Member's statement: Racist Violence

Member's statement by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on 15 June 2026.

MLA

Dr Steve Aiken OBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

15 June 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Racist Violence

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5613293

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Last week, we saw the horrific and barbaric attack on Stephen Ogilvie. That attack, no matter the rights and wrongs, was made by a legal asylum seeker in our nation. We also witnessed attacks on our communities that were perpetrated and incited from who really knows where. Those attacks were reinforced and amplified by social media, and they focused on many of the most vulnerable in our society. To what end? On Thursday, the Health Minister and I visited traumatised citizens in my home town of Ballyclare. Not only were those who were attacked healthcare workers, many of whom keep our care homes open and provide healthcare provision to many of our old and infirm, but they are here legally. Moreover, they could not have got those jobs unless they had passed the Home Office and health service checks, which are a lot more onerous than lots of armchair social media warriors would believe them to be. A further element of disquiet is caused by the fact that many victims of the attacks whom we visited were British citizens. Anyone who has undertaken the onerous and expensive task of achieving British nationality will attest to how difficult it is. They have spent thousands of pounds and completed difficult exams, many of which some of us would be hard-pressed to pass, in order to be British not as a matter of convenience but because they believe in and want to be part of our nation. They want to contribute. They are contributing, and they have exactly the same rights as every other British citizen because that is exactly what they are. Attacking people because of the colour of their skin or their perceived religion, even though many of them are pillars of the local Christian Churches and evidently British, is beyond ignorant. Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, not the nation of the 1950s but of now. I think of Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Exeter — you name it — as that is how our modern and proud nation looks. For our own future, we must never forget that. The fact that the young and others from all backgrounds are so easily swayed by false narratives that are pumped out of social media is worrying. Whether it is the endemic antisemitism, anti-Islam views or racial stereotyping, we seem to have lost our critical faculty to challenge the breadth of near incessant fake news. My conversation last week with someone who was being radicalised to go out and riot in order to prevent what they said was the "creeping Islamification of our society" could not get round the paradox that they were being manipulated in large part by a bot in Tehran, Serbia or St Petersburg. That is the sad reality of those AI-induced attacks on democracy. They play on the vulnerability, gullibility and, above all, prejudice of far too many. It is well past time that the question of who benefits from that disorder be asked. Why are those who do that so keen to undermine Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom's image? That is the critical question that we should be asking.

527 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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