Until now, Ballymena, in Northern Ireland, was mainly known as the birthplace of actor Liam Neeson. However, this week, this town of 30,000 inhabitants located in the Bible Belt - a predominantly Protestant area of Ulster - is in the spotlight in the UK for being the epicenter of a new wave of riots against immigrants.
The attacks began on Monday when two underage Romanian individuals appeared in the local court to be charged with attempted rape of a local teenager. What followed was a peaceful vigil that quickly escalated into violent acts that have spread over three days in half a dozen locations in Northern Ireland, including neighborhoods in the capital, Belfast. Yesterday, three young individuals, two of them minors, were charged for their role in the violence against immigration.
The Ulster police has labeled the acts as "racist thuggery" and pointed to a "mass dynamic," fueled, as is usual in these cases, by social media. However, the crisis has highlighted the funding and staffing issues faced by the police in Northern Ireland, which, as revealed by the incidents, had nearly 25% of its officers on sick leave or with limited duties. This, in a force that already has 20% fewer officers than desirable, leaves the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) with an extremely reduced capacity to deal with any crisis. The PSNI, which has made at least eight arrests, has had to request the deployment of 80 officers from Great Britain.
In total, 36 officers have been injured in a series of riots that culminated on Wednesday in the burning of the municipal sports center in the city of Larne, about 19 kilometers northeast of Ballymena. At the moment, the accused, who spoke before the judge through an interpreter, will not appear in court again until early next month.
The riots in Northern Ireland are just another episode in the tension within the United Kingdom over immigration. Brexit has increased the presence of foreigners in the country due to the expulsion of EU citizens, providing a new argument to keep those who promoted the EU exit at the forefront of politics. If previously the issue was the alleged interference of Brussels in the UK's domestic affairs and the presence of Polish plumbers or Spanish doctors, now it is the existence of a growing population of Pakistanis or Indians.
The best example of this situation is what is known as the London metropolitan area (metro London), which has gained approximately 1.1 million people since Brexit almost exactly nine years ago, reaching 9.9 million inhabitants. According to the 2021 Census, 40.7% of the city's residents were born outside the UK.
This has opened the door to identity politics and, in particular, to its main advocate, the Reform Party led by Nigel Farage. Last week, the most Reform-leaning "serious" newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, headlined a podcast "Why it matters that the UK is less white," focusing on an interview with University of Kent professor Matt Goodwin, one of the most prominent advocates of Donald Trump's ideas in the UK and a harsh critic, for example, of interracial relationships.
The idea of a less white UK is based on an incontrovertible mathematical fact: white Britons - like Americans, to give a close example to Goodwin's theses, which are very popular across the Atlantic - are not reproducing. In England and Wales, for example, the fertility rate is 1.44 children per woman. However, when breaking down that group to those born outside the UK, the rate jumps to 2.03. Given that around 17% of the population in both nations (legally, Wales and England are nations) was born outside the UK, it is evident that the 'purebred' woman has considerably fewer children than the replacement rate of two, opening the door to the proliferation of "non-whites," either by birth or immigration.
These arguments, however, are ignored by nativists who believe that if foreigners - especially Pakistanis, towards whom there is considerable rejection - leave the country, housing prices will drop, and young Britons will be able to buy cheaper flats where they can have children. Data indicates that these measures would have a moderate effect on birth rates, aside from the fact that the departure of immigrants would cause economic chaos that the collapse of housing prices would worsen. It would be a kind of Brexit plus the subprime mortgage crisis.