It’s time to rail and rally against racism

BELFAST. June 2026. Burnt out homes. Terrified families fleeing in the night. We’ve been here before. A knife attack by Hadi Alodid, a Sudanese asylum seeker in Nationalist North Belfast, triggered anti-immigration riots by Union Jack clad mobs. Loyalist-led pogroms are not new, but their target is. Catholic Irish have been replaced by people of colour.

A troubling situation exasperated by far-right discourse on social media which, according to the Committee on the Administration of Justice (2025) has increased by more that 400 per cent since 2020, becoming more vicious, more racist and more targeted at migrants.

In Scotland, a similar picture is emerging: Far-right groups organised at least 47 public protests in 2025—a 60 per cent increase from 2023.

Far-right groups in Scotland (above) are actively recruiting within marginalised communities and those football fanbases with a history of sectarianism. Using Loyalist symbols, they exaggerate grievances in a craven populist manner to promote an anti-immigrant and racist agenda resulting in a toxic alliance between Ulster Loyalism and the far-right movement.

Loyalism—founded to oppose Irish reunification through street politics and paramilitarism—shares common cause with the far-right throughout the UK, feeding off economic decline, political powerlessness and a perceived loss of identity.

Rooted in racism

Northern Ireland was created as a Protestant-majority state, where Unionists and Loyalists held political and economic power. Since partition Loyalist paramilitaries, such as the UVF and the UDA emerged as violent defenders of the union, often aligning with far-right ideologies.

They viewed any semblance of power-sharing with Catholics to mean losing something of value to the communities the purport to serve.

Many of the Protestant community viewed the Good Friday Agreement (1998) with suspicion, prompting an over-accommodation of the needs of Loyalism for fear of military resistance to the Peace Process. However, organised Loyalism was fractured and did not have the cohesive leadership of Republicanism who could bring their communities with them.

Rather than demobilise, Loyalist organisations morphed into criminal networks controlling the drug-trade, people-trafficking and extortion within their own communities. Their paramilitary structures largely remained intact, but silent. They appear to have been reactivated since 2024 with new targets.

A leaked security services report stated there are more Loyalist paramilitaries today than in 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. One estimate from 2020 put the number as high as 12,500.

Recruitment has been driven largely by the belief that Loyalists are being left-behind by the Good Friday Agreement, which was designed to serve the needs of Nationalists over them creating a culture of grievance ripe for exploitation and alignment with far-right movements

Roots?

From Mosley’s Blackshirts through to the National Front, the British National Party and the English/Scottish Defence Leagues the UK has always had a grassroots far-right element.

Today this mantel has been taken on by the increasingly street-violent groups such as the Democratic Football Lads Alliance and Patriotic Alternative.

In Scotland, the far right is a smaller, but growing presence with a pronounced anti-migrant focus. They are finding receptive audiences in Loyalist communities of Glasgow, Ayrshire, and Lanarkshire, where working-class Unionist populations have stagnated. They share an ideology of being anti-immigration, anti-Islam, and in opposition to ‘globalism.’ Social media has accelerated tactical and ideological hybridisation of Loyalist and far-right networks.

Alliances between both ideologies is not new. Eddie Whicker, one of the founders of Combat 18 extremists, was an active member of the London brigade of the UDA and was involved in running guns to Belfast in the 1990s.

The legitimisation of Loyalists as part of the Peace Process whether through political concessions, tolerance of sectarianism, or ignoring their extremism has strengthened their status and made them more attractive to the far right.

Appeasement

Following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, successive British and Irish governments sought to appease working-class Loyalist factions as a method of conflict management. They did this to prolong the ceasefire, manage decommissioning, and prevent greater sectarian conflict.

As a result, Loyalists usually got their way on key issues such as parades and bonfires, as well as post-Brexit issues.

Unionist politicians have given Loyalism a national platform thereby mainstreaming its rhetoric. DUP politicians would not condemn recent bonfires in Moygashel, County Tyrone, where an effigy of a mosque was burned or in Belfast, where an effigy of the Irish-language rap group Kneecap was placed on the Donegal Pass bonfire.

In Scotland, Labour and the SNP dilute their criticisms of active Loyalist groups to avoid alienating voters or amplifying societal sectarianism. All the main parties in Scotland have been weak on sectarian issues including abuse and behaviour by some Orange walks near churches. Some weasel words are issued condemning individual acts, but are quickly nullified by ‘respecting’ the traditions of the Orange Order and other Loyalist parades despite blatant links to violence or far-right ideologies.

This newfound confidence of Loyalism has seeped into regular protests. It is rare not to see banners associated with proscribed groups like the UVF mingling with Union Jacks at far-right demonstrations in Scotland. Some factions, including Unite the Clans Scotland, have merged Loyalism with anti-immigration agendas.

Demographic anxiety

Loyalist communities are experiencing profound demographic anxieties highlighted by the 2021 census, which found Catholics overtaking Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time. Far-right organisations weaponise this fear by framing immigration and Irish reunification as risks to economic stability and identity.

On the ground, many Loyalists are seeing empty ‘Protestant’ houses being allocated to folk not to their liking and this is increasing their hostility.

Not all Loyalists are intolerant, but passivity against extremist factions enables their growth. Traditional civic-Protestantism has declined and is almost silent other than when nostalgia is evoked.

Appeasement has allowed Loyalist paramilitaries like the UVF and UDA to retain control in poorer Protestant working-class areas and to do so with impunity.

Consequences

Northern Ireland-related accounts were among the most accessible terrorism-related channels in the whole of the UK across mainstream social media platforms.

The alliance between the far right and organised Loyalism is becoming more pronounced. Far-right activists and some Loyalist groups with paramilitary ties are working together in the North of Ireland. Shared concerns about immigration and perceived changes to their communities, has prompted cooperation during anti-migrant protests.

Working-class Loyalist youths who feel abandoned by mainstream politicians are being offered a scapegoat for their problems—migrants.

In Scotland, the far right and Loyalist movements frequently overlap, situating themselves as patriotic alternatives to the mainstream and by giving voice to anti-immigration sentiment and deepening sectarian views.

Historically Scotland has been a more inclusive part of the UK, but since 2024 there has been a significant and rapid growth of militant far right and Loyalist activity including 66 offences related to support for groups such as the Ulster Volunteer Force.

What does the future hold?

Xenophobia is not confined to Loyalism. According to the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool, most Catholics and Protestants believe that immigrants do not make a positive contribution to society or the economy.

In June 2024, a group of far-right activists from Coolock, in Dublin attended an anti-immigration demonstration in Belfast. Their banner accompanied by the tricolour was applauded by the mainly Loyalist crowd.

In the Nationalist North, Republicans can largely maintain order and avert racially motivated street violence in the communities where they are influential according to former IRA prisoner and author Richard O’Rawe.

Control in Loyalist areas is less certain.

Jamie Bryson, a prominent Loyalist activist, contends that the Loyalist leadership are sitting on their hands during these disturbances and are awaiting further concessions before intervening adding, that they would have to end them ‘the old way.’

As tensions in Scotland rise who will quell the growing menace and violence of the far right and Loyalists?

Stephen Colbert is a lecturer at New College Lanarkshire