What is needed in Northern Ireland now?

Living in Belfast, the cultural response to a Sudanese suspect who allegedly stabbed a white person in June’s evening daylight was predictable: streets, buses and houses were ablaze in full technicolour hatred in time for the ten o'clock news, the self-justified expression of pent-up aggression against migrants.

One Pastor in North Belfast, Jack McKee, made the local news for speaking out against the violence and standing up for his parishioners: “They’re good Christian people and they’re getting put out just because they’re black... I’m doing my best to help them, it’s as simple as that". ^[1]

Christians across Northern Ireland are praying for the badly hurt victim of this attempted murder; they are praying for migrant families who watched their homes burn down in plumes of smoke; and they are praying for those carrying out the violence.

What has changed (and is changing) in Ulster is exemplified in a cultural curiosity...

One the one hand, the victim appears to have been from a Catholic and Nationalist area (certainly his rescuer used a Gaelic hurling stick to unprise the attacker); on the other hand, all violence appears to have been orchestrated by Protestant Loyalist groups.

"Whiteness" is possibly becoming more important than religion in these conflict-weary streets – a cruel and tragic irony.

The UK government often trials changes in social policy in Northern Ireland; recently, for example, digital ePharmacy reforms and child protection pilot schemes. Analogously, was last night’s violence ^[2] a window on what weaponised anti-immigration demonstrations could look like in other UK cities?

The gospel's message to nationalism

I lived out my childhood during the Troubles; later as a Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) undergraduate I quickly realised that nationalism (whether Irish or Loyalist versions) is the very antithesis of the gospel of Jesus.

The parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that identifies Jesus as a Samaritan (yes, Jesus adorns the cultural attire of his tribe’s nationalist angst) who goes out of his way to help and care for a Jew (Samaritan nationalism’s nemesis; see Luke 10v25-37); the "all nations" realised eschatological perspectives of the Prophets (e.g., Isaiah 11v10); and the "one new humanity" created by Jesus out of hitherto nationalist foes (Eph. 2v15), demolish any pretension to the Christianisation of one nation’s interests over and against another nation or ethnicity (2 Cor. 10v5).

The UK is in danger of lurching to the extreme right; what it needs is a cross-party led conversation about the Social Contract ^[3], and a new pan-political determination to keep to this contract, regardless of who resides at No 10. That's what happened in Northern Ireland in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement... Does the UK need a similar supra-party and electorally endorsed Social Contract agreement on issues such as immigration and the welfare system?

A new agreement would remove race and immigration from current party-political power mongering with these subjects in the House of Commons.

Twofold responsibility

For UK Christians, our responsibility is twofold.

First, to pray and seek the peace and prosperity of our cities: "Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile," (Jere. 29v7).

And second, to speak the truth clearly, without "add-ons": "For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle," (1 Cor. 14v8).

The battle Paul refers to is not against flesh and blood (people or nations; Ephesians 6v12), it is the territorial clash between the prince of this world and the coming-in-increasing-measure-Kingdom of Jesus.

I am saddened in my soul to see the city I love making headline news for the same old (or similar!) reasons. And yet, N. Ireland has come a long way since the bleakest days of opposing nationalisms and the bloodiest acts of frenzied terrorism that cost a small convivial population over 3,000 lives.

This morning, another clean-up operation is underway even as Northern Ireland's roads close again for a second day (today ^[4] at 1pm).

Please pray for this small nation; please pray for a restoration of peace: “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility," (Eph. 2v14).

1. BBC News N. Ireland
2. 9 June, 2026
3. "An agreement among the members of a society or between a society and its rulers about the rights and duties of each," (Cambridge Dictionary).
4. 10 June, 2026