Debate contribution: Opposition to Racism

Debate contribution by Ms Kate Nicholl on 8 August 2024.

MLA

Ms Kate Nicholl

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

8 August 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Opposition to Racism

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4500488

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Speaker. First, I thank members of the Muslim community for their presence here today, for their resilience and for their dignity. Some of what you have had to hear this afternoon will not have been easy. I acknowledge the fear that they and those from minority ethnic communities are living through. That should be our focus, and you have been let down. Collectively, we need to do better. What has unfolded over the past few days has been shocking, unsettling and very sad. It is hard to make sense of it. How did we get here? Was it 14 years of a Tory Government and their hostile environment? Was it the newspaper headlines demonising the most vulnerable and platforming hostility as though it were a legitimate viewpoint? We know that there are dark forces at play on social media. How much of this was them? What impact has our failure to progress key pieces of legislation, our stop-start government and our financial instability had? Is political hesitancy and, at times, silence in the face of hate crime to blame? Anna Lo always said that sectarianism and racism are two sides of the same coin. Has our inability to meaningfully tackle sectarianism, having normalised suspicion and dislike of the other, been a driving force? My view is that all of this is true. Wound together and set against a context of misinformation, disinformation and inequality, here we find ourselves, a complex path that has led us to a dark and frightening place. Thankfully, there are ways out of here, but we will need to grow together. As a first step, we must agree that the violence on our streets is unacceptable. We wholeheartedly condemn it, and those responsible must feel the full weight of the law. Members have been in agreement on this. Secondly, we need to name the problem. Those businesses that were attacked were owned by Muslims. The end point of the riots was the Belfast Islamic Centre. There is no ambiguity here. The unrest was powered by racism and Islamophobia, and the motion states that.

We need to focus on how we listen to the voices of those who have been impacted on. Not one of us who has spoken today has their lived experience. Those who are in fear need to be safe and protected, and we must be visible to them and guided by their needs. The path from here gets harder. Tackling inequality is not easy. We have an insufficient Budget and crises everywhere you look. Housing, poverty, health and education all need to be fixed. We need a properly resourced Justice budget. Legislation is not far from completion on racial equality, refugee integration and anti-poverty, but the good news is that the Assembly is up and running, we have Ministers in place and we can get on with it, and we must. I feel very uncomfortable with the insistence of some beginning their remarks by stating that there are legitimate concerns. I will read what the Victims' Commissioner said, which was:

"So-called 'legitimate concerns' are never acknowledged when we have condemned examples of sectarian hate crime, sexual assault or street violence in the past. It should therefore play no part in our messaging when we condemn violence against victims who are non-white."

I want to get on, and then I will bring you in. There is a right to peaceful protest, and there are people who have concerns. Those points are true. However, there is no right to incitement. While it may not be your intention, the result of qualifying your condemnation is to make those who are being targeted feel that politicians are prioritising the perpetrators over the victims. Legitimate concerns do not validate illegitimate protest. The protest outside today bears no equivalence to the one that was held on Saturday. I acknowledge that, while the intent of the riots was rooted in racism, not all those who attended them were racist. Too many in our society, from every walk of life, are struggling. That is the issue, not immigration and not housing. It is shameful to focus on that when victims, who are sitting in the Public Gallery, are living in fear right now and we make it about housing policy. Housing policy is a failure of politicians, not of people who have a different religion or skin colour.

Decades of deliberate misinformation will be hard to untangle. Across the world, there is a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment. Those with nothing are pitted against each other by those with everything. Here is where our leadership really matters. Here is where we have to say, "This is misinformation." We have a moral duty to address the lies that people are being told and the manipulation and to stress that only 0·6% of the UK population are asylum seekers and that 85% of refugees are in developing countries. We need to be clear that Northern Ireland needs newcomers in order to grow. Can we please stay away from the narrative of the good migrant versus the bad migrant? Your working in a hospital does not make you better than an asylum seeker. We are all human beings. We all have worth, and we all have value.

Our diversity makes us richer, and we need to tap into the warmth and empathy that our people possess in volumes. That empathy and compassion are sometimes hard to access because of poverty and the failure of our public services to meet their needs, but those are two separate conversations. We are here today talking about racist crime and Islamophobia. We will have another conversation about housing. Please do not conflate the issues. It is negligent and dangerous to do that. Our views on politics, history, economics and the constitutional question will vary, but I really hope that, today, one thing that we can agree on is that we are all united in our desire to make this place a better one where everyone, regardless of their religion or race, can feel safe, be happy and lead a good life. I will finish by reading the words of Muhammad Atif, who is from the Belfast Multi-Cultural Association. He is in the Public Gallery, but he spoke to us on the stairs outside. It is right that we end with his words. He said:

"We must reflect on the message that we are sending to our children. What kind of society do we want them to inherit? Is it one where division and intolerance thrive or one that celebrates diversity and unity? We have witnessed failures from authorities and politicians in adequately protecting Muslim and immigrant communities, and now they have the opportunity to correct that. It is imperative that today, you send a resounding message of solidarity that we stand united against racism, Islamophobia and discrimination in all forms. We urge every citizen of Northern Ireland to embrace our diversity and recognise it as a strength. Together, let us build a future where everyone, regardless of their background, skin colour and religious beliefs, feels valued and safe. The time is now to affirm our commitment to inclusively, making Northern Ireland a welcoming home for all."

He asks:

"Will you promise me this? Will you promise this to yourself? Will you promise this to our next generations?"

1,221 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:20 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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