European Commission against Racism and Intolerance report on UK…

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance released a report today on racism and Intolerance in the UK, (full 46 page report available here):

The report states that:

ECRI’s reports are not the result of inquiries or testimonial evidence. They are analyses based on information gathered from a wide variety of sources. Documentary studies are based on a large number of national and international written sources

And summarises that improvements have been made in England, Scotland and Wales since the last report in June 2016. Among these were:

• Efforts made to create more diverse police forces across the UK
• a Refugee Employability Programme launched in England in September 2023
• Action plans being implemented in Wales. Among them among them a LGBTQ+ Action Plan, and an anti-racist Action Plan for Wales.
• A Building Racial Literacy Programme developed in Scotland and led by the Education Scotland government agency, in collaboration with a range of organisations and educators experienced in non-racial discrimination practices, and a Government Non Binary Equality Action Plan

In local terms the ECRI expressed grave concerns at the recent racial attacks in South Belfast stating:

ECRI is deeply concerned about a significant recent increase in attacks, such as firebombing, against businesses owned by people with a migration background in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as well as about similar attacks against premises used for worship by religious minorities, notably mosques, in both of which there might be a degree of involvement by paramilitary groups, which police have reportedly been reluctant to investigate effectively for fear of upsetting the fragile peace prevailing between different paramilitary groups.

The BelTel picked up on this earlier.

Whereas previously Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton has said that ‘the wider community needed to stand up to racist thugs’ and that the PSNI have arrested a sizeable number of them.

Of course, the area where most of the racial violence occurred is no stranger to racial/ ethnic violence and tensions. In April 2009 46 Polish nationals were expelled from it after a series of coordinated violent attecks by a gang of loyalist youths, allegedly in retaliation for the behaviour of Polish football hooligans who started a riot outside Windsor Park before the Northern Ireland-Poland World Cup clash while two months later 110 Romanians were under armed guard in a secret location in Belfast.

‘Romanian gypsies beware beware. Loyalist C18 are coming to beat you like a baiting bear’

The ‘secret location’, the City Church in South Belfast’s university area, was subsequently vandalised and 100 of the group chose to return to Romania rather than stay in Belfast.

The Belfast Multi Cultural Centre in Donegal Pass has was also attacked by arsonists in January 2021 and April 2022 with the Belfast Multi-Cultural Association eventually putting the premises up for sale in 2023 stating that its ‘members were anxious and scared about returning‘

>Of course, links between loyalist groups and British neo Nazis have a long history. I myself as a young punk rocker remember prominent UFF members Johnny Adair, Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory and Donald Hogden distributing far right racist neo Nazi material at Corn Market in Belfast City Centre and being central to the National Front march through Belfast prior to the neo Nazi white supremacist band Skrewdriver’s concert in Fourthriver Community Centre in 1983.

In the early 1990s the BBC’s World in Action also documented the close links between Combat 18 and the UDA:

I don’t know if the ECRI’s allegations against the PSNI are quantifiable but they certainly fit with the perception amongst many that loyalists are being treated with a soft touch both in policing and political terms. From gangs of roving masked men intimidating people at Pitt Park in East Belfast to masked UDA members brazenly strutting around Newtonards in broad daylight in plain sight of the PSNI to Stormont Ministers meeting their representatives while denying meetings with other groups.

Hugh is a West Belfast native and recovering legal scholar who spends lots of time in his spouse’s native Basque Country