Video of a brutal knife attack in Belfast began circulating widely on social media on Monday evening. The man filmed, a Sudanese asylum seeker in his 30s who arrived in the UK in 2023, has been charged with attempted murder. Within hours, the incident was seized on by far-right figures and anti-immigration activists to drive a political narrative.
Violence spread across Belfast and into other towns on Tuesday night. Homes, vehicles and a bus were deliberately set alight, and groups of masked people smashed windows and clashed with police. Some attacks on property and businesses were reported to have a racist character.
High-profile online provocateurs amplified calls to mobilise. One well-known activist posted a list of planned locations for protests across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and that post was further circulated by powerful social media accounts, encouraging people to demonstrate loudly and repeatedly to pressure governments on immigration policy. A political leader campaigning on an anti-immigrant platform responded by promising mass deportations and even proposing the return of the death penalty as a purported deterrent to future attacks. At the same time, anonymous messages on encrypted messaging apps urged men to prepare to fight.
Political leaders across Northern Ireland urged calm. Elected officials from different parties condemned the violence and warned against exploiting the stabbing to foment hatred. The chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland warned the public not to be manipulated by online agitators intent on provoking disorder.
Despite rapid police action and the suspect being charged, crowds of mostly young men gathered in multiple locations. In Belfast a bus was set on fire on the Lower Newtownards Road and sporadic clashes with police continued. Outside the city there were reports of similar disturbances in towns such as Ballyclare and Portadown; premises including a Turkish barber were targeted. Demonstrations in Glasgow also saw arrests after vehicles were torched and several people were injured.
This pattern will feel familiar to observers of recent years. Far-right actors and networks have repeatedly weaponised incidents involving minorities to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment. Online platforms have been used to amplify unverified claims and selective footage from earlier events — from allegations of sexual assault in small towns to high-profile murders — to provoke outrage and organise street-level responses.
Misinformation and partial information spread especially quickly in moments of crisis. Authorities are put under intense pressure to confirm details such as the suspect’s background, and in this case the police publicly released nationality and asylum status relatively quickly, apparently to prevent an information vacuum that would be filled by rumours. But providing certain personal details can also feed toxic narratives and be exploited by agitators.
What drives these dynamics is less about the facts of any single crime and more about a broader, increasingly hostile discourse around immigration. Shock and trauma are leveraged by actors who present immigrants and asylum seekers as the cause of deeper societal problems. Politicians and public figures often condemn the violence while simultaneously contributing to the climate that normalises demonising language about migrants. The Overton Window — the range of politically acceptable ideas — has shifted, making harsh, punitive proposals more publicly palatable.
Misinformation about migrants receiving unfair priority for services is widespread and frequently repeated by commentators and some politicians as if it were proven fact. Media coverage does not always correct these claims, and that failure helps cement public concern about immigration as a leading issue for voters.
Addressing the immediate violence requires law enforcement and public appeals for calm, but the longer-term solution rests with political and media leadership. Social platforms can and should act faster to remove posts that incite violence, but public figures must also stop feeding a polarised narrative and instead provide a fact-based, proportionate account of immigration and asylum. Without that, episodes like this will continue to be exploited, and communities bearing the brunt of the backlash will remain vulnerable.
Paul Reilly is a senior lecturer in communications, media and democracy at the University of Glasgow. This piece is a reworking of an analysis originally published on The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.
