Irish Communist Party Statement on the Racist Pogroms in Belfast and the Necessity of United Working-Class Response
The horrific scenes witnessed on the evening of June 9th, 2026, in Belfast represent not merely a breakdown of public order, but a deliberate, coordinated, and racist assault on our diverse multi-ethnic working-class communities. The Irish Communist Party unequivocally condemns the violence perpetrated by masked mobs who, exploiting a serious criminal act, sought to burn families out of their homes and torch vehicles in a campaign of terror specifically targeting Black and migrant residents.
Before all else, the Irish Communist Party commends the courageous intervention of local community members in saving a man’s life as he was being violently assaulted. Their actions stand as proof of the basic solidarity that still binds our communities together. Knife crime, murder and violence are products of social disharmony, addiction and weak institutions that fail communities. They will never be solved by mobs, scapegoats or burning homes.
To describe these events as mere “rioting” is a political lie. What occurred was a racist pogrom and it is clear we are witnessing fascist methods on the streets of Belfast—methods designed to fracture our class unity at a time of deepening capitalist crisis. We unequivocally condemn all attempts by fascists to organise pogroms against innocent people of colour and the other innocent bystanders who will no doubt be targeted on racist grounds.
As Communists we firmly reject the false narrative that economic deprivation alone causes racism. Austerity creates the conditions for scapegoating, but the racism itself is a weapon forged by the far-right and enabled by a capitalist system, supported by right-wing elements in the media, that pits the unemployed native worker against the migrant worker for scraps.
We reiterate the demand for a strong Bill of Rights covering the right to work, housing, and “full equality regardless of race”. However, rights are not granted by a Stormont that is structurally bound to Westminster austerity; they are won by mass working-class struggle.
We continue to reject paramilitary violence and sectarianism. This week’s violence is not dressed in green or orange; it is dressed in the black of global neo-fascism. We reiterate: paramilitary violence, whatever its source and this new far-right violence can only hold back the struggle for democracy and an economic and social policy alternative to the austerity being offered by governments North and South.
The growing influence of fascist ideology is not only a problem for Protestant communities nor it is only a problem in the North it has also taken root in the Republic of Ireland, and it is spreading. In recent times, we have watched with alarm as masked gangs in Coolock, Ringsend, and East Wall have attacked accommodation centres, burned construction machinery intended for refugee housing, and chanted racist slogans outside the Dáil. These are not “concerned citizens” or “deprived locals acting out.” They are organised far-right elements, many travelling across the country to target vulnerable communities, emboldened by the same online networks that fuelled the current Belfast pogrom.
The Irish Communist Party calls out the failure of the Dáil for its role in creating this crisis. By outsourcing asylum housing to private contractors, refusing to build public housing, and scapegoating refugees for a housing crisis engineered by landlords and the EU austerity agenda, Simon Harris and his coalition have provided the far-right with its main rhetorical ammunition. We recognise that the for-profit model in the asylum-seeking process, in mental health services, in addiction services and in community services is the primary and principal cause of the misery and suffering generated for ordinary people in Belfast and throughout Ireland. The burning of a tent in Dublin is the same violence as the burning of a home in Belfast. We demand the immediate repeal of the International Protection Act 2015 (which has created human rights gaps), an end to direct provision, and the opening of vacant public properties to all who need shelter— citizens and refugee alike.
We also call out in the most emphatic terms the dangerous and emerging tactical links between loyalist paramilitary-adjacent groups in the North and self-styled “republican” fascist groupings in the South. Loyalist flags have been seen alongside the Irish tricolour at anti-immigration protests in Dublin and Cork. This has nothing to do with reconciliation but rather is a shared poison of exclusion and hate. Individuals associated with the UVF have been observed sharing platforms with former IRA-identified drug dealers who have rebranded as “nationalist anti-migrant activists.”
This is not a contradiction. It is the logic of fascism seeking opportunity in the wreckage of sectarianism and a still-divided class.
The Irish republican tradition—Connolly, Mellows, Tone—was built on internationalism and anti-imperialism. James Connolly wrote that “the cause of labour is the cause of Ireland; the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour.” To smash a migrant’s window while claiming Wolfe Tone’s name is historical grave-robbing. These so-called republican fascists are not social republicans; they are racial chauvinists who would have denounced Connolly as a “woke globalist” had he landed on these shores today.
The Irish Communist Party calls on all genuine anti-imperialists and Republicans to denounce this alliance by name. The enemy is not the refugee. The enemy is the British and Irish capitalist class that has always used the border and the sectarian divide to crush working-class unity. Any “republicanism” that joins hands with loyalists to attack workers is fascism wearing a green jersey.
We likewise condemn in the strongest terms the abject failure of mainstream unionist politicians—from the DUP, UUP, and TUV—to exercise any meaningful leadership in challenging the racist violence erupting from loyalist heartlands. For years, these politicians have stoked anti-migrant hysteria with rhetoric about being “swamped,” have boycotted anti-racism initiatives and have refused to name loyalist paramilitaries as the organised forces they are. Now that masked mobs are burning families out of their homes, we hear only mealy-mouthed calls for “calm” and “community cohesion”—never a direct condemnation of the loyalist drug gangs and fascist organisers who led the pogrom. Such politicians are directly responsible. By refusing to educate their own base against racism, by treating loyalist paramilitarism as an unfortunate but untouchable “cultural expression,” they have handed the far-right a territorial base and a political shield. Silence is complicity. The DUP cannot whip up anti-immigrant sentiment to win votes on Monday and then express “shock” at a race riot on Tuesday. We demand that every unionist representative name the loyalist groups behind the violence and call, without equivocation, for their disbandment.
We further condemn the response of the British Labour government led by Keir Starmer. While describing the initial knife attack as “sickening,” Starmer offers no solution to the rise of the far-right other than performative outrage. The Starmer government’s embrace of right-wing talking points on immigration and its continuation of austerity policies has cultivated a racist, authoritarian political culture. You cannot defeat Tommy Robinson by echoing his rhetoric on “control”; you defeat him by mobilising the organised working class against him.
The far-right is banking on terror to silence us. They are burning homes to send a message: that Black workers and migrant workers are not safe in Belfast—or in Dublin, or in Cork. We say to the Romanian, Sudanese, Somali, Polish and all other families here: this is your home. The bosses need us divided; we must be united.
In the face of this emergency, words are insufficient. Immediate defence is required.
The only force capable of crushing this fascist advance is a United Front of trade unions, civil society organisations, tenant unions, and community defence organisations. We need a broad-based progressive movement to challenge not only fascism in the streets but the entire imperialist project of permanent austerity, unending war and genocide. In the immediate term, Party members will continue to work in community, social and industrial spaces to combat sectarianism, racism and fascism wherever it arises.
We are moving into a period of open conflict with the far-right, who have been emboldened by the rhetoric of Elon Musk, the British establishment and the Trump administration. The ICP stands ready to mobilise alongside all progressive groups and class-conscious workers.
We call on the working class of this island to refuse the bait of racism. The man who burns a Romanian family’s house today will be the same man hired to break a strike tomorrow. Your enemy is not the refugee. Your enemy is the landlord, the boss, and the politician who sets us against each other in the interests of the rich. The long battle for a democratic, unitary country that puts the interests of our class and our communities first goes on.
Fascism is not a working-class phenomenon it is a ruling class project.
Reject fascism, reject barbarism, fight for a better world.