A White Supremacist Youth Group Helped Orchestrate the Belfast Riots After Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson stoked anger over a horrific knife attack in Belfast, a youth group linked to a global neo-Nazi movement quietly orchestrated anti-immigrant riots.
Within an hour after a horrific knife attack took place in Belfast on Monday night, far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson had shared a video of the incident on X, a post that racked up 6 million views.
Within hours Elon Musk, the owner of the platform, weighed in, agreeing with a post calling for “consequences” for politicians.
By Tuesday morning, supercharged by X, the video was everywhere, and groups on Facebook were organizing protests across Northern Ireland and the UK. Far-right figures in the US and UK continued to pour fuel on the fire online, framing the incident as part of a broader antiwhite agenda being perpetrated in Western countries.
By Tuesday evening, violent protests had broken out in Belfast, with masked rioters setting fire to vehicles, kicking in the doors of homes they believed housed immigrants, and setting those homes on fire.
Politicians were quick to criticize Musk and Robinson, who did not reply to requests for comment . . .
Continue @ Wired.
. . . is celebrating the Trump administration’s refusal to acknowledge Pride Month—celebrated in the U.S. in June—and praising the State Department’s “hard shift away from promoting pride and ungodly sexuality,” which includes a ban on embassies displaying Pride flags.
In a Wednesday post, IFA suggest that people offer prayers of thanks for “leaders who are willing to stand for biblical truth” and to ask God to “help our leaders stand strong against the lies of the pride and LGBT agendas.”
We prayed for an end to the erosion of biblical truth under President Biden, and those prayers have been answered through President Trump,” says IFA. “Let’s continue to pray for truth and wisdom for our leaders, as well as for policies that uphold God’s design for individuals, families, and society.
IFA kicked off Pride Month on Monday by promoting a “prayer guide” that asks God to “expose the demonic agenda behind ‘Pride’ Month and the ever increasing push toward normalizing sexual perversion and transgender ideology.” It warns that LGBTQ-affirming Christians will face “eternal consequences” for “promoting what is detestable” to God.
Continue @ RWW.
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
Such acts of violence deserve unequivocal condemnation regardless of who commits them or who the victim may be. However, the public reaction to the incident has also exposed uncomfortable questions about consistency, selective outrage and political convenience.
The issue is not whether violence in North Belfast should be condemned—it absolutely should. The issue is whether our moral standards are applied consistently. If the injury or death of innocent people is wrong, then it should be wrong regardless of nationality, religion, ethnicity or geography.
In the days preceding the attack, many of those Unionist/Loyalist voices now calling for unity and solidarity against violence had been participating in events and demonstrations at Scarva where support was expressed for Israel's military actions in Gaza. Following the North Belfast incident, some of these same political voices used extremely strong and condemnatory language to describe the attack and expressing outrage at what had occurred.
This response highlights a perceived inconsistency, pointing out that many of those expressing such outrage ignores the devastating humanitarian consequences of the conflict and the deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza, including women and children. Whether one agrees with that criticism or not, there remains an obvious tension when individuals express profound outrage at violence close to home while appearing less concerned by suffering occurring elsewhere.
Adding further complexity to the public debate is the fact that authorities have stated that they have no evidence to treat the North Belfast incident as terrorism related. At the same time, local accounts have alleged that the individuals involved were known to one another and further claimed that the individuals were known locally as suffering from substance abuse - drug addicts. That both allegedly suffered from drug related psychosis and who had apparently fallen out over a dispute of ownership of drugs. It has also been noted that the area where the attack occurred is close to several designated temporary hostels, emergency accommodation sites and supported living complexes. While Kinnaird Avenue itself is general social housing, the broader North Belfast area directly surrounding it features a high concentration of specialised facilities designed to support individuals experiencing homelessness, substance addiction or complex social issues. While this fact alone proves nothing about the circumstances of the attack, it forms part of the wider context within which local speculation has developed. Nevertheless, if such accounts prove to be accurate, they would raise legitimate questions about the speed with which some commentators sought to frame the incident within wider political narratives before all of the facts were known.
The danger in such situations is that public discourse can become driven by emotion and assumption rather than evidence. When people immediately seek to fit events into pre-existing political arguments, there is a risk that the actual circumstances become secondary to the narrative people wish to promote.
Equally revealing is the way certain crimes capture public attention while others quickly disappear from public discussion. Violent attacks only become symbols when society chooses to make them symbols. Countless victims never become rallying points for political campaigns, media outrage or public demonstrations. This naturally raises questions about why some incidents dominate headlines while others fade into obscurity. For example, there was not the same level of public hysteria following the Manchester school stabbings, nor were there widespread demands for immigration checks, deportations or expulsions upon conviction. Whether one agrees with such demands in any particular case is beside the point; the contrast in public and political reactions raises legitimate questions about why similar acts of violence can generate such different responses.
It also raises uncomfortable questions about consistency. Had the circumstances been reversed, would the reaction have been the same? If the victim and perpetrator had been of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, would the same political figures, commentators and campaigners have responded with equal urgency and prominence? Would public debate have taken a different direction? Would figures such as Keir Starmer. Nigel Farage, or Gavin Robinson and others within Unionism, have devoted the same level of attention and condemnation to the incident? These questions cannot be answered with certainty, but their very existence reflects a wider concern that public outrage is not always applied consistently and may, at times, be influenced by the identities of those involved.
The North’s own history provides another uncomfortable comparison. During the Conflict, the actions of the Shankill Butchers remain among the most notorious examples of sectarian brutality. Their victims suffered horrific violence, torture and murder. Yet those crimes rarely feature in contemporary public discourse with the same intensity of outrage that accompanies modern incidents. While the passage of time undoubtedly plays a role, it remains legitimate to ask why some acts of violence become enduring symbols while others are gradually relegated to the background of public memory.
Likewise, many other serious crimes receive far less sustained public attention. Questions are often raised as to why some victims become the focus of widespread political and media discussion while others do not. The answer is rarely straightforward, but it is reasonable to ask whether factors such as political context, public sentiment and media framing influence the prominence given to particular incidents.
The danger of selective outrage is that it undermines credibility. When people condemn violence only when committed by their opponents, or only when the victims belong to a particular group, their outrage begins to look less like a defence of human dignity and more like political tribalism.
If society genuinely wishes to combat hatred, violence and division, then the standard must be universal. The victim's identity should not determine the strength of our condemnation. Nor should the perpetrator's political, religious or cultural background determine whether we speak out.
The challenge facing the North - as it has faced for generations—is not simply condemning violence when it shocks us. It is maintaining the same moral standard when doing so is uncomfortable, politically inconvenient or challenges our own assumptions. Anything less risks turning justice into a matter of preference rather than principle.
A mature society should be capable of condemning violence wherever it occurs, demanding facts before drawing conclusions, and applying the same moral standards to all people. Consistency, rather than convenience, is ultimately the true test of principle.
⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.
Recommended by Brendan Keane.
What I didn’t expect was how directly some of its case studies could be applied to Republicanism — especially to the leadership’s repeated inability, or refusal, to identify touts even when the evidence was staring them in the face.
That does not excuse the fact that certain touts were allowed to operate with apparent impunity, no matter what information came to light.
Gladwell explores why human beings are so poor at detecting lies. In one study, Professor Timothy Levine found that people could identify liars only 54% of the time. Those are decent odds if you fancy your luck on a horse, but hardly the sort of odds on which you’d re-mortgage your house. Other experiments, involving job interviews and orchestra auditions, showed evaluators made better decisions when they did not actually see the candidates.
Gladwell then turns to more striking examples: the CIA’s supposed crème de la crème being made to look like amateurs by internal moles. Top-secret departments were infiltrated for years despite rumours, suspicions and even lie-detector tests. The most embarrassing part is that these spies were not masterful James Bond figures, skilled in deception and cunning. They left trails of breadcrumbs that Hansel and Gretel would have been proud of.
The reason, according to Levine, lies in what he calls Truth Default Theory: human beings are inclined to believe others, even when confronted with signs of dishonesty. There is an evolutionary logic to this. Society cannot function if we treat every stranger as a potential liar. Without some basic level of trust, society would collapse into suspicion and chaos — wonder if this sounds familiar today.
The surprising part is that even when we understand deception in theory, we often hesitate to suspect those close to us. A truth bias overrides the doubts we might otherwise have. Consequently, those who raise suspicions early, therefore, take enormous risks: public humiliation, loss of employment, isolation, and in some cases even death. We still see this today when whistleblowers leak damaging information that society should, in theory, be grateful to know.
But there is one factor Gladwell touches on without, in my view, giving it enough weight: likeability.
A few years ago, one of my neighbours was finally exposed as a paedo after what felt like an eternity of being widely known as a pervert. Yet most people liked him, more or less, provided they ignored the strange, off-the-wall remarks he made regardless of who was present. The American and British spies discussed in Gladwell’s book were often oddballs too. But they were generally liked — until, years later, the truth became impossible to ignore.
And this brings me to the real reason for these thoughts.
I have written several times about the person I consider to be the Brits’ current top Republican tout. I often wondered what a chance encounter with him would feel like, especially after having known him personally for so many years. Then it happened.
What struck me most was the likeability factor. We often imagine touts as rats, monsters, people without conscience. But one reason some of them survive for so long is precisely because they are nice guys! They can be friendly, approachable, easy in company. They can talk like old school friends at a reunion and slip naturally into their surroundings.
That was exactly how my encounter felt, despite everything I know about him and the damage he has inflicted on all of us. No wonder so many Republicans had doubts over the years.
Yet, to return to Gladwell, even the best spies and informers leave breadcrumbs. What they often share is an inability to provide respectable answers for the inconsistencies, contradictions and strange quirks throughout their careers.
At first, that failure is on us. After that, it belongs to those who still refuse to act on the evidence — and especially to those who stand in their corners defending them, when we know that they already know.
That does not excuse the fact that certain touts were allowed to operate with apparent impunity, no matter what information came to light.
Gladwell explores why human beings are so poor at detecting lies. In one study, Professor Timothy Levine found that people could identify liars only 54% of the time. Those are decent odds if you fancy your luck on a horse, but hardly the sort of odds on which you’d re-mortgage your house. Other experiments, involving job interviews and orchestra auditions, showed evaluators made better decisions when they did not actually see the candidates.
Gladwell then turns to more striking examples: the CIA’s supposed crème de la crème being made to look like amateurs by internal moles. Top-secret departments were infiltrated for years despite rumours, suspicions and even lie-detector tests. The most embarrassing part is that these spies were not masterful James Bond figures, skilled in deception and cunning. They left trails of breadcrumbs that Hansel and Gretel would have been proud of.
The reason, according to Levine, lies in what he calls Truth Default Theory: human beings are inclined to believe others, even when confronted with signs of dishonesty. There is an evolutionary logic to this. Society cannot function if we treat every stranger as a potential liar. Without some basic level of trust, society would collapse into suspicion and chaos — wonder if this sounds familiar today.
The surprising part is that even when we understand deception in theory, we often hesitate to suspect those close to us. A truth bias overrides the doubts we might otherwise have. Consequently, those who raise suspicions early, therefore, take enormous risks: public humiliation, loss of employment, isolation, and in some cases even death. We still see this today when whistleblowers leak damaging information that society should, in theory, be grateful to know.
But there is one factor Gladwell touches on without, in my view, giving it enough weight: likeability.
A few years ago, one of my neighbours was finally exposed as a paedo after what felt like an eternity of being widely known as a pervert. Yet most people liked him, more or less, provided they ignored the strange, off-the-wall remarks he made regardless of who was present. The American and British spies discussed in Gladwell’s book were often oddballs too. But they were generally liked — until, years later, the truth became impossible to ignore.
And this brings me to the real reason for these thoughts.
I have written several times about the person I consider to be the Brits’ current top Republican tout. I often wondered what a chance encounter with him would feel like, especially after having known him personally for so many years. Then it happened.
What struck me most was the likeability factor. We often imagine touts as rats, monsters, people without conscience. But one reason some of them survive for so long is precisely because they are nice guys! They can be friendly, approachable, easy in company. They can talk like old school friends at a reunion and slip naturally into their surroundings.
That was exactly how my encounter felt, despite everything I know about him and the damage he has inflicted on all of us. No wonder so many Republicans had doubts over the years.
Yet, to return to Gladwell, even the best spies and informers leave breadcrumbs. What they often share is an inability to provide respectable answers for the inconsistencies, contradictions and strange quirks throughout their careers.
At first, that failure is on us. After that, it belongs to those who still refuse to act on the evidence — and especially to those who stand in their corners defending them, when we know that they already know.
⏩Michael Phillips is a former republican prisoner. Keep up with his work.
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Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
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| Photo: GOL |
De la Espriella is further to the right than Uribe Vélez in everything. He is also more openly violent in his political tendencies and proposals as much as in his private life. The lawyer for the right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and an advisor to the paramilitaries in Santa Fe, de Ralito and a man who said that ethics have nothing to do with law. Such a person will govern without any ethics, or rather with the ethics of the murderer, the thief, the human rights violator. He will return the country to the 1980s and 1990s when every president pretended that the military killed no one. However, De la Espriella, just like Bukele in El Salvador, sees no need to fake anything, other than empathy.
It will be a more violent and extremist government than any from the past and the international context helps them in that. For decades Colombian social democrats have looked to the USA and Europe to save the country. Some of them even promised us that Obama would save the country. Such stupidity was common amongst the NGOs. There is nothing wrong in denouncing human rights violations in international settings, even before capitalist institutions such as the European Parliament or the US Congress but trusting in them to put an end to such violations when their companies are the beneficiaries, instigators and in many cases the direct agents in massacres is naïve. However, it is true that sometimes the international institutions have helped soften a situation, but never have they put an end to it. To believe that others will save Colombia and not the Colombian people is not just naïve it is dangerous. The international context will favour the worst excesses of De la Espriella should he become president.
The NGOs used to take advantage of the conjuncture and the supposed international commitment to human rights. This commitment was always conditional but there was a consensus that western powers, should, at least, pretend to be worried and sometimes the social democratic forces in Europe took some steps, when they were in power, or forced other political forces to some something minimal. Their willingness to do so, depended on the interests at stake and the implications for themselves. But times have changed. We see a live streamed genocide and they didn’t bat an eyelid. The USA threatens half the world and they remain silent or they support it, such as is the case with Ukraine and Iran. Even more worrying in the case of a victory for the extreme right in Colombia is that in Europe the same governments the human rights NGOs would lobby are in a campaign against all rights to dissent and engage in attacks on their own people.
In Germany the police arrest people for wearing a T-Shirt with the Palestinian flag or a keffiyeh. They violently attack peaceful protests. Germany expels or denies entry to other Europeans who support the Palestinian cause like the former minister for finance in Greece, Yanis Varoufikis. In Britain the police arrest pro-Palestinian activists, amongst them blind people, old people, priests and processes them under anti-terrorist legislation. When some activists began a hunger strike the government remained firm, as De la Espriella would say, and some of them came close to dying. They also charge pro-Palestinian doctors and try to have their medical licences revoked, not for malpractice but because of their political positions. They have reached the point of going after people for the posts on social media and not just over Palestine but also other issues. During the social explosion of 2021 in which the Colombian police murdered 84 people in a short period, the European Union remained fairly quiet and limited itself to calls for calm. Now under a De la Espriella government that represses the opposition they are not going to say much, bearing in mind that human and civil rights are also under threat in Europe.
In the USA, ICE searches houses without a warrant, arrests citizens and migrants without due process and the president does what he feels like. The international setting favours the Bukele, the Milei and the De la Espriella. Colombia’s social democrats have lost the consolation of European and Yankee “support”. They will have to fight and if the youths come out on the streets again, they will have to support them, materially, publicly, explicitly and of course not betray them as Petro did, leaving them to rot in prison. The extreme right has discounted half measures and you can’t fight them with conciliatory half measures.
Some have called out for a supposed centre that never existed in Colombia. It is not that there is no centre in Colombia, just that it is not what they say it is. The nearest thing to a centre in Colombia, is the Historic Pact. In any other country, it would be seen as such being a liberal/social democratic party, with some members more to the left and others more to the right. What it is not, is a socialist party. It says a lot about how right-wing various professional commentators are that they see in the Historic Pact, Fidel Castro entering Havana. One would wish it were so, but unfortunately it is not, nor will it be.
Whether a constituent assembly is convenient now or not, is a legitimate debate, but such an assembly is a right people have. Ask for one or not does not place Cepeda on the left, just like their opposition to an assembly does not place them in the supposed centre, though the right-wing don’t usually like assemblies where people get to make decisions. What they really want is for the HP to go further to the right, forming alliances with the “run of the mill” right like Claudia López, responsible for the murder of 14 youths in the protests against the murder of Javier Ordónez at the hands of the police in 2019. Some point to the ex-presidents as a supposed centre. They are all, without exceptions, implicated in the dirty war and it is depressing that they aim to make us think otherwise and that one has to read, not the manifestos of that “left” in the Congress or the commentators from the supposed centre to know what they did, but rather the communiqués from the period of organisations such as Amnesty International. Sipping good whiskey can affect the memory, apparently. Or maybe De la Espriella is not the only one lacking in empathy. These commentators are as much a part of the problem as the bourgeois press itself. They don’t want the country to change too much, they are living it up.
One of the problems of Petro’s government and also Cepeda’s campaign is a lack of clear left-wing proposals. Petro’s attempts to change the health system in Colombia, lacking a majority, ended up as negotiations with right wing forces in Congress, amongst them the supposed centre the commentators want an alliance with. Petro was lacking in audacity. It was also a negotiated process with the health companies such as the Spanish Keralty Group. A simple proposal, which is also simple to understand is a universal health system. To say to the people that if you come down with something minor we will tend to you to the last moment. If it is serious, likewise. If it is chronic or acute also and your income doesn’t matter as it is a universal system and so it is free.
What if Cepeda wins?
But if on the other hand, the mobilisations following the first round and the efforts the Historic Pact bear fruit and Cepeda wins, the problems won’t go away. The right-wing will simply open up another battle front. One of the first to congratulate De la Espriella was extreme Venezuelan right-winger Corina Machado and he wasted no time in returning the accusation of fraud and asked the USA for help to ensure he victory in the second round. Trump heard his call and declared his support as he has done with many authoritarians around the world. If Cepeda wins, the rabble in the opposition campaign will not hesitate to carry out a campaign similar to the Venezuela right-wing asking for sanctions, pressure and if it comes to it and the moment is ripe - ask for a military strike like in Venezuela. Petro has already laid the groundwork in that sense. He ceded to Trump on many things, narcotised his discourse on the armed conflict and spoke of a dictatorship in Venezuela. The abject cowardice he showed will come back like a boomerang. If Cepeda wins, it cannot be discounted that sooner or later they will talk of a dictatorship.
Following June 21st the fight will require fighting, something Petro never understood. The social democrats will also have to fight even if they manage to hang on to their jobs, which is what concerns many of them, though not them all.
One of the problems of Petro’s government and also Cepeda’s campaign is a lack of clear left-wing proposals. Petro’s attempts to change the health system in Colombia, lacking a majority, ended up as negotiations with right wing forces in Congress, amongst them the supposed centre the commentators want an alliance with. Petro was lacking in audacity. It was also a negotiated process with the health companies such as the Spanish Keralty Group. A simple proposal, which is also simple to understand is a universal health system. To say to the people that if you come down with something minor we will tend to you to the last moment. If it is serious, likewise. If it is chronic or acute also and your income doesn’t matter as it is a universal system and so it is free.
What if Cepeda wins?
But if on the other hand, the mobilisations following the first round and the efforts the Historic Pact bear fruit and Cepeda wins, the problems won’t go away. The right-wing will simply open up another battle front. One of the first to congratulate De la Espriella was extreme Venezuelan right-winger Corina Machado and he wasted no time in returning the accusation of fraud and asked the USA for help to ensure he victory in the second round. Trump heard his call and declared his support as he has done with many authoritarians around the world. If Cepeda wins, the rabble in the opposition campaign will not hesitate to carry out a campaign similar to the Venezuela right-wing asking for sanctions, pressure and if it comes to it and the moment is ripe - ask for a military strike like in Venezuela. Petro has already laid the groundwork in that sense. He ceded to Trump on many things, narcotised his discourse on the armed conflict and spoke of a dictatorship in Venezuela. The abject cowardice he showed will come back like a boomerang. If Cepeda wins, it cannot be discounted that sooner or later they will talk of a dictatorship.
Following June 21st the fight will require fighting, something Petro never understood. The social democrats will also have to fight even if they manage to hang on to their jobs, which is what concerns many of them, though not them all.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
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