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.

Actually, if you learned to read beyond a year one level, you’d see the point I made is Farage et al and his little followers didn’t care. They didn’t go out rioting in the streets when these events happened, because they were committed by white men.

Thanks for proving my point re it being the uneducated in this country that do this though!

I'd much rather a bunch of racists didn't burn stuff, throw things at police, punch police horses and stirr up racial hatred each time there was a terrible crime committed by someone, British or not, with black or brown skin, whilst ignoring equivalent horrible crimes committed by British people.

OK, so use your vote, write to the papers, write to your MP, canvass on behalf of your favoured candidate. Yes, we need growth, but Britain is a low-productivity country. There are reasons - can't remember, but you can look online. I seem to remember part of it was a lack of corporate investment.

If growth is what you want, you could raise money for something like The Prince's Trust, which gives small loans to young people for training and business development.

What is pointless is all this aimless protesting that has anger but not clarity. So tired of having my city taken over during the few hours I'm off work. It's constant.

@ijustwanttoworkoutok so there’s the first point of agreement we have established. There does need to be a limit and controls on immigration. So what does everyone think should be done about it? In particular, illegal crossings?

People have tried voting for lower immigration for decades. They got higher.

When democracy fails, people protest.

I don’t think he came here to start a business.

Probably what’s happening now, wherein it’s falling.

But that’s not the point I’m making. The point I’m making is the people out rioting don’t really care about immigration. They just want to be racist and smash things up.

What good does that do? I wrote to my MP endlessly about the GRA and received curt responses saying ‘I disagree with you’. It took the Supreme Court to rule on it, Parliament never actively did anything.

You’re getting lower immigration.

Down from over 900,000 to 150,000.

Lie. The government doesn’t publish ethinictiy statistics on criminals or crime.

It wasn't like now though, where huge events bring city centres to a standstill, constantly. The ones you mention were small.

800k or Nearly a million immigrants last year. Down from several million in preceding years is not an anything to celebrate. Thinking that 800k immigrants in one year is an achievement is delusional.

I agree. Sick of everyone being so angry about everything without actually doing anything to change it. And I’m fed up with the media whipping up anger too with the constant DM sad face stories which are now omnipresent across all media outlets.

While I agree governments have to be held to account they are not able to solve everyone’s individual problems and people should put the effort in themselves to improve their own lives, their families’ lives and those of their local communities.

It was an attempted beheading.

It's not about you.

Correct, but other groups undertake research.

I’d like you to retract that accusation and apologise please.

https://news.sky.com/story/child-sex-abuse-and-grooming-gangs-what-we-know-and-what-we-dont-from-the-data-13285420

Perhaps if we had a fair voting system and politicians who knew about real life, their policies and inactions would mean less anger.

What do you think Farage knows about real life?

@ijustwanttoworkout you have to realise you cannot talk for everyone, you don’t know what they think and want and it’s really not helpful to pretend that you do. It’s dehumanising, and the exact thing that you seem to be against! Immigration is going down - that is true. It correlates to the increase in social unrest, protests and campaigns on social media from ‘right wing agitators’. So, do you not think the two things are connected? And perhaps there is a purpose to the protests and growing calls for change?

There’s no sensible political debate any longer. People take a position, refuse to believe and deny any evidence that doesn’t support that position, and characterise anyone who disagrees or who even mildly challenges their position as scum, or corrupt, or a “traitor”.

The general population as a whole is getting thicker and thicker and thicker. We’ve never had so much actual information at our fingertips; yet, never has there been more misinformation. Critical thinking is an alien concept to large numbers of people.

It’s difficult not to conclude that we’re seeing the start of the end of human civilisation. That society peaked and we’re at the beginning of the gradual decline back to the Stone Age.

No I don’t think the violence of the racist thugs is connected at all.

@ijustwanttoworkoutwhat about the campaigns on social media, petitions being signed, growing comments you see from all sorts of people on news stories and threads like these?

The 2003 'Stop the War' march is the biggest the UK has ever had.

The “campaigns” and social media shit is largely foreign accounts, bots paid to destabilise our country.

Can’t you think of a reason why the police in Northern Ireland might have guns?