Up next in 10
Groups of masked thugs targeted homes and businesses owned by migrants in Belfast after a Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with attempted murder following a “sickening” knife attack. Protesters set fire to multiple homes, a Middle Eastern supermarket and several vehicles, including a bus and a police car, and vandalised a barber shop after ignoring calls for calm. Residents and neighbours were forced to flee for their lives as flames engulfed terraced properties in Belfast. As the nation prepares for it all to happen again, Iain Dale calls for an end to the obfuscation. #iaindale #lewisgoodall #nigelfarage #elonmusk #belfast #riots #fakenews #ukpolitics #lbc
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
45 years ago this summer there were a series of violent riots that took place in many parts of
0:08
england um i think the first one was in brixton but they followed in toxteth in handsworth in
0:15
birmingham i think st paul's in bristol as well and several other places too i fear that we might
0:22
be about to repeat this but possibly on a bigger scale and i don't say that to scaremonger i i look
0:29
at the situation that we've seen um with the protests that happened in southampton was it last
0:35
week or the week before and now what's happened in belfast last night and the night before
0:41
and also what happened in glasgow and a few other couple of other places in scotland as well
0:47
including air i mean you don't think of air as somebody somewhere that you're likely to have
0:51
um a violent protest and the the common theme among these is that they've been in response to
0:59
a crime allegedly committed by somebody from either a different race or ethnic minority group
1:05
or an asylum seeker. Now, there are agitators at foot here who are fomenting discontent
1:15
There are understandable reasons for people to protest, but protest does not have to turn
1:21
violent. But there are people who are determined to make these protests turn violent. And I think
1:27
they're determined to do that in all sorts of areas of the country over the summer and they
1:32
must be stopped. So my main question to you this hour is how do we stop them? How does our system
1:39
of governance stop it? How does the police stop it? I haven't got the answer to these questions
1:46
but I'm interested to hear if you have any suggestions because the family of the victim
1:52
of the Belfast knife attack have called for calm after the riots erupted across the city
1:57
We had Henry Novak's family calling for exactly the same. But we've all seen with our own eyes what has happened
2:07
And it's no good for politicians just to call for calm, as politicians rightly have done today
2:14
That doesn't have any effect on the mindless thugs that perpetrate this violence
2:21
And let's not beat around the bush. Many of them are from far-right organisations
2:26
And they take succor from the tacit encouragement that they are given by the likes of Elon Musk when he tweets or whatever the equivalent of tweets is that he encourages protests and they should be loud in capital letters
2:48
But you can interpret that in a number of ways, can't you? So I think everyone has a responsibility to be responsible
2:56
including political leaders, from all parts of the political spectrum. Well, this afternoon, the Northern Irish First Minister, Michelle O'Neill
3:07
spoke to reporters outside Belfast City Hall. She condemned the rioting which took place last night
3:12
and also made clear some of the types of people who she thinks are to blame for inciting it
3:18
What we saw spill onto our streets since Monday night has been nothing short of thuggery
3:23
What we saw has been nothing short of racism. We saw youths taken to the streets
3:28
young men masked, attacking families, burning them out of their homes, attacking public property, attacking businesses
3:35
All we've seen is criminality on our streets and a real attempt to underline racism in our society
3:43
which I do not believe is widespread. I think that none of us should have any common cause
3:49
with those that cause this kind of destruction and mayhem on our streets And certainly from the communities that we engaging with people are horrified people are living in fear and I think the message that we send very strongly is one a message of calm and we do not want to
4:03
see this type of behavior in our streets too we need to say very clearly that we
4:06
said no to racism sectarianism and any kind of hatred out there and there are
4:11
those people out there that are using what happened on Monday night to inflame
4:14
division to create hatred and those people don't care to hoots about the
4:19
people here. They do not cure for one second. They probably don't even know where we are on a map. But these bad actors are actually using what's happened on Monday night and
4:27
playing to people's fears and orchestrating this, whilst they sit cosy in their homes
4:31
and encourage all these other people to go out onto the streets. Meanwhile, here in London, the Prime Minister was asked about the rioting last night and
4:38
what should be done about high-profile people and tech platforms who are fueling the anger
4:43
we saw last night. We will crack down on anyone who's fuelling this division, but it is really important, and I agree with him
4:52
we are heading into a very difficult situation in Northern Ireland. As I say, I've spoken to the Chief Constable, the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister this morning
5:01
They are united in saying we should all be calling for calm
5:05
The police are on the front line, and it's our duty as politicians to call for that calm
5:10
and nobody who's a politician should be whipping up division and hatred
5:15
Well, let's cross live to Belfast and speak to Lewis Goodall, presenter of Sundays with Lewis Goodall on LBC
5:20
and, of course, co-presenter of the News Agents podcast. Lewis, very good evening. You're in Belfast
5:26
What have you learned since you've been there? Well, Ian, I think two things
5:31
One is this is a city, a city which has known elements of this before
5:36
albeit this is coming to it in a new guise. This city right now, I think, which is being terrorised. It's being terrorised partly from social media accounts, powerful social media accounts, thousands of miles away in some cases
5:51
But it's also being terrorised by the threat of violence. Right now in Belfast City Centre, as you know, these days, generally speaking, a thriving, very successful city in the UK
6:05
It is an absolute ghost town. There is not a soul anywhere. Virtually every shop, every school, every public building, the transport system, all shut down at some point this afternoon
6:16
You can go through them, and I'm not talking about little corner shops or independent businesses here. I'm talking about the big high street shops
6:22
In nearly every shop window, only a few hundred meters from where I'm sat right now, in every single shop window there is a makeshift sign saying
6:30
due to unforeseen circumstances will be closing earlier today. And this is partly arisen because
6:37
you're seeing this weird fusion of something old, which is the threat of a paramilitary style
6:41
violence, with something new, which is the power of tech. Not sooner as I arrived here talking to
6:46
taxi drivers and people, it became very, very clear that the talk in the city, and it's not a huge
6:51
city, so it's easy to sort of spread messages like this in a relatively small population. The talk was
6:58
of these AI generated images, which seem to or purported to be official communication
7:05
saying that no deviation would be tolerated, that every single business and local person had to
7:11
accept it, talking about road closures purporting to be from authorities. In fact, these are being
7:16
generated by AI interfaces, by far right groups, basically trying to suggest that violence is coming
7:25
to specific cities and to specific streets and specific places. There are, doing the rounds across
7:31
this city tonight, GIFs, JPEGs, pictures of and the list of addresses with street names on it
7:41
suggesting that tonight these groups, hundreds of people, as we saw last night, young men
7:46
generally speaking in balaclavas masked often with Molotov cocktails and other crude arms will be turning up at these streets in these times This is a city which really does feel not only under lockdown
8:00
but also under the threat of violence, which is coming from every direction, and which more often
8:06
than not is not going to materialise, but is being threatened via very modern means, i.e. AI-generated
8:13
images, which is terrorising people. Do you have any intelligence on who the people in the
8:19
balaclavas were? I mean, there was speculation that some of them have come over from England
8:24
that they are, to quote a phrase, the usual suspects of far-right agitators
8:30
It's not entirely clear. I mean, I've heard those rumours as well today, Ian, and I don't think
8:35
there's necessarily any sort of proof of that so far, although I wouldn't be surprised. And obviously we saw what Tommy Robinson had to say and had to do in terms of trying to encourage people
8:43
to come. I think what is absolutely is pretty clear, though, is that as ever with Belfast and
8:50
with Northern Ireland, sort of old types of violence which have been known in this city are
8:56
fusing with this new phenomenon. So I think generally speaking, it is known and it has been
9:01
much speculated about that some of the violence that we saw, easy to forget now, this happened in
9:06
post-Brexit period, you might remember, sort of disaffected loyalist groups, often young men
9:12
without much to do, people who could easily be preyed upon by older, more sophisticated political
9:19
forces, came out and rioted in the sort of 2021-2022 period as the kind of new Brexit settlement kind
9:26
of started to materialise. And it became clear that, or it was felt for certain loyalist groups
9:33
and unionist groups, that they were losing power, that they were losing grip. I think you're seeing
9:38
some of that fuse with some of the far-right activity that we've seen across much of the rest
9:45
of the UK in the wake of, as you were saying in your introduction there, in the wake of
9:50
violent incidents sometimes perpetrated by refugees or asylum seekers or recent migrants
9:57
So what you're basically seeing, I think, on the streets of Belfast, you saw last night, hopefully not tonight but who knows it's basically a very familiar tale that we've started to see
10:07
and experience across the rest of the uk fused with the old northern irish story where you know
10:15
residents of this city it almost feels someone was saying it to me earlier it almost feels like
10:19
sort of wearing an old coat again for the first time that you haven't worn or seen for so long
10:24
or seen so long that sort of shadow and familiar reflexes where everyone's like you know what we
10:29
better get out of town. We've played this record before. Lewis, thank you for joining us. Keep safe. That's
10:35
Lewis Goodall, LBC presenter and co-presenter of the News Agents podcast. Well, Owen Tennyson is deputy leader
10:41
of the Alliance Party and a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Upper
10:45
Ban. I mean, very good evening. The last time we met was
10:49
about three years ago. You were a very young politician. You're still a young politician
10:55
But you never thought you'd see these scenes again in Belfast, did you? Well, unfortunately, we've become used to these
11:04
scenes in Belfast and across Northern Ireland over the past three years. Ian, this is now the third
11:10
summer in a row where we have had what is, and there's no other way to put it, a race-based
11:16
pogrom on our streets. We had masked men roaming the streets across Northern Ireland, targeting
11:22
people on the basis of their skin colour, saying they wanted to quote get the foreigners out
11:28
kicking in doors, breaking windows and burning down homes. Now I understand that there is anger
11:35
and frustration out there in our community. I feel that anger over what happened on Monday night
11:42
The video that I watched was one of the most barbaric and gruesome acts of violence I have ever seen but it didn take long for far agitators online to swoop in and seek to exploit that fear
11:55
and to whip up hate and division and to incite people often young people out onto our streets
12:01
and I would appeal particularly to those young people who are involved. Tommy Robinson and Elon
12:07
Musk don't care about you they don't care about your community they don't care about what happened
12:12
in North Belfast. They will move on to their next target when you're left picking up the pieces
12:18
And so I would appeal to anyone who has been involved in this racist thuggery and violence
12:24
to cease and desist. This is not a debate. It's not a conversation. It's not legitimate
12:30
It's wrong and it needs to stop. From what you understand, the people that are perpetrating this
12:36
both physically present at these violent protests and those encouraging it from maybe a distance
12:45
are they predominantly based in Northern Ireland? Or are they, I mean, you mentioned Elon Musk there
12:50
and Tommy Robinson, but do you think that some of the people have been actually almost shipped in from the UK mainland to do this
13:00
Well, it's too early to say definitively at this stage, Ian. I mean, I can speak from my own experience and my own constituency, where we have had
13:09
rioting over the past 24 hours. And most of the people involved have been young people aged 12 to 16 from local towns
13:19
There are undoubtedly far right actors stirring this up in the background
13:24
And there are obviously adults inciting and encouraging this violence too. And I find that utterly, utterly deplorable
13:32
It does nothing to serve justice for the victim. What you are doing by engaging in that riotous behaviour is pure, unabated racism
13:43
It is holding entire communities responsible for the actions of one individual
13:49
And unfortunately, this kind of violent attack is not new in Northern Ireland
13:55
We've had many brutal attacks in our history. We have a shocking rate of femicide
14:00
Just last week there was a sentencing for a man who murdered Natalie McNally, a constituent of mine
14:07
It was a very high profile case and the judge said that the attack was so frenzied that the coroner couldn't even determine the cause of death
14:16
Now where were the brave patriots then? There were no riots then. There were no protests then
14:22
So this isn't about community safety. It is about racism. And all of us in Northern Ireland need to stand united against those who are seeking to exploit the fear and anger that people rightly feel in communities
14:35
to whip up hate and division and to create more victims and terrorise more innocent people
14:41
Owen, good to talk to you, albeit in terrible circumstances. Thank you very much indeed
14:45
That's Owen Tennyson, the deputy leader of the Alliance Party. well Owen called it for what it was last night a racist riot and you don't have to be somebody on
14:58
the left to call people out on that do you because it's quite clear that people from ethnic minorities
15:05
were being hauled out of their homes terrorized out of their homes and for one reason only the
15:13
colour of their skin. So I am waiting for all politicians to condemn that, to call it out
15:22
We didn't hear Nigel Farage condemning the violence in Southampton until 24 hours later
15:30
We heard nothing from Rupert Lowe on that. I'm still waiting to hear from either of those
15:37
gentlemen on this. I don't hold them responsible for this, but I'd quite like to hear them condemn
15:42
Damn it, wouldn't you
#news