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.

Yes, the people who have answered calls for organised violence are definitely going to be able to rely on a mental health card. Definitely

I think change will be slow, but I also think that slow change is better than no change. With respect you placed blame with 'the left' but it is 'the left' in the form of this Labour government that has moved forward with this.

I do think that there are some people who have been cautious about being labelled racist, or at least claim that. There are many others, lots from the left, who have pushed these and other sensitive issues. I think you make changes by working with progressive voices within communities, rather than deferring to the most conservative voices or writing off whole communities as backward.

Me, I'm a little sick of people who claim to be concerned about these women, but only when they can use that concern as a stick to beat other immigrants with. I'm not necessarily saying that is true of you.

A woman gets killed by her partner in the UK every three days, where are the riots? Half of those men are white so lets just sweep the whole thing under the rug. The dark skinned guy with serious mental health problems that arrived here in a dingy and doesn't have a pot to piss on? He needs to be blamed for our demise. The rich and powerful have done a great job convincing us that it's all their fault, in the meanwhile they're all moving abroad with their money to tax heavens.

Is it racist to target people because of the colour of their skin?

Oh yes - definitely reasons - just not the ones you are implying. The ‘reason’ is selfish - basically they can go out shouting, being violent and rioting, some of their favourite things, and that’s it. They aren’t really protesting about immigration they just hang their hat on that peg for ease.

Countless NI posters have explained on here why the appalling level of rioting and violence took place in Belfast - and it wasn’t to do with a dubious grant of asylum.

The perpetrator was on top of the victim stabbing his eyes and sawing at his neck.

Do you think the women killed by their partners are killed in nice ways?

I agree and it can feel very scary at times.

But just remember that there are more of us than there are of them.

They just happen to shout louder because they’re less intelligent.

Last time they tried this the inner city gangs started retaliating and then they ran off scared.

I hope it doesn’t come to that again but if they keep threatening women and children like this then people will retaliate and put them back in their place.

These right winged idiots want to create division and hate.
We will never let them win.

In employing fully qualified doctors from abroad, rather than training domestic graduates from scratch the UK saves roughly between £100k and £250k in upfront medical school and training subsidies per overseas recruit. The British Medical Journal recently reported that relying on overseas doctor recruitment has saved the NHS billions in structural training costs. The significant downside to overseas recruitment is that overseas doctors treat the UK as a stepping stone to gain experience before moving on to higher paying countries like the US, Australia and Canada.

SO THAT MAKES ALL OTHER VIOLENCE OKAY?

Fuck me. They tried to kill kids in their beds. Nothing, and I mean nothing, justifies that.

Well exactly. There's obviously a hierarchy of murder niceness.

Why not? They may lack capacity and being taken along by a crowd, they might have paranoid schizophrenia or delusions….

Do you not think the words ‘there are more of us than there are of them’ create their own brand of division and hate ?

That’s your shouting words not mine.

Vile. Absolutely vile.

Every time you think the far right can’t stoop any lower they go even further.

Don’t be so stupid. Just cos you wanna set fire to houses because of your vile deluded racist ideals doesn’t mean everyone else is fine with it

I think is to the gov to ensure crimes such as the Belfast one don’t happen. We don’t need that kind of violence.

Of course work on all violence but there’s no need to ignore the risk of adding more.

Attempting to behead someone is a very clear and deliberate act of attempted murder. Acting recklessly is not attempted murder regardless of how potentially horrific the outcome of that reckless act could be.

No not at all.

There are absolutely more of us that don’t want to create division and hate.

We don’t want violence.
We want safe streets.
We will not be bullied by violent thugs that want to divide us.

I understand the fear people are going through but we will always win because there are more of us.

Do you have children?

I personally do not think it unreasonable to not expect my son to have his home set on fire because of an action somebody completely unknown to him committed.

Just imagine for a single second that your house gets petrol bombed because it happens to be somewhere near a migrant’s house. You go out to work this morning and your car has been torched because someone was “angry.”

It’s absolutely not acceptable to set anyone’s house on fire. But my family, and yours, do not deserve to be caught up in it.

And once again you need to be reminded that two things can be true at once. There can be sympathy for the victim of the attack and sympathy for those whose homes were burned as a result of the violence. Playing top trumps just makes it worse. These incidents are happening more and more. People have genuine concerns about immigration and those concerns are highlighted every time there is an attack like this. Government doesn’t want to know - the very first thing that’s been said after each of these incidents is ‘violence is not the answer’. Fine, OK then tell us what you’re going to do about it as a government, because standing there wringing your hands and condemning people as right wing thugs won’t work for much longer. If government doesn’t address people’s concerns people will continue to take matters into their own hands, and then what ?

Yes, he was a psycho with mental health problems, unfortunately they come in every shape and skin colour. Lets lock the guy inside Broadmoor and stop burning other peoples property ok?

Them taking “matters into their own hands” means they go to prison, ideally.

How do you know that, have you seen a psych report?

And are you aware of the current violence in Sudan?

What has everyone else not being fine with it got to do with the price of eggs? People with mental illness health do not behave in certain ways because people are not fine with it. They are driven by their mental ill health (and are far more likely to cause themselves harm than anyone else). In any case I have no idea if this person had mental health issues. But neither does anyone else, I am just commenting on the fact that this was quickly pulled out as an excuse for the attacker but not the arsonist.