What’s REALLY fuelling Britain’s riots?
6/10/202630 min
The family of Stephen Ogilvie, the victim of the Belfast stabbing, has called for calm and said they don’t want the “terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.”, as Sudanese national Hadi Alodid was charged with attempted murder, threats to kill an NHS radiographer and possession of a knife.
Last night, violence spread across parts of Belfast, with police attacked, properties damaged and communities left on edge after a video of the attack was shared online. Politicians and police have pointed to the role of social media, misinformation and outside agitators. But what is really driving the disorder?
On this episode of The Fourcast, Jackie Long explores what's happening in Northern Ireland, why immigration has become such a political flashpoint, and whether far-right voices are helping fuel tensions online.
Jackie is joined by Allison Morris, Crime Correspondent at The Irish News, former Metropolitan Police officer Victor Olisa, and Robert Topinka, lecturer and researcher on far-right movements and online radicalisation.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsVictor Olisa· Guest0:00
The reason I think that a Black person kills a white person, we have riots, a white person kills a Black person, we don't have anything. Fundamentally, Black people are a chattel, are disposable.
Allison Morris· Guest0:10
We have some of the highest rates domestic abuse and femicide in all of Europe. So if we're going to say let us deport people because there's a chance that a dangerous man might get through, it would be well within the rights of every country in Europe and beyond to say, well, every white Northern Irish man should now be banned from traveling as well.
Robert Topinka· Guest0:28
The UK case has been a key example in the kind of transnational far right. Figures like Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson effectively coordinating these attacks and these, these racist pogroms.
Jackie Long· Host0:38
Hello, and welcome to The Forecast. Are we set for a summer of unrest on our streets? That's the fear following a night of violence in Belfast that saw houses, cars, and a bus set on fire, and ethnic minority families hounded out of their homes. It was prompted by a horrific knife attack in the north of the city, but stoked by social media, including posts by Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk. The alleged attacker was a refugee from Sudan, and anger over immigration has been the starting point for a number of riots over the last year, though driven by online disinformation and inflammatory rhetoric from politicians and far-right campaigners. So is further chaos inevitable, or can calm be restored? Well, to discuss this, I'm joined by author and academic Robert Topinka, who is researching how reactionary digital