Family of Belfast knife attack victim appeal for calm, in statement stressing ‘valuable contribution’ migrants make
The family of the victim in the Belfast knife attack have issued a statement via Phillip Brett, a DUP member of the legislative assembly.
They ask for privacy and say they are “completely devastated by the horrific attack on our loved one”.
They praise those who came to their relative’s aid, saying:
We want to say a profound thank you to the local people who bravely stepped in during the attack. Your quick actions absolutely saved his life, and we will never forget what you did for him in that moment. We also want to thank the emergency services and the doctors and nurses looking after him.
And they urge those angered by the attack to refrain from violence, saying:
We are aware of the tensions and talk of protests following this incident. We want to make it absolutely clear that overnight unrest is not welcome, and peaceful protest is the only way forward.
We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector and we depend on them to make our country work. We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.
Brett has posted the family’s statement on Facebook.
Key events
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UN human rights chief says anti-migrant violence in Southampton and Belfast ‘shocking’, blaming social media ‘incitement’
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No 10 declines to say what Starmer meant by PMQs pledge to crack down on people like Musk fuelling division online
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Racist violence in Glasgow last night left five people, including two police officers, injured, Police Scotland says
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Sinn Féin’s president Mary Lou McDonald says Belfast rioting ‘orchestrated by loyalist and far-right thugs’
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Hilary Benn says getting rid of common travel area not solution to illegal migration problems in Ireland
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PSNI ready to deploy another 200 officers to quell disorder in Northern Ireland, chief constable says
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Family of Belfast knife attack victim appeal for calm, in statement stressing ‘valuable contribution’ migrants make
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DUP leader Gavin Robinson condemns ‘medieval’ attack and says ‘open, porous border’ should be closed
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Starmer says government will crack down on people ‘fuelling division’, after Ed Davey condemns Musk over X posts
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Starmer avoids question about higher defence spending will be funded
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Starmer says violence in Belfast ‘totally unjustified’
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Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs
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Labour rejects Tice’s explanation as to why Farage avoiding holding press conferences
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John Swinney and other Scottish party leader condemn racist disorder in Glasgow
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Judge warns anyone taking part in further disorder in Belfast should ‘expect to go to prison’
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Police ‘strongly’ opposed to bail for Belfast knife suspect, court told
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Belfast knife attack suspect remanded in custody for four weeks
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Tice rejects as ‘outrageous’ suggestion that Farage’s ‘pure cold rage’ statement may have encouraged rioting
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Court told victim in Belfast knife attack lost his left eye, as suspect named as Hadi Alodid
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Richard Tice defends Braverman and Jenrick over complaints they were at Home Office when Belfast suspect got leave to remain
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Starmer condemns Belfast disorder, and “those who encouraged it online”
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Disorder stoked by those who would have ‘struggled to find Belfast on map’, says NI justice minister Naomi Long
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PSNI chief constable defends releasing information about suspect’s nationality
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Labour chair Anna Turley says Elon Musk’s interventions encouraging unrest in Belfast have been ‘appalling’
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Man to appear in court over Belfast knife attack as rioting described as ‘race-based pogrom’ by SDLP leader
UN human rights chief says anti-migrant violence in Southampton and Belfast ‘shocking’, blaming social media ‘incitement’
The UN human rights chief has described the anti-immigrant violence rocking Belfast and recent clashes with police in Southampton as “shocking”, criticising “incitement” on social media and elsewhere, AFP reports.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told reporters in Geneva:
Dehumanisation of whole groups within a society is totally unacceptable and is frankly despicable.
The violence that comes out as a result in … both Northern Ireland and in Southampton were really shocking …
[Social media providers must] take the responsibility seriously that dehumanisation, hate speech, violence and incitement to violence is unacceptable.
We cannot tolerate this in today’s world … The polarisation that we see is shocking.
Nigel Farage has announced that he will hold a press conference in Makerfield at 3pm, with the Reform UK candidate, Robert Kenyon. Perhaps Labour has shamed him into action. See 11.54am.
Here is a Guardian video of the main party leaders appealing for calm at PMQs today after last night’s riots in Belfast.
No 10 declines to say what Starmer meant by PMQs pledge to crack down on people like Musk fuelling division online
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson was asked what Keir Starmer meant at PMQS when he told Ed Davey that the government would crack down on “anyone who is fuelling this division” on social media. (See 12.30pm.) This was in response to a question about Elon Musk.
The spokesperson refused to give details about what a crackdown like this might involve, but he did say: “We’ve taken action before and we won’t hesitate to do that again.”
Here are more pictures from Belfast showing the damage caused by last night’s rioting.
A 39-year-old man has become the first to be charged over the Belfast riots, the Press Assocation reports. He was arrested in Newtownabbey last night and will appear before Belfast magistrates court today charged with riot.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Racist violence in Glasgow last night left five people, including two police officers, injured, Police Scotland says
Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
Police in Glasgow said that far-right protesters attacked people because of their skin colour on Tuesday night, leaving three members of public and two officers injured.
Police Scotland said they made three arrests of men aged 18, 18 and 31 in Glasgow, and policed disruptive but peaceful demonstrations in Edinburgh, Falkirk, Perth, Ayr and Paisley, where no arrests were made.
The violence was condemned earlier on Wednesday by first minister John Swinney, who said “racism, hatred and intimidation have no place in Scotland”, remarks echoed by Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader. (See 11.42pm.)
In a statement, Assistant Chief Constable Alan Waddell said:
We understand the concerns people have about their communities and will always balance the right to freedom of expression with the need to tackle crime without fear or favour.
Officers responded to disorder and violence, including incidents in Glasgow where members of the public were attacked because of the colour of their skin. Officers were also attacked.
I would strongly condemn that offending and send a clear message that there is no place for racism and violence in Scotland.
He said the force could also deploy Scottish officers and vehicles to Belfast if there was a request from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, under the UK’s mutual aid polices.
We have an appropriate policing plan in place, including strong links across UK policing to ensure we are prepared to deal with any escalation in disorder, and we will mobilise specialist resources if necessary.
As part of this, our officers will support National Police Coordination Centre mutual aid arrangements for colleagues at the Police Service of Northern Ireland, following careful consideration to our resourcing requirements to ensure there is no impact to policing in Scotland.
Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM), has condemned the death threats made against the lord mayor of Belfast. (See 1pm.)
Speaking in the Irish parliament, Martin said:
Such threats are appalling and must be roundly condemned.
Unfortunately, it’s become an increasing phenomenon in this era that there are increasing numbers of threats to public representatives across the board, and to threaten the lord mayor in the context of yesterday and the day before is appalling, and has to be condemned.
Sinn Féin’s president Mary Lou McDonald says Belfast rioting ‘orchestrated by loyalist and far-right thugs’
Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin president, has said the “racist intimidation and violence” in Northern Ireland last night was “orchestrated by loyalist and far-right thugs”.
Speaking in the Irish parliament, McDonald said:
It was right that political leaders in the north came together to unequivocally condemn this attack and to call for the swift delivery of justice.
She then condemned the masked men and “organised mobs” who burned families out of their homes and said there were echoes of the pogroms on Bombay Street in Belfast in 1969. She said:
When we said that we would never allow anyone to be treated this way again we meant it, and we meant anyone, not Irish, not any community.
Nobody has the right to spread fear, to intimidate, to terrify innocent families, and we have a duty to communities to show political leadership to stand up for what is right.
These are the same people, by the way, who in July will burn Irish tricolours on the top of their bonfires — they need to be faced down, their organised racism needs to be faced down.
Hilary Benn says getting rid of common travel area not solution to illegal migration problems in Ireland
Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, has defended the common travel area in the light of the controversy generated by the stabbing in Belfast on Monday night.
Hadi Alodid, who has been charged with attempted murder following the attack, was an asylum seeker who arrived in Belfast after crossing the open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Benn said it was important for Dublin and London to work together on tackling illegal migration between the two countries.
But, speaking at a press conference alongside the PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher, Benn said that getting rid of the common travel area was not the solution. He said:
We don’t know the full circumstances, but we saw the horrific consequences in the video, the horrific video that was shared online, and which has caused such outrage and such public concern and, of course, we must reflect on the circumstances, and we must continue to carry on with that strong co-operation between the UK authorities and the Irish authorities in seeking to deal with illegal migration across the common travel area.
But the answer is not to say the common travel area is the problem which has given great benefit to many, many people over very long period of time.
Benn said there was “already close co-operation between the Border Force, the PSNI, the Gardaí and the authorities in Ireland in trying to tackle illegal migration”.
At PMQs earlier Gavin Robinson, the DUP leader, suggested that the “open, porous border” between Ireland and Northern Ireland should be closed. (See 12.35pm.)
At the press conference, asked if he was concerned about the accused, an asylum seeker from Sudan, being granted leave to remain three years ago, Benn replied:
It doesn’t necessarily follow that someone’s previous history is going to enable you to know whether they might do something in the future, and therefore it’s very hard to see how you can operate a system in those circumstances which attempts to anticipate what somebody might do.
PSNI ready to deploy another 200 officers to quell disorder in Northern Ireland, chief constable says
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is ready to deploy another 200 officers to tackle further disorder, its chief constable, Jon Boutcher, has said.
Speaking at a press conference this morning, Boutcher said:
We will deal with this. We will be on the streets tonight in numbers even more than we were last night, and we have got arrangements in hand to get mutual aid that will be arriving here tomorrow.
We’re looking to get a further some 200 officers to get on the streets to deal with this.
Boutcher said that two PSNI officers were injured last night.
We had one officer who was injured yesterday whilst directing traffic away from one of the pockets of disorder, and he was hit with debris on the head. He’s okay.
The second officer suffered smoke inhalation when a petrol bomb exploded near him and went under his snood, and had to be taken to hospital.
And people who had to be rescued as their homes were attacked were not injured, Boutcher said.
Thankfully, last night, with regards to people we evacuated from those houses, there were no injuries.
Our absolute focus yesterday was to protect life and property, and that’s what we achieved.
Boutcher said the force would be “going after” those responsible for the disorder last night.
But he also stressed that, while the PSNI was ready to deploy more officers to quell the disorder, this would leave “huge gaps” in other areas of policing.
The officers out on the street last night, and who’ll be out there tonight, are from our crime teams, they’re from investigations into terrorist cases, they’re from our domestic abuse teams,” he said.
“This has to be the entire organisation coming together to deal with issues like this, and we will, and we will identify and prosecute those responsible, but the organisation deserves and needs to be supported.
Róis-Máire Donnelly, the Sinn Féin lord mayor of Belfast, says she received death threats amid the disorder in the city last night.
In a statement she said:
Last night, Tuesday 9th June, I was visited at home by the PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland].
The police informed me that threats had been made against my life and advised me to take extra precautions regarding my personal security.
I want to make it clear that these threats will not deter me from fulfilling my role as mayor of this great city.
Family of Belfast knife attack victim appeal for calm, in statement stressing ‘valuable contribution’ migrants make
The family of the victim in the Belfast knife attack have issued a statement via Phillip Brett, a DUP member of the legislative assembly.
They ask for privacy and say they are “completely devastated by the horrific attack on our loved one”.
They praise those who came to their relative’s aid, saying:
We want to say a profound thank you to the local people who bravely stepped in during the attack. Your quick actions absolutely saved his life, and we will never forget what you did for him in that moment. We also want to thank the emergency services and the doctors and nurses looking after him.
And they urge those angered by the attack to refrain from violence, saying:
We are aware of the tensions and talk of protests following this incident. We want to make it absolutely clear that overnight unrest is not welcome, and peaceful protest is the only way forward.
We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector and we depend on them to make our country work. We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.
Brett has posted the family’s statement on Facebook.
Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, said Starmer should resign.
He said the PM was in denial about the anger people felt about illegal immigration.
This prime minister is in denial of the rising despair across the country over his failure to stop the boats and related criminality.
His failure to recognise two-tier policing, his failures over Mandelson, his failures over the scourge of anti-Semitism. He’s lost the confidence of the country, his own trade union members and his own very quiet backbenchers.
When will he do the right thing and … resign?
Starmer said that Reform UK were trying to exploit the Henry Nowak case last week, and now they were trying to exploite the Belfast disorder.
They try to whip up fear and division. That’s all they’ve got.
He said Reform UK voted against Labour legislation to stop the boats.
And he claimed Tice had still not answered questions about why his company was involved in aggressive tax avoidance.
Ayoub Khan (Ind) asked Starmer to condemn MPs who “seek division to further their political ambitions”. He went on:
Individuals … are fuelling hate against citizens of our own nation and causing hardworking, upstanding people to be afraid for their safety because of the colour of their skin.
Starmer said the fear felt by some communties was “very real”, and that is why the violence should be condemned.
