"It has been sickening to witness a repeat of last year's racist hate-mongering at the Moygashel bonfire. The burning of a model mosque on a bonfire is not cultural expression and it is not legitimate political protest. It is an act of Islamophobic intimidation designed to terrorise our Muslim and migrant neighbours, and it must be removed immediately. By parroting and amplifying the so-called 'legitimate concerns' of far-right agitators, those in positions of power and influence have emboldened racists and fascists. The fear, marginalisation and dread that our migrant brothers and sisters must be feeling heading into this weekend is unfathomable.
Racism is the close cousin of sectarianism. They spring from the same poisoned well. Both are manufactured from above to keep working-class people divided - turning neighbour against neighbour - so that the powerful never have to answer for the poverty, the housing crisis and the dismantling of our public services they have presided over. It’s no accident that the most sectarian forces in our politics are so often the most racist. The same establishment that has spent decades stoking division between Catholic and Protestant now reaches for the migrant as its latest scapegoat.
Loyalist paramilitaries clearly still hold a tight grip on many communities. But they don't speak for ordinary unionists any more than they speak for the rest of us. Working class communities on both sides of the political divide have been utterly failed by the chronic underinvestment gutting our health service and social housing, by the privatisation of our public services and by widespread poverty. Year after year, political leaders from both sides of the community give the green light to hatred and division. The deprivation ushered in by both Westminster and Stormont has created the conditions in which racism and sectarianism thrive.
Far-right agitators and paramilitaries want to control the narrative around the problems facing our communities. They weaponise genuine feelings of despair and frustration for their own gain, scapegoating migrants and marginalised people to cover for the failures of those at the top.
But they are in a small minority. The vast majority of people in this city welcome our migrant brothers and sisters and want them here. We saw it with our own eyes last month, when 20,000 people took to the streets with United Against Racism to stand together against hate and division. That is representative of a majority of people across this island, and that is the tradition we will keep building.
We urge people not to be dragged into sectarian or racist rioting, or similar types of violent behaviour, in the coming days. Calm heads must prevail. Unity and working class struggle are the key to overcoming hate, and to lifting up all who have been let down by those in power."