Man to appear in court over Belfast knife attack as rioting described as ‘race-based pogrom’ by SDLP leader – UK politics live

Good morning. Soon after becoming PM in 2024, Keir Starmer had to deal with a period of rioting in England, prompted by the Southport murders and mostly targeted at asylum seekers. Last night, in Northern Ireland , there were similar race riots, triggered by a knife attack involving a Sudanese suspect. Here is our overnight story about the rioting.

And this is what Claire Hanna , the SDLP leader and MP for Belfast South and Mid Down, said about the attacks on Newsnight last night.

double quotation mark What you’re seeing is a race-based pogrom. We are seeing men going door to door asking to get the foreigners out based exclusively on the colour of their skin. It’s not based on what they’re contributing to society, what their status here is and it’s terrifying for people in Belfast who want this sort of politics to be far beyond them.

Starmer is taking PMQs at noon and the Belfast disorder is likely to be the main talking point.

There are two issues that Starmer will be expected to address.

1) What is he going to do about the common travel area asylum “loophole”? The Belfast knife attack suspect was an asylum seeker who had been granted leave to remain in the UK three years ago, but he did not arrive on a small boat. He arrived in Belfast from Dublin, having flown to Ireland from Paris, and then – because of the common travel area – he was able to cross the border into Northern Ireland without facing any checks. Starmer is under pressure to close this “loophole”, as the Telegraph calls it , although a version of the common travel area has been in force for more than a century and so it has hard to see how it can be closed without colossal upheaval.

2) What is he going to do about rightwingers using social media to incite people in Northern Ireland to riot? Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, played a key role last night in amplifying calls for protests after the Belfast knife attack. He has been at it again overnight. Again, it is not obvious what Starmer can do about this, but he is bound to be asked whether this is tolerable.

Anna Turley , the Labour party chair and Cabinet Office minister, has been giving interviews this morning. Speaking to Sky News, she said the common travel area should not be used as “a back route for people to come here and exploit our asylum system”. She also said “conversations are happening” in government about what could be done to stop this.