Following two nights of rioting in West Belfast, People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll has called for calm, stating that the way forward is to build “working class unity ”:
“Over the last two nights People Before Profit representatives in West Belfast have joined other community activists in trying to prevent sectarian violence at the Lanark way interface. I want to commend youth workers and community activists who were there and have made a difference by standing against division.
“The violence we have seen over the past week is deeply worrying and more trouble will only serve to make a bad situation worse. But it’s important to recognise this crisis did not occur in a vacuum. Sectarian division has been stoked by politicians, the DUP in particular, and loyalist paramilitaries have undoubtedly orchestrated much of the recent violence, fuelling and sustaining the unrest.
“The same problems of poverty, unemployment and despair exist on the Shankill as well as the Falls. Coupled with heightened tensions, these conditions are fertile ground for division. We believe the way forward is to build working class unity against those conditions and against the parties who implement them, and then rely on stoking tensions to maintain their voter base.
“We want to see an end to the senseless violence and the beginning of a cross community campaign which fights for working class communities across the divide.”
ENDS
