Kerrie Flood on rejecting Far Right anti-immigrant views

Bebe, Elsie and Alice were just aged 6, 7 and 9. They were at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga class in Southport and were murdered by a now 18-year-old-man.

With a house full of ‘Swifties’, my heart breaks at how families can be changed irrevocably in an instant.

Our thoughts are with Bebe, Elsie and Alice, and those also injured that day. Their voices seem to have been lost in the aftermath.

More than two weeks later, we are seeing images of what appear to be children throwing petrol bombs at PSNI landrovers, opportunists looting Crocs, and tweets from men so brazen as to tag their local police force in their calls to burn down hotels housing immigrants.

It is important to mention that Axel Muganwa Rudakubana’s anonymity order was lifted by Judge Andrew Menary KC in part in response to the “idiotic rioting” across the United Kingdom.

Judge Menary said clearly that keeping his identity anonymous ran the risk of “allowing others who are up to no good to spread misinformation in a vacuum”.

Axel was born in Wales – he was not an illegal immigrant.

It is very rare that I would speak out against those who purport to be acting in the name of demonstrating against violence against women and girls – but please, get off our team.

The manipulation by those on the Far Right of the murder of children is a travesty; rumour and misinformation often stirred up by those who have other motives.

Such misinformation’s spread by all kinds of people is perhaps summed up, for example, by the likes of Nigel Farage, who admitted in an interview with LBC broadcasters to getting some of his information on the attacks from social media, and Andrew Tate.

The same Andrew Tate who was charged with sexual assault, rape and human trafficking in Romania and is awaiting trial.

The right to protest is an important one. It is a right which can and has changed the world.

There is also a time for anger. Anger is a response to a provocation, hurt or threat, whether real or perceived.

The murders of three small children understandably provokes anger. But should the minorities in our communities feel the brunt of this anger? Absolutely not.

Northern Ireland traditionally has low levels of immigration. Almost 97 per cent of our population in 2021 was white, with our 2022 net immigration figure sitting at 2,300 people, while emigration was 2,700.

In a column not too long ago, I warned of our declining birth rates and our recruitment crisis simply because we do not have enough people.

What this seems really to be about is that even though we do not have enough people, the people who are here are suffering.

The gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is ever-widening. I wrote last month about our housing crisis; we see every day the waiting lists for services grow, we watch as services are removed and as the future we hoped to have for our children and young people seems less and less achievable.

These are real issues and real concerns, but in a tale as old as time, in competing for ever-shrinking resources, our most vulnerable become a target.

On March 31, Home Office Statistics showed that 2,248 asylum seekers were in receipt of support in Northern Ireland.

Have those 2,248 people caused the collapse of housing availability, or an upsurge in femicide here? No.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Northern Ireland is under-funded. Those who hold the purse strings make decisions – decisions that impact whether a nurse is getting a fair wage, or whether a service closes.

We need only look at the huge gap on the map in the All-Island Strategic Rail review and a decision that was made based on existing population levels to see how decisions are made.

There is merit in the thought that we need to have meaningful discussions with those on the Right who are concerned about housing, education and health.

I know that Kate Nicholl MLA has been uncomfortable with references to ‘legitimate concerns’, but in areas with communities who feel hopeless, a failure to engage in uncomfortable conversations can have devastating consequences.

Consequences which we have seen play out in France where, in my view, bad actors step in to the vacuum left when we cannot have uncomfortable conversations.

I also listened to our former First Minister, Arlene Foster, when she rejected the labelling of Working Class communities as ‘racist’.

This is another uncomfortable conversation that we need to be open to having.

Some of the riots we have seen in recent weeks are indeed racist, and we must be able to name them as such.

Is a child throwing a petrol bomb at the PSNI inherently racist? No.

Is a child skipping along a street chanting a racial slur inherently racist? No.

But they are being influenced and cultivated by sections of our community who are indeed racist.

That racism is fuelled by a lack of opportunity, and a publicly hostile discourse in our media and in our elected officials.

We are in an environment where the thought of rounding people up and shipping them off in the form of the Rwanda Policy has become normalised.

A policy that was deemed unlawful by the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court.

Normalisation of marginalisation of our most vulnerable by those with the most power.

The murders of three little girls by a man born in the united Kingdom should not be the cause of more violence.

We should not allow anyone to misrepresent the truth: that women and girls are not safe because of violent men, not because of immigrants.

Our communities are hungry, homeless and hopeless because of successive governments’ political choices, not because of immigrants.

For those who want to help prevent violence against women and girls, campaign with us, lobby with us, and support our work.

For those who want to blame violence against women and girls on immigrants, I will say it again.

Pease. Get off our team.

Kerrie Flood is Interim Chief Executive at Fermanagh Women’s Aid.