Letter: ​Energy should be directed into developing political and policy ideas, not violence

This relates to the extent by which forced multicultural diversity and imposed integration of overtly hostile foreign ideologies has eroded the values, cohesion and social fabric of many communities.

These are not the concerns of the ‘far right’ or ‘thugs’ or ‘fascists’. The labelling of ordinary people with such derogatory terms is a rather transparent means by which to ignore the legitimacy of how many people are feeling.

It is an effort to smear anyone who thinks differently from a liberal elite establishment which is based not upon class, but rather upon a disparate coalition of people who attain their credentials not on the basis of their back account but rather their willingness to virtue signal, particularly online, and embrace the latest social fad or Twitterati trend.

This aspect of the social media problem is often overlooked.

Amongst that coalition, which was largely visually manifesting itself at a left wing rally at Belfast City Hall on Saturday, there are as many fanatical extremists as there are good decent people.

But the problem is those persons fail to recognise the same is true of the other side of the argument; there is as many good decent people with genuine concerns whose outlook or values are not reflected by masked thugs rampaging attacking property or in people doing appalling Nazi salutes.

It is remarkable that those Nazi saluting individuals fail to appreciate that the United Kingdom fought against and defeated the Nazis.

Our forefathers fought and died to defend our values and prevent Nazism invading and taking ownership of our country.

It seems to me to be the height of idiocy to purport to express concerns about the damage inflicted by foreign ideologies being imposed in the United Kingdom, whilst manifesting this purported concern by endorsing the most evil anti-UK ideology there has ever been.

I stand unashamedly with Israel. I am equally proud of the sacrifice our United Kingdom made in defeating Hitler.

Those doing Nazi salutes pose as great a threat to our British way of life as those threatening violent Islamic Jihad.

In equal terms, if the concern- which is legitimate- is about foreign ideologies which come to the United Kingdom via illegal immigration and seek to force us to adopt to those ideologies rather than embracing our way of life, then it seems to be to be wholly irrational (not to mention simply wrong) to attack people who have come here and not sought to do that, but rather who have embraced our way of life and integrated into our communities.

It is not those people with whom there should be any quarrel.

At a basic level, they are not responsible for government policy but moreover these are people who have fully integrated into our communities and way of life, contributing to society positively.

The violence against people and property is wrong and achieves the opposite of what is intended, if (which in many cases I doubt) there is any misguided ‘intent’ behind these angry outbursts at all.

A lot of the misdirected anger comes from a lazy and unthinking conflating of those who come to the United Kingdom and accept our way of life and values, playing a positive role in society, with those who come here illegally to try and force upon us their ideologies which are both foreign in the sense of origin and our broadly accepted standard of moral values.

In unionist communities there is a subset of concerns, in a local rather than international context, around how traditionally unionist areas are having Irish identity imposed. I highly recommend the essay by academic Neil McCarthy on this subject in last week’s News Letter (Shared space concept has got to apply to both sides or neither, July 31).

It strikes me therefore as somewhat of an absurdity that some of those from within unionism and loyalism who are legitimately concerned about the traditional fabric of areas and communities being eroded appear to see it as fruitful to make common alliances with those who are aggressively and passionately devoted to Irish nationalism.

This kind of alliance may appear superficially attractive, and visually ‘revolutionary’, but revolutions based on marriages of short term convenience usually devour their children.

Rather than such irrational short-term alliances, those within unionism/loyalism who share genuine concerns about the relevant issues should direct and harness energy into a thought-process of developing political and policy ideas and asks which will go some way to addressing the problems.

A campaign can then be built around promoting and lobbying for political and policy change to deliver positive outcomes.

Jamie Bryson, NI director of policy, Centre for the Union