‘Burn them all out!” This was the soundtrack to the racist riots that shook Ballymena in recent days, set to a spasm of street violence and the torching of homes, carried out by masked-up hordes forcing midnight evacuations. Families hid in attics. Vulnerable tenants were forced to approach landlords for Union Jacks or signs to place in their windows reading “British household” and “locals live here” to ward off the pogromists.
As they have done across these islands, far-right forces in Ballymena cynically hijacked a deplorable case of sexual assault to further their anti-immigrant agenda, targeting vulnerable families and wreaking havoc. This was after a peaceful protest had been called by the young girl’s father. Those charged with the attack are minors of Romanian origin, and far right and loyalist forces intervened to ensure the protest was racist in nature and would take a violent direction.
Protest escalated to riot to fire bomb attacks on houses, and then spread from Ballymena to Larne. Smaller-scale gatherings were attempted in other parts of the North, all claiming to be about “protecting women and children”.
Can Abusers Protect Us from Abuse?
There is an epidemic of gender-based violence across Ireland—mostly perpetrated by white men born on this island, often known to the victims. Yet the task of tackling the rampant misogyny in our society, and delivering real justice to its victims, is absolutely nowhere on the far right’s radar: they push an agenda, after all, that wants to see women and girls forced back into obedience and subordination. As the events in Ballymena and elsewhere prove, they are grotesque opportunists who will jump on, or more frequently invent, attacks by ‘non-locals’ to divide our communities and spread racist fear. In the vast majority of cases, when the culprit is ‘one of our own’ – or indeed during campaigns around gender-based violence or the rights of women and queer people – the far right remain burrowed, deathly silent.
The South East Antrim UDA are reported to have been centrally involved in the Ballymena rioting, but they can hardly be looked upon as ‘protectors’ of women’. The UDA are heavily linked to protecting sexual abusers and to sexually exploiting women – including teenagers – who find themselves in drug debt. There can hardly be any organisation anywhere in the North less qualified to ‘protect women’: their ‘concern’ is fake, used solely to cover for flagrant racism. Their role highlights as well the incestuous links between loyalist paramilitaries and far right ideas.
Deprivation and Despair in the Unionist Heartlands
Ballymena—long regarded the ‘heartland of Paisleyism’ and known for the militant sectarianism that dominates local politics—is a town in freefall. Despite its loyalty to the powerful Paisley political dynasty over decades, even most Protestant workers have little to show for this. Like nearby Larne it has been hard-hit by a decades-long housing crisis, by crumbling public services and by the absence of well-paid work.
The example of Wrightbus, a company synonymous with the town, is indicative of this economic story. Founded by William White in 1945, it fell into administration in 2019 after scandalous mismanagement, linked in no small way to an unusual relationship with a large evangelical church in the area run by Wright’s son. Ian Paisley Jnr responded to the potential of thousands of job losses by saying he hoped “a buyer comes in quickly and rehires two-thirds” of the workers – predictably on poorer wages and conditions. Ballymena’s local power network enriched themselves while allowing the local economy to be sold for parts.
Local charities reports that the situation has become much worse over the past three years: ‘For people who are living on the margins and trying to keep their head above water, it is just becoming impossible,’ one charity worker told BBC. ‘Nearly a majority are people who are working, where there is one parent working and they just have not enough money to make ends meet.’
As Ballymena resident Demi Laverty told reporters at the height of the rioting, ‘economic issues are one of the biggest problems facing Ballymena today’. The ‘tragedy [of the sexual assault] has been completely weaponised, not only by the politicians through their lack of accountability, but also by the media for not reporting the deep systemic issues’ fuelling alienation. ‘Across Northern Ireland we have some of the highest rates of poverty and deprivation, educational underachievement, housing and unemployment’.
Loyalist paramilitaries have long exploited this despair, whipping up sectarianism across Ballymena and imposing their dominance on nearby Larne and Antrim town. Ballymena was the site of the notorious ‘Harryville protest’, where in the late 1990s loyalists placed a hundreds-strong picket to bar Catholics from attending their local church; in 2005 a loyalist gang kicked 15-year old Catholic Michael McIlveen to death outside the local cinema. But beyond the savagery of sectarianism, loyalism has exacerbated the despair, even among ‘its own’. It’s common knowledge that the UDA controls the local drugs trade: the ‘Bible Belt’ town has one of the highest rates of heroin addiction in Europe, and this has led not only to a rise in petty crime, but in serious mental health problems and shocking levels of suicide, especially among young people.
Loyalism and the Far Right: Overlap and Tensions
It is no coincidence that the surge in anti-immigrant vitriol has taken off at a time when Trump is in the White House, when extreme right-wing politicians are making gains all over the globe, and when social media feeds are filled with algorithmically-boosted fascist far right grifters. It is no wonder that racist and hate-filled ideas have found a purchase across society.
This means that it would be a serious mistake to regard anti-immigrant racism as confined to the loyalist community in the North. The rise of the far right in the South and the increasing expressions of foul racism in nationalist areas should be enough to force us to shake off any complacency. There are powerful forces pushing far-right ideas, saturating social media and much of the public discourse, and in the absence of vigilance, these ideas can catch on anywhere.
That said, while it is important to recognise that fascist forces and loyalist paramilitaries aren’t identical, the crossover is substantial. There isn’t space here for a full analysis of loyalism but there are a few things worth highlighting. Firstly, loyalism is a reactionary ideology – it has always been so. The sectarianism on which it is based is easily moulded into other forms of hate.
Loyalist paramilitaries extort the local communities which they seek to control, and are assisted by sections of ‘respectable unionism’ in shaking down Stormont’s sectarian institutions. Periodic rioting is loyalism’s release valve, letting out steam in areas beat down by deprivation and alienation, while simultaneously pressuring Unionist political representatives and making claims on state funding for the community organisations they run. Anti-immigration mobilisations are a useful outlet for loyalism in this regard.
At the same time, paramilitaries are wary of allowing independent far-right forces to organise lest they lose their tight grip over their communities. This partly explains the overlap and tensions between loyalism and the far right. Another aspect is, ironically, loyalism’s endemic sectarianism: unionist paramilitaries aren’t keen on sections of the far right embracing the tri-colour alongside the union jack. Social media accounts linked to organised loyalist groups have been known to give off about city centre far-right rallies which have the Irish flag on display.
The Ballymena rioting shows, as did the rioting in Belfast last August, that when they choose to, loyalist paramilitaries have the potential to translate simmering racist sentiments into vicious real-world violence in a way that newer far-right agitators don’t yet have the capacity for.
‘Respectable’ Unionism and Anti-Immigrant Racism
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas,” Marx once wrote. In other words, far right ideas are being pushed from the top. Unionist politicians have a long and sordid record of both dog-whistling and out-and-out racism. Think of former DUP leader Peter Robinson’s infamous quip that he would trust a Muslim ‘going to the shop’ for him.
The full truth of Marx’s insight was on display in Stormont just days before the explosion at Ballymena. On Monday, the same day of the Ballymena court case, DUP MLA Paul Frew spoke on violence against women and girls, spending much of his time ranting against ‘illegal immigration’. “The Westminster Government have failed us all with their abject failure to secure our borders and keep us safe. There is absolutely no sign of them reversing the situation and fixing the problems in immigration — indeed, illegal immigration.” In his next breath, he deliberately brought up the sexual assault court case.
Frew also railed about immigration in Ballymena in a debate on the 20th May. The TUV’s Timothy Gaston joined him in beating the anti-immigration drum on that same day, again pointing out Ballymena: “Migration puts pressure on hospitals, schools and housing: that is a fact.”
Here are some other facts: in 2024 Ballymena had ‘exactly zero people in receipt of asylum support’. As Queen’s researcher Rebecca Loader put it, there were ‘no “illegals” (not that any human should be seen that way); literally everyone was born there or was a legal migrant or refugee’. ‘It is, however, a town led by a council that turned down £100k money earmarked to support the integration of dispersed refugees and others in 2023/24’.
In the case of Ballymena, then, both DUP and TUV MLAs have been fanning the anti-immigrant flames for some time. Not to be outdone, however, the Communities Minister, the DUP’s Gordon Lyons, released a despicable statement on social media on Wednesday evening, writing that:
These individuals were human beings, fearing for their lives, moved to a leisure centre at short notice. The centre was subsequently attacked – thankfully after those affected had already been moved on. That the minister with responsibility for housing confirmed the emergency shelter space for people fleeing pogroms, and intimated his discomfort with this plan, is a despicable scandal. He should be hounded out of office – other parties should point blank refuse to work with him.
In short, the fish rots from the head. Unionist politicians have engaged in a time-honoured tradition: whipping up hate while sitting back to watch it unfold, content their failings aren’t the focus. Lyons’s mealy-mouthed condemnation of violence was the Paisleyite cherry on top. Meanwhile, the UUP’s Steve Aiken showed liberal unionism to be the mirage that it is with his lickspittle defence of Lyons.
Stormont, Austerity and Anti-Immigrant Racism in the ‘New’ Northern Ireland
“My children are frightened to go outside,” said one man, originally from the Philippines, who’s house and car were attacked. Kevin Rous works as a mechanic for Wrightbus. Here is a worker, from the Philippines, helping to keep this venerable Ballymena institution running, bearing the brunt for decades of deliberate decisions to enrich the few at the expense of the many.
At the time of writing further homes have been attacked in Coleraine. People have had to hide in wardrobes, while families have been moved miles away from where their children go to school. The demand for emergency accommodation is extremely high. In the words of another Ballymena resident who spoke to BBC: “It’s been very terrifying, especially for the kids. When you see people holding sticks and batons, destroying things and all that, we’re going to be very afraid, especially my kids.”
Far-right ideas are a mudguard for the establishment. In the face of deep social crises and working class anger, they apportion blame onto migrants, minorities, women – onto anyone but the capitalist class, the landlords, and the politicians who protect them. Unionist representatives in recent days leant into anti-immigrant sentiment, deliberately connecting it to the crises in our public services.
Even when Unionists aren’t sounding off, Stormont has too often stuck its head in the sand on racism. This isn’t to draw an equivalence between all the big parties; the actions of loyalism and their political counterparts are beyond the pale. But it is to repeat an important mantra: simply being better than the DUP is a very low bar, the bar for combating racism is much higher, and too often other Executive parties fail to clear it.
And if Unionist politicians are singularly guilty of open bigotry, it is Westminster and the Stormont Executive as a whole that has created the horrible conditions in which far right ideas can thrive. The British Government has driven the austerity agenda which hamstrings the North, but the undeniable record of the last twenty years is that Stormont has bowed down to London’s diktats at every turn. On everything from welfare reform, to the further turning the housing system into a profiteering wild west, to the privatisation of health, the Executive has either sat idly by, or been willing participants. A direct consequence is that racism is rising everywhere, and not just in loyalist areas.
Anti-Racist Response
As for the left, we cannot afford to commit oft-repeated mistakes. Pushing back against racism requires everything from big and confident celebrations of diversity to community coffee mornings where one-to-one connections can be built, and so much more in between. But equally indispensable is countering the far right. This won’t always be possible – the existence of armed paramilitaries on the scene in the North is a case in point. But positive anti-racism cannot do the work alone, nor can bread and butter campaigns, as important as these things are. We must strive to deny the fascists the streets.
City centre counters do not, by themselves, end racism. Yet in the absence of being able to be in all places at all times, they have a real power to set a wider political tone. When successful, they build the confidence of our side and dampen the spirits of the other, sending a message out across society of what the majority view is and signalling that people are willing to fight for it. To do this we have to recognise that while the far right has money and the media resources, our side has the numbers. It is the left’s greatest asset and unlocking it is the first, second and third task of every serious left.
For activists, our vision should be for a big, open, mass participatory movement, with an unwavering commitment to grow our ranks and pull new people into action. Indeed, that should be the guiding principle of all movements, but it is especially true of one which is about smashing the confidence of fascists. This means confident, public, open organising, and a commitment to unity in anti-racist action over succumbing to petty differences, even if it means working with forces we don’t always agree with. It also requires ditching the myth that countering risks “drawing attention to the fascists” – that argument has been deployed in many places around Ireland with disastrous results. Far right ideas are here, they are getting attention whether people counter or not; better to outnumber them when they’re small than be forced to play catch up later.
The trade union movement has a critical role to play: defending workers from racist attacks, winning an anti-racist perspective among their members and mobilising tens of thousands of working people to take a stand under their banners. So far the response to the Ballymena pogroms has left much to be desired, especially by those unions with large workforces in the area.
Racism is a poison which decimates any hope of class politics if it is allowed to take root. For that reason alone it is a workers’ issue. But the increasingly diverse reality of the working class in Ireland – multiracial, gendered, of different ability and sexuality and national origin – makes it doubly so. As Barney Doherty wrote in Rebel recently:
Finally, the Unionist project is in deep crisis, brought about long-running decline. This has led to further lurches to the right as mainstream unionists seek to keep loyalist support on board. Equally important as understanding loyalism’s reactionary nature, however, is appreciating ordinary people’s capacity to break from reactionary ideologies. Increasing numbers of people, especially young people, are moving away from loyalism – this is precisely the source of much of Unionism’s headaches. On demos for Palestine, trans rights, and anti-racism, people from all sorts of backgrounds take part. Avoiding complacency means not only facing up to racism wherever it rears its head, but also refusing to write off Protestant workers potentially attached to loyalist ideas.
As Connolly put it in The Re-Conquest of Ireland, ‘the only true prophets are those who carve out the future which they announce.’ The Irish left and the wider working-class movement has a critical choice, through our actions today, either to bow down before the forces of division and hate—which can only benefit exploiters north and south—or to lay the basis for unity and common struggle.
