Editorial: There are legitimate concerns about immigration levels

At Stormont yesterday, there was universal condemnation of recent violent attacks on property owned by immigrants in Northern Ireland.

​There was, among cross-party MLAs, full support for the PSNI efforts to get tough on the rioters.

The recall of the assembly was not in fact necessary, as this column observed earlier in the week, but given that it did happen the consensus against violent was welcome. It was also welcome to see all shades of unionism unite to support the right to protest in a failed amendment to the main motion.

The thinking against any qualification to the motion was expressed by the Alliance MLA Kate Nicholl. The South Belfast MLA, who grew up in Zimbabwe, told the Stormont chamber yesterday: “I feel very uncomfortable with the insistence of some to begin remarks by stating there are legitimate concerns.”

Ms Nicholl, who was the last MLA to address the assembly yesterday, told fellow politicians that “legitimate concerns do not validate illegitimate protest”.

That is true, and indeed that is the very logic of those who cite legitimate concerns while criticising illegitimate conduct, violence – indeed condemning it terms far stronger than illegitimate, but rather calling it disgraceful, etc.

Ms Nicholl said that racism, not housing, was the problem and she said that only 0.6% of the UK population are asylum seekers. But this latter statistic is highly misleading: the issue is not merely asylum seekers who, if genuine, most people want to try to support. The net immigration to the UK over the last 20 years is in excess of five million people, in a densely populated society of less than 70 million people.

That has, as the DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley said yesterday, quite obviously added considerably to the pressures on not just housing, but services. It is not only fair to say that, it is essential to do so.