Ben Lowry: If Northern Ireland wants mass immigration and no criticism of it, so be it - but such population change comes with a cost

(Click here to read Ben Lowry on Northern Ireland Olympic successes and to read his column last week click here, about unionists contributing to a pro IRA view of legacy)

In the event it was a handful of loyalists who gathered. PSNI vans and officers separated them from a far larger anti racist protest. I walked across the no-man’s land between the demonstration and counter demo. My estimate is of 100 to 200 people on the loyalist side, 1,000 to 2,000 on the other.

The latter made clear their pleasure at outnumbering what they called the racist protest. “There are many, many more of us than you,” they sang in a taunt. One held up a sign that read: “Scundered for ya”

I refer to the anti immigrant protestors as loyalists because several held up Union flags or imagery. Those I talked to were all from loyalist areas. There was no repeat of last Saturday when anti immigrant protestors waving the UK flag stood beside liked-minded protestors from Dublin waving a Tricolour.

The sneering self-styled anti racists were right: there are many, many more of them than people who will express public concern about immigration.

This week Stormont was recalled to convey its particular contempt for the recent riots, as if it was worse morally than past Orange-Green violence. The police want more powers to deal with it. For one of the first times, they issued photographs of people wanted over the trouble. The authorities warn of severe jail time for anyone involved in racist violence. I have never seen such a tough security approach to, for example, the waves of vicious republican rioting in Londonderry where brazen petrol bomb attacks on officers are met with police and court timidity.

MLAs rejected a unionist bid this week to twin the denunciations of violence with a defence of people’s right to protest. An Alliance MLA dismissed the idea of ‘legitimate concerns’ over immigration. Much of the media talked about the ‘far right’ in terms of loyalists, as if there were no concerns about immigration in nationalist Ireland, despite growing evidence there is. Unionist politicians were accused of a lack of leadership about the violence.

All week BBC NI online had stories on this political unanimity against protests, on the court cases, on fears of possible targets of racism. Last night a story on their home page was headlined: Féile support for newcomer communities. See the contrast with racist loyalists?

The national broadcaster, with all its resources, either did not produce an online story which led off on concerns in about pressures in poor areas caused by an influx of migrants –as, for example, articulated by that humane GP John Kyle, who has devoted much of his life to helping such societies. Or, if the BBC had such a story online, it didn’t give it prominence. Last eve I talked to two women from the Shore Road who said their children can’t get social housing yet they see immigrants being fast-tracked into it. Can the BBC not find such voices?

Northern Ireland this week sent out a signal that, despite hotels across NI having to be taken over to house migrants and hostels likewise, there will never be any legitimate concern about the pressures it might put on infrastructure and services. People in poor areas will just have to suck it up. I predict in time demands for segregated schooling for particular ethnic groups. People who have spent their lives campaigning for integrated schools will back those demands.

NI, which already won’t accept even mild restraints on public services, pay or benefits, will either move towards bankruptcy or ruined infrastructure, or (more likely) vast new funding from London.

Some people who read this column will say I am defending racist thuggery. Well, I am not. I wonder if anyone else at City Hall yesterday travelled to Lesbos as I did in 2015 to see that Greek island become overwhelmed with refugees, in biblical scenes. I wrote about how impressed I was by Syrian migrants I interviewed, how their departure was a tragic loss for that country, and a boost to ours. Thus I feel revulsion at, for example, the destruction of a shop set up in Belfast by just such a entrepreneurial Syrian.

But I have reported on hardship in loyalist areas too, and this week has shown there is no sympathy for them. None. Just bullying, demonisation and fresh bid to stop them even speaking, given how ‘racist’ speech is being hunted down.

And I make another prediction. These hostels won’t be built in the leafy neighbourhoods where many of the anti racists reside.

Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor