Megan Basham

This is not just some fluke.

Yeah, Georgia, this was really a case of protest versus protest.

So as you said, the immediate spark here was that appalling video that came out of Belfast.

Authorities charged a Sudanese migrant with attempted murder after that attack blinded a local disabled man.

But what's striking is that many people on the ground insist that this is not about just that singular crime.

So I spoke with Northern Ireland pastor and commentator Jamie Bambrick, and he told me that frustration has been building for years over mass migration and the crime and the violence that come with it, as well as over the preferential treatment that these new migrants receive from the government in terms of free housing.

and financial help that citizens don't qualify for.

So Bambrick told me that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and local leaders there on the ground have been unwilling to hear that frustration.

Something else that Bambrick stressed is that protests in Northern Ireland are fundamentally different from what we've seen in the rest of Europe and the rest of the UK.

He says these arson attacks were meant to send a very targeted message and not to the politicians because the Northern Irish no longer believe that their politicians are listening.

He said that these riots were intended to serve as a warning to landlords and to the migrants who are considering coming to Northern Ireland.

Now, Pastor Bambrick stressed that he has members of his church who are law-abiding immigrants.

They pay taxes.

They love Ireland.

They're working to assimilate.

But he warns that part of the problem is when the political process breaks down, you get indiscriminate mob justice.

And in this case, it's particularly dangerous because these particular, quote-unquote, protesters are more akin to a paramilitary group because they are still organized from the time of the Troubles.

Yeah, so those are more traditional protests.

But what makes them combustible is that Britain now has two rival street movements that are forming around this issue of immigration.

So on one side are the anti-immigration demonstrators arguing that the government has lost control of migration and asylum policy.