Lessons for Australia in Belfast riots, whipped up by racist fearmongering

Horrific video footage of a man reported to be a Sudanese asylum seeker in Northern Ireland wielding a knife and stabbing another man’s head and neck while he was pinned to the ground has been quickly seized on by far-right activists to drum up immigration fear across Europe.

Belfast police dealing with the aftermath of the horrific attack said there was no indication it was terror-related. They subsequently charged the 30-year-old man with attempted murder. His victim is in a serious condition in hospital receiving treatment for eye, facial and back wounds.

The notorious British far-right figure Tommy Robinson quickly posted the Belfast footage on Elon Musk’s social media site X, and it went viral, garnering more than 2 million hits until age-related restrictions and a warning on the video stopped the pile-on. Twelve hours later, Robinson’s exhortation to “protest tonight” was viewed by 6.8 million followers, and he listed gathering sites in 70 cities: “The whole of the United Kingdom is hitting the streets tonight at 7pm following yet another invader attack on our people.”

The attack came on the anniversary of last year’s riots over immigration in Northern Ireland that began when two Roma teenagers were charged with sexually assaulting a female from Ballymena. Ironically, while right-wing, populist, anti-immigration parties have emerged across Europe, Northern Ireland and Ireland have so far been fairly barren ground for such reactionary populists.

But now Belfast – a city once riven by sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants – is a city again confronted by rioters and groups of masked men torching the homes, business and cars of immigrant residents in the city’s east. There were also isolated copycat attacks on property across Northern Ireland.

Protesters also gathered in Glasgow city centre and St Andrew’s Square in Edinburgh and crowds stood outside a Southampton hotel that had housed asylum seekers, holding signs reading “Illegal Migration Is Destroying Our Civilisation”. The latest troubles come just days after the backlash over the release of bodycam footage of English police handcuffing Henry Nowak after he had been stabbed by a Sikh assailant and lay dying.

While Northern Irish and British officials called for calm, populist politicians, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and his rival at breakaway Restore Britain, Rupert Lowe, weaponised the Belfast situation for their own ends, sharing a partly blurred image of the attacker. Said Lowe: “We do not have to live like this – there is another way. Death penalty, mass deport