons behind it, or what needs to be done. The BBC is following suit, as usual presenting the facts as they see them, not as they are.

We absolutely do not have to get used to idiots setting our communities on fire because they’re anti-migration.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Funnily enough, most people are anti “attempted beheading,” burning down the houses of innocent civilians is not a proportionate response, and we should not get used to it.

I’ve spoken loads about restrictions on immigration on here and social media.

I’ve never been banned because of it.

Perhaps because I’m not promoting hate speech, division or being racist.

There is an entire manosphere and incel movement on the internet.
A man shot and killed 5 people in Plymouth because he was an incel, he shared his views all over the internet.
There are multi neo-nazi’s openly on social media.

You must be saying something incredibly offensive and illegal to be banned from social media.

Find a case where someone has said similar to what your saying where it resulted in arrest and wasn't genuine incitement of violence

We don't live somewhere like Russia where the government are gonna come for you because you said you hate them

Give it time.

Is it?

Do you have examples of people getting arrested for saying just that?

Or do they just get banned on some platforms? I think they can say that on X without issue.

Well I guess, it will have to continue for as long as people are needed, the UK birth rate is in decline and native citizens are not skilled/applying for the jobs that need doing?

The point is Stella Baverman was still bound by the law, a law introduced by Blair. The Tories could have changed the law but there was not the political will to leave ECHR and Baverman could not do it alone. The Tories certainly failed us on immigration, as are Labour currently. Both the Tories and Labour are responsible for Reform gaining strength. I had hoped the Tories could turn it around and present a moderate right of centre party though I was doubtful even before the last election if one spell on the backbenches would be enough due to their prior failures.

Graham Linehan was arrested by armed officers at Heathrow last year for posting a joke about a cross-dressing man on social media.

How do some of you not know this?!

Indeed. It makes you wonder who the people are that are leading the 'nothing to see here' narrative.