There really should be no surprise anywhere that the first major sparks so to speak of white ethnic violence against migrants in the UK is currently being seen in Northern Ireland, including the Ballymena riots last summer.
Northern Ireland is the only place in Western Europe, nevermind the UK, that has, in recent living memory, widespread ethno-religious in-group consciousness and experience with civil conflict on that basis. This chequered past, coupled with the fact it has economically struggled relative to the rest of the UK, meaning a less potent middle class than England or even Scotland, means that it is essentially ground zero for the after effects of mass unwanted migration into the West. What we are seeing in Belfast is what we will see on a much larger scale elsewhere should current trends continue.
The reason the riots and the atmosphere is so shocking in its form in Belfast, is because the people involved, in this case the Loyalist community, have a lot of experience in organising for and engaging in this kind of activity - we have just not seen it till now when it comes to non-European arrivals. They have a different attitude, a different understanding of what is happening and a different feeling towards authority and state infrastructure - and most crucially of all have a clear understanding of their own ideas of how to take things into their own hands when others won’t do it for them.
Unlike in England, they aren’t going out to get pissed up, to put on a show, have a carnival, take videos and pictures and do a bit of pavement dancing in the streets with the police. They are going out with a purpose and with tactics they’ve learned sparring with this country’s most competent police force (the PSNI) for decades. They mask up, dress all in black, set up barricades, don’t take phones or devices, chase off journalists and vloggers, self police themselves, have checkpoints and have very deliberate targets in mind. They are very organised. People who don’t think this can work, should look at Ballymena last year, when the same community *successfully* chased out an entire community of Roma from the town using much the same tactics following two rapes.
The fact that people are resorting to, and successfully engaging in this sort of reprehensible activity on the streets, is an indictment on our media-political and institutional class. It is a story of state failure, for as much as the yobs on the street are to blame for their own actions, it is ultimately the state that has created the conditions wherein this sort of thing becomes inevitable - because they have lost all legitimacy, there is no faith in them or the police protecting these communities, they refuse to hold themselves accountable for what they’ve caused, and everyone can see them as hypocrites when it suits them.
Going forward, the state if it is to survive and avert us from widespread ethnic conflict in the future must drastically change course with migration and law & order policy. It is one thing to see Loyalists in NI do this, but they are just the tip of the spear. The situation will become completely uncontrollable when this spreads across the lines in Ulster, and Republicans begin doing similar as well. Even worse, if this sort of organised and tactical approach spreads to Scotland and England where the police are wholly unequipped to prevent it spiralling out of control.
Britain can still save itself from this disastrous endpoint if it acts promptly and strongly.