Just as the House of Commons was united in condemning the knife attack on the street in Belfast on Monday night, it was united in condemning the arson and disorder last night in response to that crime. With one exception. Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform, was not in the chamber. By the time of Prime Minister’s Questions, he had not said anything about the events in Northern Ireland, which is unusual for someone who has a Trumpian willingness to answer the phone to any journalist.
Mr Farage left it to Richard Tice, his deputy, to speak in parliament on behalf of their party. Mr Tice was responsible for the second break in the unity of parliamentarians. He said: “We all condemn, of course, the horrific violence in Belfast last night after the horrific attack on Monday, but…”
If any statement is followed by a “but” it is less than categorical. It meant that Mr Tice did not in fact condemn unequivocally the rioting in response to the original crime. What he went on to say was “… but this prime minister is in denial of the rising despair across the country over his failure to stop the boats and related criminality [and] his failure to recognise two-tier policing.”
Never mind two-tier policing, this was a two-tier response to violence, some kinds of which are, in Reform’s view, more excusable than others.
The implication that an attack allegedly carried out by a Sudanese refugee was caused by Sir Keir Starmer’s failure to stop the boats is in any case plainly wrong. The alleged attacker did not arrive by small boat, and he is reported to have come to the United Kingdom before Labour took office.
Indeed, the circumstances by which he came to be in Belfast ought to make it rather difficult for any of the main parties to try to score political points from the attack. He is reported to have travelled to Northern Ireland from France via the Irish Republic, and to have been granted refugee status under a Conservative government when Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, now members of Reform, were home secretary and minister for immigration.
Such details did not deter Mr Farage and Mr Tice, however, from trying to “whip up fear and division”, as the prime minister put it. Mr Farage may have been uncharacteristically silent on this occasion, but he showed his true colours last week when he called for the response to another knife attack involving a non-white assailant – the fatal stabbing of Henry Nowak – to be one of “pure cold rage”.
Meanwhile, Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, made the same point on X that Elon Musk, the owner of the platform, had made in relation to Mr Nowak’s killing: “The horror of what you have seen in Belfast is a direct result of treacherous Tory and Labour immigration policy.”
This is irresponsible, inflammatory and untrue. Mr Yusuf knows perfectly well that it is impossible to generalise from individual cases and that non-white people in Britain are more likely to be the victims of murder than white people.
But he, Mr Farage and Mr Tice are under pressure from a small minority of even more unreasonable people to their right. They are worried that Restore Britain, the Reform breakaway led by Rupert Lowe, the former Reform MP, and supported by Mr Musk, is taking their votes – and could take enough to deny them victory in the Makerfield by-election.
Mr Farage and Mr Lowe make great play of their defence of British values, and how they have been undermined by the traditional parties. This is moonshine. One of the most fundamental British values is that the response to violence is justice, not more violence.
There can be no ifs or buts or different tiers of condemnation. Violence is wrong, and violence in response to violence is wrong. Mr Farage and Mr Lowe should say so.
