20,000 gather in Belfast to denounce violent racist pogroms

A massive crowd of around 20,000 people turned out in Belfast on Saturday June 13 to show support for people driven from their homes by racist mobs earlier in the week. The rally, entitled Together Against Hate, was organised by United Against Racism (UAR). Speaking on Instagram, the group said:

This was the biggest anti-racist mobilisation Belfast has ever seen. It reflects the revulsion felt at the 3rd consecutive year of racist pogroms.

Speakers from the trade union movement, community groups, anti-racist organisers and political parties addressed the crowd.

The riots that took place this week were encouraged by those at the top of society. The likes of Elon Musk and Nigel Farage were happy to stoke the flames of racism.

As we’ve already pointed out, the north of Ireland’s problems aren’t caused by immigrants and people of colour. They’re caused by billionaires and the politicians they are able to purchase under a grotesquely unequal and undemocratic political and economic system. UAR concurred, saying:

Migrants did not cause the housing crisis. Migrants did not cause the fuel crisis. Migrants did not defund the NHS. The government is responsible for these failures, and we should not allow ourselves to be fed misinformation which scapegoats the most vulnerable members of our society.

Activist slams PSNI response to pogroms

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) must also account for their failures. Assistant director of Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) Marissa McMahon slammed the police for their response to the wave of ethnic cleansing. She described how a list of houses that were targets of the far-right had been seen online:

On Wednesday as many people know, a list of people’s addresses were circulated widely on the internet.

Rather than get people out, she said the PSNI simply called at people’s doors to:

…tell them that they weren’t safe. Vulnerable people left to fend for themselves.

McMahon went on to describe the heroic efforts of Belfast activists throughout the week, who did the police’s job for them. They entered loyalist areas where the violence was centred, then:

At absolute personal risk to themselves they went into houses, they got families out through back doors and into cars.

She described how PPR:

…worked with the likes of Unison, the Irish language community, the travelling community. These communities who know all too well what discrimination and persecution looks like. And with their help we were able to safely house over 200 families.

McMahon also said authorities should have foreseen the violence. She said PPR had been “mapping this racist violence since 2024”. This means a third summer in a row of racist pogroms should not have come as a surprise. The Guardian recently covered how the Accountability Project Northern Ireland, which tracks far-right activity:

…sent dozens of reports to the PSNI between November 2025 and June 2026.

The police service did not act on these, resulting in the carnage of the last week. Union leaders and political parties also spoke at the demonstration. Alliance, the Green Party, People Before Profit, the SDLP and Sinn Féin all sent representatives. No unionist party provided a speaker to denounce the shocking crimes committed by bigoted thugs.

Belfast Loyalist gang tortured man whose stabbing triggered riots

In other news related to the loyalist-driven riots, a judge refused bail for racist far-right agitator Stephen Baker. He was:

…among four men who appeared at Belfast Magistrates Court in connection with public disorder.

District judge Steven Keown had unusually strong words for Baker. He inverted the racists’ narrative by suggesting that it is the likes of Baker that need to go, rather than the immigrants his ilk want to purge:

People who involve themselves in this or support or encourage these outrageous attacks on our community, and including, as we’ve all seen, outrageous attacks on hard-working and valued members of our society, from all backgrounds and cultures, need to be removed from our society because they pose an existential threat to all of us.

Additionally, the Belfast Telegraph reported that Stephen Ogilvie, the victim of the knife attack which triggered the latest wave of white violence, had previously been tortured by a gang headed by loyalist hoods. The Telegraph says:

Gang member David McCleave ended up being jailed for 14 years for spiking the Rathcoole man [Ogilvie] with a date rape drug and putting lit cigarettes between his toes.

Ogilvie was then stripped, beaten with a baton, had aftershave poured on him and then set on fire.

Shankill Butcher William Moore was also connected to the gang. The Shankill Butchers were among the most notorious killers of the ‘Troubles’. In the 1970s and early ’80s they kidnapped Catholics around Belfast. Using bladed weapons, they subjected their victims to horrific torture before killing them.

The far-right have attempted to portray the attack on Ogilvie as an aberration in Belfast, a form of savagery “alien” to its culture. In reality, it turns out Ogilvie was already tormented by the very people who have always wielded barbaric violence for a supremacist agenda.

Featured image via Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images