For the second time in a matter of days, it seems Nigel Farage and Reform are in no mood to condemn shocking violence on the streets of the a UK city.
On Tuesday evening, there were violent scenes in Belfast overnight as riots broke out in the wake of a knife attack in the city.
This came after a Sudanese man was arrested over an alleged stabbing in the north of the city. The 30-year-old has been charged with attempted murder following the attack on Monday night.
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Shocking footage shared on social media appears to show a man stabbing at the victim’s head and neck while he was lying on the ground.
The incident is not being treated as terror-related at this point in time, and the alleged attacker is understood to have been granted leave to remain in the UK on 28 September 2023.
After the footage was shared online, and the suspect’s nationality confirmed, it wasn’t long before violent riots predictably broke out on the streets of Belfast, just like in Southampton last week.
The violence saw homes and cars set on fire along with a bus. The scenes have been widely condemned by figures from across the political spectrum, with Claire Hanna, Belfast MP and leader of the Social Democratic & Labour Party, describing the riots as a “race-based pogrom.”
However, one group of politicians who have been silent about the violence are those in Reform. On Tuesday, they were more than happy to flood social media with demands for the suspect’s identity and immigrations status to be revealed and spread inflammatory rhetoric to make the horrific attack a race issue.
However, come Wednesday morning in the wake of the burnt out homes of families in Belfast and chants of ‘get foreigners out’ from masked men, Reform’s senior figures are silent.
At the time of writing, not one of Farage, Zia Yusuf, Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick or Richard Tice has issued a statement outright condemning the Belfast riots.
In fact, Farage has only tweeted one thing this morning, about fly-tipping.
This comes the week after the Reform leader refused to specifically condemn riots in Southampton in the wake of Henry Nowak’s murder.
Journalist Dan Hodges was one of those to highlight the silence from Reform and Farage.