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"Elon Musk is a national security threat," said one London politician.
Politicians in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom on Wednesday were denouncing mobs of masked rioters who had spent Tuesday night setting fire to properties, buses, and cars in Belfast and forcing immigrant families to flee their homes in fear, following a stabbing attack in which a Sudanese immigrant is the suspect.
But along with the groups of anti-immigration agitators in the Northern Ireland capital and elsewhere in the country, local leaders reserved particular condemnation for one man who was thousands of miles away from the violence and who, as one member of Parliament said, has likely "never been to and possibly never heard of North Belfast" before he began inciting the mobs there: tech billionaire and right-wing megadonor Elon Musk.
After a graphic video of Monday night's attack on a Belfast man, Steven Ogilvy, circulated online Tuesday, Musk used his platform, X, to share a post by far-right, anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson in which Robinson had listed places where his supporters could gather to protest "yet another invader attack on our people."
"Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!" said Musk.
He also shared a post by MP Rupert Lowe of the far-right Restore Britain Party, which appeared to include a screenshot of the video of the knife attack and was captioned, "Millions must go."
At Novara Media, investigative journalist Paul Holden said far-right politicians and their supporters were pushing the "central lie" that "immigrants are an 'alien culture.'"
"'We've imported an alien culture that venerates bloodlust.'... That's not true," he said. "That fundamentally isn't true."
Protests against immigration spilled over into rioting in Belfast on Tuesday night.
The violence broke out after a 30-year-old Sudanese man was charged with attempted murder — which led Elon Musk and Restore's Rupert Lowe to call for the deportation of "millions".
On Novara… pic.twitter.com/7TYm2HPevU
— Novara Media (@novaramedia) June 10, 2026
After Musk, the world's richest person, broadcast the call to his 240 million followers in X, immigrant families in Belfast had to be escorted by emergency responders out of their homes as masked mobs set fire to their neighborhoods as well as creating roadblocks by moving garbage cans and setting them ablaze.
Sudanese business owners in central Belfast were forced to close their stores and lock them with steel shutters before 4:00 pm on Tuesday out of fear of being attacked. The Belfast Islamic Center canceled evening prayers.
“We are telling our congregation to go home, don’t go out, look after your children, don’t share rumors, and do listen to the authorities,” Ameer Ibrahim, a project manager, told The Guardian.
Anna Turley, a member of Parliament and chair of the Labour Party, suggested in an interview with Times Radio that Musk was one of many "bad faith actors who are sitting often many, many miles away. It’s easy for them to stoke these things up.”
Asked if she was referring to the Tesla CEO, Turley said, "He’s not living in the kind of communities where we’re seeing this kind of activity. He’s not at risk."
“He has a responsibility, everyone in public and civil life has a responsibility to call for calm and not to stoke grievance or hatred or division or tension that puts vulnerable people and our communities at risk," she added.
The suspect in Monday night's knife attack has been named as Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old man who claimed asylum when he entered Northern Ireland in 2023. Nearly 4 million people have been forced to flee Sudan since 2023, when fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, exacerbating disease outbreaks and the country's economic and political instability.
Alodid has authorization to stay in the UK until 2028. He was charged with attempted murder and possessing a knife in a public place. Authorities say there is no indication that the attack was related to terrorism. He appeared in a magistrate court Wednesday where a judge refused Alodid bail and adjourned the case until July 8.
The victim of the attack lost his left eye and sustained injuries on his face and back, according to The Guardian.
His family released a statement through Phillip Brett, who represents Belfast North in the Legislative Assembly, saying that they were "completely devastated by the horrific attack on our loved one" and emphasizing that the violence that rocked the city overnight Tuesday was "not welcome."
“We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector, and we depend on them to make our country work," said the family. "We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.”
John Finucane, a member of Parliament from North Belfast who represents Sinn Féin, told Sky News that Musk's decision to urge anti-immigrant mobs to gather in response to the attack was "not fair for the victim. It's not fair for the people of North Belfast who are trying to sew themselves back together after what they witnessed."
Sinn Féin MP John Finucane tells Sky's @cathynewman that Elon Musk's comments on the Belfast stabbing are 'not fair for the victims' pic.twitter.com/TujgQfJEgX
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 9, 2026
"They need our support," he said. "They do not need to be used for a wider political agenda."
Turley told LBC Wednesday that Musk's posts on the attack were "appalling."
"Anyone that is seeking to drive and exploit a situation like this to drive their own political agenda is grievously wrong and doing damage,” she said. “We’ve seen children, families having to flee their homes on the streets of Belfast last night... We do not want to see this kind of disruption, damage, thuggery, violence on our streets, and anyone that is seeking to whip that up should be condemned.”
Rob Blackie, a former London mayoral candidate for the Liberal Democrats Party, called on the UK to take "government action" to hold Musk accountable, including by regulating X.
"Thugs burning out people in Belfast can't be ignored," said Blackie. "Elon Musk is a national security threat."
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon condemned the United Kingdom's new post-Brexit border policy after it was released Wednesday, saying new rules barring people designated as "unskilled" and those who don't speak English will devastate a number of Scotland's industries and worsen the country's depopulation crisis.
The newly-unveiled "points system" dictating who can migrate to the U.K. spurred officials to reiterate their calls for a separate Scottish visa system which immigrants could use just for Scotland, which employs many people from overseas in its tourism, fishing, and healthcare industries.
"It is impossible to overstate how devastating this U.K. government policy will be for Scotland's economy," tweeted Sturgeon, who also called for a new referendum on Scottish independence after the Conservative government won the general election in December. "Getting power over migration in Scottish Parliament is now a necessity for our future prosperity."
Under the new U.K. border policy, migrants would be awarded "points," as they are under Australia's system, based on their skill level and background. Students and workers who don't speak English would not be permitted to migrate.
No temporary or general visas will be given to people identified as "low-skilled workers," and people considered "skilled" would need to have a job offer or endorsement from someone in their field.
"U.K. businesses will need to adapt and adjust to the end of free movement," the British government said of the plan, which officials want to enter into force on January 1, 2021.
The proposal appears intent on damaging the "U.K. manufacturing industry, services, agriculture, and fisheries... [and creating] more economic damage through deliberately causing labor shortages," tweeted Kirsty Hughes, director of the Scottish Center on European Relations.
One in five tourism jobs in Scotland are held by people from overseas, according to The Guardian. Migrants hold 16% of healthcare jobs, while more than 70% of those employed at fish processing plants in northeastern Scotland were born outside the country.
Under the new plan, it's estimated that 70% of the current E.U. workforce would not be awarded enough "points" to move to the United Kingdom. But in Scotland, which is projected to have more deaths than births over the next 25 years and whose population growth over the next two decades has been expected to come entirely from migration, industry leaders say people already in the country won't be able to fill roles that would otherwise go to migrants.
"Locking out some sets of skills from the U.K. will have a devastating impact on many parts of our economy and [is] deeply insulting," tweeted Hannah Bardell, a member of Parliament in Sturgeon's Scottish National Party. "The Tories have had 42 months to develop these proposals and they've come up with a half-finished, disastrous one size-fits-no-one policy that poses a very real threat to Scotland and leaves businesses and the public with just 10 months to prepare."
Scottish officials say the public widely supports a Scottish visa, which the government explained in a video on social media last month.
Industry groups in Northern Ireland echoed Scotland's concerns Wednesday, saying the hospitality sector would suffer a "crippling blow" under the immigration plan.
"We are looking to double the number of jobs in the sector to 25,000, but we just won't have the people to fill them," Colin Neill, chief executive of Hospitality Ulster, told the Irish Times.
News on Thursday that U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson reached a deal with the European Union to allow Britain to leave the coalition under the Brexit referendum of 2016 was met with criticism and derision by progressives, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
"It won't bring the country together and should be rejected," Corbyn said of the deal on Twitter Thursday.
Johnson made the deal with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker Thursday. The agreement will go up for a vote in fron of the U.K. Parliament on a special Saturday session.
But opponents of Johnson's approach are prepared to make it an uphill fight.
Labour's shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer expanded on Corbyn's criticism of the deal.
"It is clear that the Johnson deal is a far worse deal than Theresa May's deal," said Starmer. "It paves the way for a decade of deregulation. It gives Johnson licence to slash workers' rights, environmental standards and consumer protections."
According to journalist Paul Mason, a supporter of Corbyn, Labour intends to enter Parliament on Saturday united behind demanding a second referndum on either the Johnson deal or pulling out of Brexit completely.
"That's our strategy, let the people decide," said Mason. "Having achieved that--which I think we can on Saturday--that's the platform for going into an election and ridding this country of this right wing, authoritarian, white nationalist, and English chauvinist government once and for all."
Scottish Nationalist Party leader Nicola Sturgeon also rejected the deal's premise.
"It's hard to imagine a deal that would be worse for Scotland," said Sturgeon.
The deal, which would go into effect for the current Brexit deadline of October 31, reportedly undoes the hardest sticking point of negotiations, what to do with the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, by allowing goods to flow through the border after crossing through customs over the Irish Sea.
Johnson's counterpart in Ireland, Taisoeach Leo Varadkar, called the deal a "good agreement" in comments to reporters.
"The people of the north did not consent to Brexit. They rejected it."
--Michelle O'Neill, Sinn Fein
"It allows the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in an orderly fashion," said Varadkar.
That sentiment was not, however, shared by others in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland's hard-right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who are relied on by Johnson and the Conservatives to maintain their majority in Parliament, flatly rejected the proposal. Without the DUP's support, passing Brexit becomes even more difficult.
"We have been consistent that we will only ever consider supporting arrangements that are in Northern Ireland's long-term economic and constitutional interests and protect the integrity of the Union," the party said in a statement. "These proposals are not, in our view, beneficial to the economic well-being of Northern Ireland and they undermine the integrity of the Union."
Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, in a tweet, said that there was "no good Brexit."
"The people of the north did not consent to Brexit," Sinn Fein leader Michelle O'Neill said, referring to Northern Irelands vote against the proposal in 2016. "They rejected it."
A journalist whose work focused on Northern Ireland's troubled past was killed Thursday night in the latest in a series of militant escalations that are increasing in frequency as the United Kingdom and Ireland reckon with Brexit.
Clashes broke out Thursday in the Northern Ireland city of Derry as police forces attempted to raid suspected militant homes.
Lyra McKee was shot, allegedly by dissidents, during the violence. McKee died shortly thereafter.
The raid came in advance of Easter Sunday, which has significance for Northern Irish republicans who want to reunify Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland and see the continued division of the island as a leftover from centuries of brutal British colonial rule.
Reaction to McKee's death from leaders on both sides of the Irish Sea stressed the importance of her work and the senselessness of the shooting.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland's Taoiseach (Prime Minister), issued a statement condemning the violence in the country to the north.
"We are all full of sadness after last night's events," said Varadkar. "We cannot allow those who want to propagate violence, fear, and hate to drag us back to the past."
"My thoughts are with the family and loved ones of Lyra McKee, senselessly killed while doing her job as a journalist," said Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn. "This shocking attack is a reminder of the vital importance of protecting the Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland peace process."
Michelle O'Neill, the deputy leader of the Irish party Sinn Fein, said she was "shocked and saddened" by the attack and hoped it would not reopen old wounds.
"The murder of this young woman is a human tragedy for her family," said O'Neill, "but it is also an attack on all the people of this community, an attack on our peace process and an attack on the Good Friday Agreement."
Thursday's shooting is the third violent incident involving dissidents in four months. In January republican militants set off a car bomb outside a Derry courthouse. Two months later, another group of pro-unification dissidents sent at least four, and possibly five, bombs to locations across Britain.
That's a major escalation over recent years; Northern Ireland has been largely quiet since 2007. The country, which is one of four in the U.K., has gone through a generally peaceful spell of time since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which began to put an end to "The Troubles"--the Irish and Northern Irish name for the sectarian war that raged along the Northern Irish border for decades.
A number of stressors, chief among them the political instability that comes from the U.K.'s ongoing Brexit struggles, may be to blame for the recent increase in violence.
The U.K., which includes Northern Ireland, has continually put off leaving the E.U. through Brexit. The terms of the departure, which could result in a militarized border with Ireland and subsequent reigniting of "The Troubles," are still up in the air.
As Jochen Bittner put it in The New York Times:
In London, Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed to respect the peace accord and avoid a hard border in Ireland. But neither she nor anyone else has yet explained how not to control a border that separates a European Union country from a nonunion country. Mrs. May's Brexit plan leaves open the possibility of at least customs checks along the border; without a plan in place, a hard border will almost certainly be needed.
That's led to a situation where nobody knows what will happen, or when. The deadline for departure was recently extended to October 31 after May couldn't convince Parliament to sign off on her deal.
The New Yorker's Amy Davidson Sorkin laid out the situation in a recent essay on the effects of Brexit on Northern Ireland:
This is the paradox and the tragedy: Brexit fundamentally conflicts with the Good Friday Agreement, but the U.K. government is in a state of denial about that conflict. It insists that it is committed both to Brexit and to the peace accord: Brexiteers claim that they can maintain a "frictionless" open border with the Republic of Ireland after Brexit--in the same place that the newly hardened border with the E.U. will be.
Relations between the two countries are strained due to Brexit, but, as one unnamed U.K. official told Politico, there aren't a lot of options for either country--so they'll have to make do.
"You can't do without the relationship," said the U.K. official of relations between Ireland and the U.K. "It will survive because it has to. The ties are too strong."
Whatever happens, today the city of Derry, the countries of Northern Ireland and Ireland, and writers across the world are all mourning McKee.
Her supporters in the journalism world shared some of their favorite pieces McKee wrote on "The Troubles" and growing up in Northern Ireland.
And at an emotional ceremony honoring the writer's life just hours after her death, McKee's partner Sara Canning delivered a message of peace.
"Lyra's death must not be in vain," said Canning.
As turmoil around Brexit continues, the 1998 "Good Friday Agreement," which concluded over 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland, hangs in the balance.
A "hard border" between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland might result from the fallout of Brexit, which could heighten tensions and has led some to ponder the likelihood of a return to scenes of violence and unrest that many assumed were consigned to the past. For many, however, the past never really went away.
Social and economic inequality in areas such as employment and housing played a key role in originating and sustaining the conflict in Northern Ireland and little has changed on that front in the communities that suffered most.
Twenty years after the peace agreement, the areas that experienced the highest number of conflict deaths (West Belfast) and second-highest (North Belfast) remain the most impoverished, even though they now sit cheek by jowl with the new Belfast campus for the University of Ulster and glittering office blocks delivered through publicly funded incentives to big business.
Suicide rates have rocketed in the years following the conflict and are now the highest in the United Kingdom, with economically deprived areas experiencing three times as many suicides as non-deprived areas. The long-term unemployment rate (percentage of the unemployed who've been without work for one year or more) is 63 percent, compared with 27 percent in the United Kingdom.
And despite the commitment in the Good Friday Agreement to "progressively eliminate the unemployment gap between the Protestant and Catholic communities," the long-term unemployed remain predominantly Catholic.
As Brexit negotiations career forward to their unknown destination, the future for Northern Ireland's labor force looks even more precarious. Due to a stand off between the leading parties over a botched and costly renewable energy initiative and the failure to deliver a long-promised Irish Language Act, Northern Ireland has been without a government since January 2017 -- the longest in world history. The civil servants who have been left to run the country have stated that a no-deal Brexit will have a "profound and long-lasting impact" in Northern Ireland, and warned of a "sharp increase in unemployment."
The economic model that underpinned the peace has failed to deliver. It is now well past its time, and this has never been highlighted more clearly than by two contrasting events which took place on March 15.
One was an international real estate conference in the upmarket French city of Cannes that had a heavy presence from Northern Ireland local officials, consulting companies, and property developers. Through a slick public relations exercise, complete with website and social media, they implored attendees to "Invest in Belfast" by selling the region as a center of innovation where "salary costs are one third lower than other major western European capitals."
The currently non-existent Northern Ireland government received praise for its "commitment to reducing corporation tax to 12.5 percent."
The second event was the Youth Strike 4 Climate in the center of Belfast, attended by 300 school pupils but few representatives from any of the major political parties. Instead of high-end PR materials, the student demonstrators carried homemade banners with slogans like "The Government is Fossil Fueling Our Destruction."
Only one of these events represents progress.
Despite the claims of "innovation," the low-wage, low-tax model touted by the real estate conferees has utterly failed to deliver for communities impacted by conflict and chronic socio-economic deprivation. This unregulated approach now threatens the future of our young people through its reliance on rampant consumption and economic growth.
But things are changing. Northern Ireland is a small place, and has the potential to be at the top of this curve if only the political will existed.
Youth is on our side. As the "Invest In Belfast" literature proudly proclaims, Belfast is one of the youngest cities in Europe, with 43 percent of the population under 30 years old.
This fact more than any other shows that the old ways of our political representatives, of looking out for "our own" or using the rhetoric of equality without delivery, are a busted flush.
Community campaigns are flourishing across urban and rural areas - from the Sunshine Not Skyscrapers campaign in the Markets area of inner-city Belfast to environmental campaigns like Save our Sperrins against the mining conglomerates that have been given free rein to pillage and pollute our mountains. Young people are also leading the way in the vibrant work of Irish Language activists An Dream Dearg.
New ideas are being tested, including a Citizens Assembly pilot to elevate the voices of ordinary people in policy decisions. And innovative solutions exist, like using Northern Ireland's equality legislation, an integral part of the Good Friday Agreement, to ring-fence jobs for long-term unemployed people.
For now, attention will remain fixed on the Brexit train as it trundles its unknown course. But for those with an eye to the future, one thing is clear. People in Northern Ireland are in no mood to accept spin, sales pitches, and crumbs from the table in place of a genuine say in their future. And young people are in the lead.
Though not an outright ban, a new roadblock against fracking has been erected in Northern Ireland, giving new hope to groups pushing for climate-friendly policies across the UK and Europe.
Environmental Minister Mark Durkan on Monday released a Single Planning Policy Statement (SPPS) that will prohibit the controversial shale gas extraction method on the grounds that its climate impact is still not fully known.
"Publishing the SPPS unlocks development potential, supports job creation and will aid economic recovery but not at the expense of our planet, environment and people," Durkan said. "Significantly for the first time, no to fracking is actually enshrined in policy unless there is sufficient and robust evidence of its safety on all environmental impacts. I believe this is a sensible and reasonable approach."
The SPPS, which provides guidelines to regional councils on about 20 different policy areas--from infrastructure and planning to community development--implements a "town center first" approach to retail and business development.
Roisin Willmott, Royal Town Planning Institute's director for Northern Ireland, praised the SPPS and its focus on environment and community building. "This is good news for our members and for Northern Ireland. The much anticipated SPPS will be a catalyst for positive change on the ground," Willmott said.
The plan was similarly well-received by environmental activists throughout the UK. Friends of the Earth Scotland's head of campaigns Mary Church said Monday, "Northern Ireland's vibrant and diverse anti-fracking campaign will be delighted with the formal adoption of this precautionary approach to fracking.... This presumption against the development of all unconventional fossil fuels is yet another blow to the industry in these islands."
"Well done to our colleagues in Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland and all those who've fought this dirty, dangerous industry across the Irish Sea," Church said, adding that lawmakers in Scotland, who are having a similar debate over fracking safety, should pay close attention.
"Scotland's policitians should take note of this decision as they assess the threat from fracking and unconventional gas," Church said. "Unconventional gas is unsafe, unnecessary and opposed by local communities. The Scottish Government should focus instead on supporting the growth of clean, decentralised, renewable energy to help lead the fight against climate change."
Though Durkan's announcement was received as a welcome development, he also raised eyebrows among activists by saying the the policy could change if evidence emerged proving fracking was environmentally safe.
Durkan unveiled his SPPS after a year-long effort by activists with the Stop the Drill campaign in Belfast, who warned that a nearby oil extraction operation could be contaminating a reservoir supplying water to the area's households, schools, hospitals, and businesses. It is also the latest environmentally-focused policy change to come to Europe, after Durkan announced a ban on GMO crop cultivation just a week ago, following in the footsteps of Scotland and Germany.
*Note: This article has been updated to better reflect the nature of the new policy guidelines. The move is not an official ban on fracking in Northern Ireland.
Yet another European nation has banned genetically modified (GM or GMO) crops, with Northern Ireland's Minister for the Environment Mark Durkan declaring Monday: "I remain unconvinced of the advantages of GM crops and I consider it prudent to prohibit their cultivation here for the foreseeable future."
"We are perceived internationally to have a clean and green image," Durkan told the BBC. "I am concerned that the growing of GM crops, which I acknowledge is controversial, could potentially damage that image."
He added: "The pattern of land use here and the relatively small size of many agricultural holdings creates potential difficulties if we were to seek to keep GM and non-GM crops separate."
The European Union said earlier this year that its 28 member states could adopt their own positions on the issue. Each regional assembly within the UK is making its own decision. Scotland and Germany both banned GM crops in August.
Before GM crops can be grown in the EU, they have to be authorized. The European Commission has so far approved dozens of GMOs for crops including maize, soybean, cotton, oilseed rape, and carnations--sparking condemnation from environmentalists who say doing so is a gift to corporations and a slap in the face to democracy.
"European citizens do not want GMOs," food safety spokesperson for the Greens in the European Parliament, Bart Staes, said in April. "The Commission must stop ignoring this fact. We need an EU authorization scheme that takes account of this opposition and we are concerned that...proposals from the Commission merely aim to make it easier to get GMOs authorized at EU level by providing member states with the 'carrot' of a legally-dubious opt-out."
No GM crops are currently being grown commercially in the UK but imported products such as soy are used for animal feed.
According to EcoWatch, "Northern Ireland--population, 1.8 million humans--is home to 1.5 million cows, nearly 2 million sheep and 20 million chickens and despite the new ban, all of that livestock will continue to be fed, in large part, with imported GMO feed."