Working class solidarity the only answer to Ballymena riots
The hate-filled attacks on ethnic minorities and immigrants unleashed in this medium-sized town – population just over 30,000 – have spread to other towns and villages as nights go by, including Larne, Portadown, Coleraine and parts of Belfast and Derry cities.
People who have settled in Ballymena, particularly since the 1990s ceasefires, cower in their homes, barricade front doors with sofas and hide in their bedrooms and attics as thugs break down those doors, smash windows and try to set fire to homes with children in them.
Amid arson attacks and assaults on men, women and children, we see a grisly re-invention of the Biblical story of the Passover, in this former heartland of the late 'hellfire-and-damnation' sectarian leader the Rev Ian Paisley. In the book of Exodus, God allegedly is said to have told the Jews to smear their doors with the blood of a sacrificial lamb so he would 'pass over' their homes while smiting the Egyptians with his wrath, murdering their first born.
READ MORE: Tories rage as Scottish primary head suggests Union flag is 'sectarian'
In this real-life 2025 version, people who made Ballymena their home, with their kids making friends with the children of parents born locally, are posting national flags on their doors – sometimes British Union flags but accompanied by the flags of the Philippines, Bulgaria, Poland etc – trying to avoid being mistaken for being Romanian.
This is because the latter were the primary targets, at least initially, of the hate-filled rioters. What led to Ballymena being projected on to the world's TV screens? The immediate background was the alleged sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl in the town and the arrest of two boys of Romanian background, also 14, who denied the allegation against them.
An estimated 2500 people gathered in a peaceful protest at this vile sexual assault – but then a breakaway crowd of several hundred went on the rampage, launching arson attacks on homes and cars, smashing the doors and windows of the homes of immigrants and ethnic minorities. There was also prolonged rioting, with masonry and firebombs thrown at police officers.
(Image: Niall Carson/PA Wire) Whatever proportion of the initial crowd which gathered at the demonstration was there out of genuine concern at the inexcusable crime of sexual violence, vicious far-right forces used their substantial reach on social media to incite openly racist violence, particularly, but not exclusively, by young people.
Underlying those immediate triggers is the worldwide phenomenon of decades of disappointment and betrayal by mainstream capitalist parties of what we've dubbed the 'extreme centre', who carry out neoliberal capitalist assaults on working-class communities, and the failure of the dominant leaderships of the mass organisations of the working class to adequately confront this with a fighting, inspiring socialist alternative, leading to the upsurge of far-right formations.
We see that with the rise of Donald Trump in the US; the growth of far right and even fascist forces around the AFD in Germany and Marine Le Pen's French equivalent; and of course, the multi-millionaire and arch-Thatcherite Nigel Farage in Britain.
Capitalist rule, regardless of party label, has failed working-class people worldwide and, in the absence of mass socialist forces, into the vacuum steps the evangels of red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism, dressed up in populist slogans and ruthless racist scapegoating of immigrants and ethnic minorities.
Northern Ireland is by no means immune from these trends. In the South Republic over the last few years, far-right forces literally wrapped up in the Irish tricolour and spouting an extreme version of Irish nationalism, have burnt down buildings housing asylum seekers – then put on their suits and tried to get elected to the Dail and local councils. Having been largely frustrated on that front – certainly at Dail level, although they got big votes and several councillors elected – they have now reverted to the politics of street violence.
That's the case in big cities such as Dublin and Cork, but also in some of the border area's neighbouring towns in the north of Ireland, including Derry and Newry.
Last August, during race-hate riots in Belfast, we saw the grotesque spectacle of far-right racist nationalists from Dublin, waving the Irish tricolour, joining forces with far-right racist loyalists hoisting the Union flag – a grisly embrace across the sectarian divide by two forms of the same reactionary forces.
The far right in the North takes numerous forms, including openly fascist grouplets – and, it would appear in the case of the Ballymena riots, the South East Antrim UDA, the remnants of the previous mass loyalist paramilitary group.
Ballymena was the first town in the North blighted by serious heroin addiction, making for lucrative trade for the UDA and others. It had a powerful industrial base, including big Michelin and Gallaher factories in the past, with strong union organisation. The local trade union movement was instrumental in organising united demonstrations of Protestant and Catholic workers against sectarian intimidation and killings during The Troubles and, more recently, Ballymena Trades Union Council countered far-right forces targeting migrant workers.
In my youth, I had friends who were active in a vibrant Ballymena branch of the Young Socialists – young Protestants and Catholics together championing the cause of workers' unity and socialism.
READ MORE: 'Scottish cringe' persists despite evidence of our distinctive culture
But much of the industrial base in the town has been decimated, with Gallaher's and Michelin's factory closures about eight years ago, wiping out nearly 2000 jobs.
This weakened the forces of the organised labour movement and lent itself to an atomisation of the working class, where vicious propagandists of the far-right can latch on to concerns and discontent and channel it towards brutal division and racism.
Those who have incited and organised these attempted pogroms against Romanians and other ethnic minorities, in a town which didn't have a single asylum seeker funded in 2024, have absolutely no concern for the safety of women and girls. They are purely motivated by a desire to whip up division in the community. Violence against women, including sexual violence and rape, runs rampant across Northern Ireland – and the authorities fail to deal with it.
It suffers the second-highest levels of femicide in Europe. In surveys, an astonishing 98% of women said they had suffered some form of gender-based violence in their lifetime.
In that atmosphere, the cheap, deceitful slogan the far right have deployed in Ballymena and elsewhere, of 'keep our children safe', calling for demonstrations under the guise of 'concerned parents', undoubtedly chimes with the worries of decent working-class people.
But the far-right instigators did nothing to demonstrate against the allegations of historical sexual offences against former Democratic Unionist Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson, nor claims of child sex abuse against Ballymena Traditional Unionist Voice councillor Davy Tweed in the 2010s.
The one difference is the colour of the targets' skin. The far right have enlisted the services of rioters, including not just ideologically committed racists but also an element of alienated young people, who simply see this as an opportunity to have a go at PSNI officers. The immediate victims of this racist violence were ethnic minority and immigrant families – all of whom were either born in Ballymena or are legally recognised refugees, many of them working in local factories and agribusinesses.
The wider losers are the broader working class, subjected to frenzied divisions and made all the weaker in their own self-defence against dilapidated housing conditions, cuts to services – including health; the North has the longest NHS waiting lists in the UK – and wages that are historically lower than in the rest of Britain for identical jobs.
The most studiously buried history of the past 50-plus years in the North is that of several waves of united demonstrations and strike action by workers from all communities, against sectarian violence and deaths.
At the height of tit-for-tat killings and bombings, workers across Northern Ireland came out on strike, staged rallies, drove back the paramilitaries and were instrumental in forcing sectarian politicians to reach the unstable institutional 'power-sharing' arrangements known as the Peace Process.
Ballymena was one of the many towns and cities where those displays of workers' unity were staged – initiatives led by the cross-community trade union movement, the biggest civic organisation in the North, on most occasions under the pressure of socialist trade unionists who forced the hesitant leadership of the trade union officialdom to take action.
That tradition of workers' unity in action is urgently required today to counter the attempted racist pogroms and to undercut the false appeal of the far right with a vision of socialist change – to win decent jobs, vastly improved public services, and high-quality housing for all, regardless of their creed, colour or country of birth.
Encouraging beginnings of this counterforce to the rampaging racists have been organised over recent days. Trade unionists, community groups and socialists have staged counter-demos against the far-right in nearby Magherafelt, Derry, Belfast and elsewhere.
(Image: Brian Lawless/PA Wire) Trade unionists and socialists in Scotland and beyond can and should assist those forces of working-class unity and help them combat the vile forces of the far right by advocating radical socialist change – a transfer of the wealth of Scotland, Britain and Ireland away from the millionaires to the millions, with the goal of socialism in these islands, where all citizens are treated as equals, living in peace and harmony.
READ MORE: Scottish Winter Fuel Payments to match UK's after U-turn, John Swinney says
The events of the past few days reinforce the beliefs I've held and fought for since my teens in County Fermanagh – for socialism not sectarianism; for action based on class not creed; for working-class unity in pursuit of a peaceful socialist future. The alternatives are all too ugly, as witnessed in last week's eruption of racist conflagration.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South Wales Argus
5 hours ago
- South Wales Argus
Residents line streets to welcome home Israeli-American hostage
Hundreds of cheering supporters, many waving Israeli flags and holding 'Welcome Home Edan' signs, lined the streets of Tenafly to greet his passing vehicle. A smiling Mr Alexander held his arm out the passenger-side window to wave and touch the hands of people in the crowd. The militant group Hamas released Mr Alexander, 21, on May 12 after 584 days. He has been in Israel since he was freed. Thursday marked his first trip home to Tenafly, the suburb of New York City where he grew up and where his family still lives. People in Tel Aviv watch a live broadcast of Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander's release from Hamas captivity (Oded Balilty/AP) Mr Alexander was 19 when militants stormed his base in Israel and dragged him into the Gaza Strip. He was among the 251 people taken hostage in Hamas' attack on October 7 2023. Mr Alexander moved to Israel in 2022 after finishing high school and enlisted in the military. Since his capture, there's been a huge outpouring of support for him in Tenafly, located in a county with a large Jewish and Israeli-American population. The community held regular walks to raise awareness about him and the other hostages. Many gathered in May to celebrate his release. 'Edan's return is the return of everybody's child, every organisation, every family, every Israeli family, and non-Israeli, and non-Jews,' Orly Chen, a Tenafly resident, told CBS News New York on Thursday.
Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Telegraph
Will you pay more council tax to fund the North? Use our tool to find out
Households across southern England that pay less than £2,000 a year in council tax are facing an increase in their bills to fund the North. Angela Rayner is cutting the amount of central government funding that local authorities which set low bills will receive. The Tories accused the Deputy Prime Minister of 'punishing' these councils and putting them under pressure to either cut services or increase council tax to cover the funding shortfall. The changes could lead to bills rising across southern England to enable more money to be sent to northern cities. About half of council income comes from central government, and Labour claims that the way it is shared between councils is unfair. There are 13 councils that charge less than £2,000 a year in council tax, all of them in London. However, town halls can only put up council tax by a maximum of 5 per cent unless a local referendum approves a higher rate, or the Government gives them permission to do so. The plans for what Ms Rayner believes is a 'progressive' redistribution were unveiled in a consultation document published on Friday. It will change the way that central government grants are shared out, based on calculations of what local authorities could raise if all areas charged the same rates of council tax based on their housing mix. The document states: 'The Government is proposing to set a notional council tax level that achieves the objective of full equalisation. 'To fully equalise against the council tax base, we set the notional council tax level at the average Band D level of council tax in England in scope of these reforms (c£2,000 in 2026-27).' The Government will also introduce a new formula for accounting central government funding based on local needs, including population, poverty and age. Ms Rayner believes it is unfair that people living in the North often pay hundreds of pounds more in council tax than those in southern areas. For example, a three-bedroom semi-detached home in Hartlepool generates a council tax bill higher than a 10-bedroom home in Westminster valued at £80 million. The combination of the two changes will mean steep falls in grant income for wealthier councils, mainly in London and the South East, forcing them to either raise council tax rates to make up the shortfall or cut public services. Ms Rayner also unveiled changes to council tax collection to stamp out 'unacceptable, aggressive' practices. To help households manage their finances, she proposes to change council tax billing from 10 months to 12 months. Council tax bills tend to be paid through 10 instalments (from April to January) and the majority of the 25 million council tax bills issued each year in England are paid by this method. But 12 month instalments could help households to spread the cost of their bills over a longer period. The Government is also looking at enforcement processes, including 'a more appropriate and proportionate time frame' before councils can demand a full bill from households. When someone fails to pay council tax, a reminder can be sent seven days after a missed payment. Following that, if the bill remains unpaid seven days after the reminder notice has been issued, the full amount due for the year becomes payable.
South Wales Guardian
6 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
Residents line streets to welcome home Israeli-American hostage
Hundreds of cheering supporters, many waving Israeli flags and holding 'Welcome Home Edan' signs, lined the streets of Tenafly to greet his passing vehicle. A smiling Mr Alexander held his arm out the passenger-side window to wave and touch the hands of people in the crowd. The militant group Hamas released Mr Alexander, 21, on May 12 after 584 days. He has been in Israel since he was freed. Thursday marked his first trip home to Tenafly, the suburb of New York City where he grew up and where his family still lives. Mr Alexander was 19 when militants stormed his base in Israel and dragged him into the Gaza Strip. He was among the 251 people taken hostage in Hamas' attack on October 7 2023. Mr Alexander moved to Israel in 2022 after finishing high school and enlisted in the military. Since his capture, there's been a huge outpouring of support for him in Tenafly, located in a county with a large Jewish and Israeli-American population. The community held regular walks to raise awareness about him and the other hostages. Many gathered in May to celebrate his release. 'Edan's return is the return of everybody's child, every organisation, every family, every Israeli family, and non-Israeli, and non-Jews,' Orly Chen, a Tenafly resident, told CBS News New York on Thursday.
