Union flags and Irish flags are flown side by side at anti immigrant protest in Belfast city centre

25 comments

1. Something I never thought I would see in my life, Unionists and Republicans in Belfast of all places on the same side of a protest.

2. While it is a sight to behold that these goblins have managed to overcome hating each other in order to hate someone else for 5 minutes, it detracts from the fact that the majority of people haven’t paid a blind bit of attention as to whether someone has identified as Irish or British for the past 25 years

3. They must be people from the Dublin riots last year. It’s the only group that hate migrants and want to wave the Irish flag.

4. Loyalist: Never thought I’d die standing side by side with a Nationalist

   Nationalist: What about side by side with a friend?

   Loyalist: Aye, I can do that

5. Of all the things to break down barriers and united unionists and republicans, it’s hating other people instead of each other 😅

6. >”Such a marriage of temporary convenience has many long term dangers and is unsustainable and will eventually turn inwards on itself because other than this one cause- which is exercising working class communities across the UK and Republic of Ireland so is more rooted in that rather than any convergence of a Irishness and Britishness.”

   Peak Newsletter. Barely-veiled horror at the idea unionists and nationalists might make common cause about anything.

7. I guess your enemy’s enemy is your friend. In these folk’s minds at least.

8. We need an alien invasion badly. Only thing that could unite humanity.

9. No matter what your background, it’s only human to be welcoming and understanding. Just following comments by a cretin and a criminal make no sense and go across any good persons values

10. Those aren’t local Northern Irish nationalists. Those are far right conspiracy theory gimps from the Republic who gave travelled up. Imagine people who call themselves Irish patriots cosying up to ‘no surrender’ Unionists. Absolutely brain dead morons.

11. I saw one or two Irish flags raised alongside a pro-Palestine march in Leeds. I couldn’t work out the connection but didn’t think much of it beyond, “oh that’s nice”.

12. The guys with the trídhathach aren’t from Belfast, apparently. They’re part of the anti-immigration, pro-Tommy Robinson melters from North Dublin. 

13. Was it “anti immigrant” or “anti illegal immigrant” protest?

14. Surely this can’t be all organised by Tommy Robinson?

15. This is what I’ve been saying for ages

    Except it was with Israel. The far right decided to stop their Nazi salutes and antisemitic conspiracy nonsense to instead fly Israel flags, just because they hate Muslims more than they hate Jewish people

    Union flag and Irish flag side by side comes as no surprise.

16. Why are they rallying against immigrants in Belfast of all places? Northern Ireland is barely diverse at all (excl other Brits and ROI born, of course).

    According to the 2021 census, 124k people living in NI were born outside of the UK & ROI; that’s 6% of their population.

    For comparison, 12% (621k) of ROI, 15% of England (8.4m), 8% of Scotland (440k), and 7% (217k) of Wales are immigrants.

    Sure, none of these numbers account for illegals, but I doubt there’s more illegals than legals in NI.

17. This is a problem created by the so called British empire

18. Three weeks in and Starmer has already ended the troubles. Imagine what he could do in five years?

19. Funny considering more Irish people outside of Ireland then in Ireland itself.

20. A few weeks ago the Ulster loyalists built bonfires with Kill All Taigs (KAT) messages on them.

21. It should be no surprise to anyone that idiots can be Republican as well as Loyalist.

22. Same scumbags hate each other but hate immigrants more, ultimate xenophobia

23. People are sick of it all throughout Europe. They just want to be told the truth, Europeans aren’t having enough kids anymore.

24. A unified Ireland indeed lmao. Imagine if this is Kier’s legacy 💀

25. We should have thought about this years ago. The solution to the Irish question is an outside unifying bigotry. Now Catholic and Protestant can hold hands as they scream at non-white people to leave.

    Of course we’d then have to solve a racism problem, but that’s some other future generation’s problem!