UK govt brands Belfast violence 'racist', demands social media answers

Two days of anti-immigration violence in Northern Ireland is nothing short of racist thuggery, Britain's minister for the province Hilary Benn said on Thursday, after police deployed water cannon to tackle rioters for a second night.

Police and politicians say much of the violence had been encouraged and coordinated online.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has reposted many inflammatory messages on his X platform denouncing the state of the United Kingdom following the Belfast incident. He reposted the leader of Britain's Restore political party which wants to deport hundreds of thousands of people from Britain.

Northern Ireland has now been gripped by anti-immigration violence for three summers in a row. Over the last two nights rioters have burnt houses, smashed windows, hurled bricks at police and marched down streets saying they were there to get "foreigners out".

'Thuggery'

Benn said there was less disorder on the streets of Belfast on Wednesday night as opposed to Tuesday, when rioters targeted ethnic minorities and foreign residents by torching homes and vehicles following a knife attack for which a Sudanese man has been charged with attempted murder.

Asked if violent scenes were racist riots rather than protests, he said: "Well, if you are targeting people on the basis of the colour of their skin, how else can you describe them? That is racist thuggery."

The original knife attack in Belfast on Monday night, which is currently not being treated as terrorism, comes at a time of heightened tensions in Britain over crime and immigration, with populist parties saying Britain's asylum policy had allowed dangerous men into the country.

The family of Stephen Ogilvie, who lost an eye in the knife attack, appealed for calm on Wednesday after the incident triggered the violence.

Many of those who did clash with police on Wednesday were seeking to get to a hotel outside Belfast that has been targeted in the past for housing asylum seekers. Officers used water cannon to drive rioters back and journalists saw what appeared to be plastic bullets, or baton rounds, on the street.

Asylum seeker addresses shared online

In recent days lists have circulated online showing where asylum seekers were living, the addresses of immigration businesses were published and a nursing union official said ethnic minority nurses had been chased by masked men as they tried to get to work.

Kate Nicholl, a politician in the Northern Ireland assembly, said police were patrolling areas that had been named in a "hit list".

Benn said the violence had caused deep trauma in the province.

"It's really difficult to convey the genuine sense of fear there is on the part of the ethnic minority community here in Northern Ireland as they've witnessed these scenes, reports of people being stopped in their cars to be asked what their nationality is, nurses going to work," he said. "This is appalling."

For some in Northern Ireland, the unrest has brought back memories of the 'Troubles', three decades of violence between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists and predominantly Protestant pro-British 'loyalists'.

Court appearance

The appeal came as a Sudanese man appeared in court charged with the attempted murder of Ogilvie. 

"We want to make it absolutely clear that overnight unrest is not welcome, and peaceful protest is the only way forward," Ogilivie's family said in a statement.

"We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country ... We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility," it said.

Speaking in parliament in London, Starmer said the attack raised serious questions but that "driving people out of their homes is not ... the right way to respond."

The suspect in the attack, a 30-year-old Sudanese national named Hadi Alodid, appeared in court on Wednesday and was remanded in custody.

Ogilvie, who is in his 40s, suffered significant injuries to his face and back, the court heard.

'Cowardice'

Northern Ireland's First Minister Michelle O'Neill described the violence perpetrated by the masked men as "nothing less than disgusting cowardice".

Justice Minister Naomi Long told Reuters that "bad faith actors" who would have previously struggled to find the province on a map had sought to weaponise people's understandable fear and anger over the knife attack to target those who had the same skin colour as the assailant.

Amid calls from Musk, anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson and others for more protests on Wednesday, Northern Ireland's police chief said an extra 200 officers were being deployed on the streets.

"These idiots didn't just target ethnic minority groups ... they targeted society," Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said of Tuesday night's rioters.

Belfast pastor Jack McKee told the BBC that some members of his church, who had lived there for 20 years, were "getting put out (of their homes) just because they're Black".

Immigration has historically been low in Northern Ireland due in part to the three-decade conflict waged between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists seeking Irish unity and predominantly Protestant pro-British "loyalists" wanting to stay in the United Kingdom, and the British military.

However, migration has increased in recent years and there has been a hardening sentiment against it in both Northern Ireland and parts of the Republic of Ireland.

According to the 2021 census, 96.6% of those living in Northern Ireland were white, while police statistics showed numbers of racist incidents reached a record level in 2025.

Northern Ireland was also hit by anti-immigrant rioting last year amid anger over an alleged sexual assault. Charges against two boys were later withdrawn by prosecutors.

Musk and other tech platform owners warned

Britain's media regulator Ofcom on Wednesday warned online platforms of possible legal consequences if their services are used to incite violence and spread hatred linked to the unrest.

Technology minister Liz Kendall said she had asked Ofcom to "discuss urgently" with Musk's X, as well as other platforms, how they would comply with Britain's Online Safety Act.

"Those who use social media to incite violence and disorder are breaking the law," Kendall said in a post on X.

She pointed to measures introduced by the media regulator on Tuesday requiring services to take quicker actions to remove illegal content circulating online during a crisis.

Ofcom said it had told the online providers in a letter that some of the unrest in Belfast appeared to have been fuelled online.

It said it had reminded them of their duties under the act to assess and mitigate illegal content.