People Before Profit unreservedly condemn the racist pogroms on the streets of Belfast, and the targeting of homes which continued yesterday. The images of children fleeing as racist mobs prepare to burned their homes are a damning indictment of the levels of hatred and division which have been encouraged to grow in communities across this island.
Racist opportunists, including far-right agitators with huge platforms in Britain, exploited a brutal attack in North Belfast to escalate local tensions and target minorities. These tensions have not emerged spontaneously. They have been deliberately stoked by establishment politicians, racist influencers and billionaires such as Elon Musk. Those who incite fear from positions of wealth and influence bear a heavy responsibility for the violence which unfolded on our streets. But just like the sectarian pogroms of the 1920s and 1960s in Belfast when Catholics were burned and hounded from their homes, those at the top who instigated the hatred and division keep their own hands clean.
We do not accept mealy-mouthed calls for calm in the wake of these attacks from the same politicians who have allowed migrants to be scapegoated for crises created by the political establishment. Many of these politicians have left communities without homes, decent public services or hope while inequality has deepened and working-class people have been left to pay the price. Their appeals for restraint now ring hollow. They have created the conditions for hatred to spread and fueled the fires that burn this week. We are calling on people across this island, from Belfast to Dublin, Derry to Cork, to see the real divide that these events have laid bare: the divide between the super-wealthy and the rest of us fighting for scraps. A stand-out lesson from Irish history is that division has always served those at the top. Whether the division is sectarian or racist, it turns working-class people against one another while poverty, lack of housing and inequality remain untouched. The answer is not one community against another, but ordinary people organising together for the homes and services we all need.
No one should have to live in fear, not women facing violence in their homes, not children fleeing racist attacks, not migrants targeted by mobs, and not working-class communities abandoned by those in power. Safety means far more than the absence of violence or threat. It means homes people can afford, services people can rely on, youth provision, mental health care, and communities with the resources to look after one another. The answer to violence is not racist revenge. It is solidarity, care and collective struggle for a society where every person can live safely and with dignity.
Real community spirit is not seen in local gangs coming from opposite communal areas to target vulnerable people because of the colour of their skin. It is exemplified by the diversity of the workers in our health services, by the youth groups who rescued people from their homes last night, and the growing community solidarity network which has been mobilised over the past few days. The racist pogroms must not be repeated. Those responsible for racial tensions must be challenged. A worker and community-led response is urgently needed to combat organised hate and to build an Ireland where all of us can live in safety and flourish.
Join these solidarity demonstrations against division
- Saturday 13 June, 1:00pm
Belfast City Hall
Organised by United Against Racism (UAR) Belfast - Saturday 13 June, 2:00pm
Guildhall, Derry
Organised by United Against Racism (UAR) Derry - Sunday 14 June, 2:00pm
GPO, O'Connell Street, Dublin
Organised by United Against Racism (UAR) Dublin