Emily Maitlis on the Belfast riots, Elon Musk, and the anti-migrant frenzy
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to 7am.
What horrifying events occurred in Belfast this week?
The scenes in Belfast this week have been horrifying to watch. Ugly clashes, masked men rioting in the streets, immigrant families begging neighbours to hide their children, fearing for their safety. Politicians, far-right agitators and billionaire Elon Musk have been accused of sparking the riots, weaponising a brutal stabbing attack to ramp up anti-migrant rhetoric and whip protesters into a frenzy. Today, British journalist and host of the newsagents, Emily Maitlis, on the far-right forces at play in the UK and why the Belfast riots should serve as a warning to Australia and the world. It's Friday, June 12th. Emily, welcome to 7am. Great to have you on the show.
Lovely to be here, Ruby.
So to begin with, what we've been seeing in Belfast and Northern Ireland over the past day or so, there's been cars torched, homes set alight, people forced to flee. Describe to me what's been happening on the ground.
Yeah, it all started really late Monday night when a video began circulating online, which was pretty graphic. I mean, for those who are squeamish, I don't want to spell this out too vividly, but essentially a man was being pinned to the ground. A victim was on his back and he was essentially being stabbed in the back of the head. The police were called instantly and a passerby saw what was going on in his car and actually attacked the attacker with his son's kind of, you know, hockey stick bat, a hurling bat. And that was really what saved this man's life. But as you can imagine, it has kicked off an extraordinary sense of panic and horror amongst the residents of this sort of quiet Belfast suburb.
not really understanding where this had come from and what it was about. And at first, the rumours started circulating that the man was Somalian. We then learned that actually he was from Sudan and he had been one of those who had escaped from the civil war in Sudan and been given this leave to remain, a five year leave to remain sentence. What has essentially started, particularly in online forums and over X and Twitter, with the help of Musk, who is always a fueler of these flames, is a call for people to protest immigrants, protest migrants, protest illegal immigrants.
Homes were targeted and burned.
How did far-right rhetoric contribute to the Belfast riots?
Families had to be led to safety through the flames, rescued by emergency services risking their lives in the most dangerous situation.
And that has been what's brought people out onto the streets. We've seen, as you say, houses torched, a bus torched, burnt down.
On Newtonards Road, around 150 masked men blocked traffic, then set fire to bins, making burning barricades. There were hours of flames, destruction and intimidation, much of it directed at migrants.
There have been attacks and a sense of... Real unrest for many of those residents living around the area and wider throughout the city of Belfast that they are not safe in their homes.
I was not able to take my son to school because I don't know how... If we'll be able to reach the school. So we are locked in the house with my wife and my three children. We don't know how to come out.
Because of the anger that this particular crime has really triggered.
Until last night, Samaya and Stella were Belfast housemates. They are student nurses from Uganda. Can I really be able to stay here? Will I be safe because of what happened and the whole experience? So, just know I'm scared.
As you can see, the whole issue is basically a tinderbox for the parties, particularly of the right, who want to make this about illegal immigration, even though it isn't. From what we understand, the man was an asylum seeker. But I think there is a danger, and many Northern Ireland politicians feel, that it is being weaponised by parties of the right now, particularly because... Immigration as a whole in the UK, legal immigration, has gone down. The numbers have gone down. And there are parties of the right, particularly Reform, particularly Restore, the sort of sister party of Reform, feel that their power starts to wane when the British public don't care as much about immigration.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:09
2
What horrifying events occurred in Belfast this week?
0:09–2:57
3
How did far-right rhetoric contribute to the Belfast riots?
2:57–6:58
4
What were the immediate reactions from the local community?
6:58–16:12
5
How did social media play a role in escalating tensions?
16:12–16:25
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from 7am
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