Over the weekend, Belfast city centre was greeted with the striking sight of a crowd of women dressed in bright pink staging a toxic anti-immigrant and Islamophobic protest. The new group call themselves Ulster Pink Ladies, and also use the catchy title of Pink Ladies Ulster Women First Northern Ireland (PLUWFNI) on their private Facebook page. The all-female activist network, who assembled a crowd of around 50 outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday November 8, are an offshoot of the more subtly reactionary Pink Ladies group formed in England.

The strategy of both organisations is to continue the theme championed by the British and Irish far-right racists generally – that of safety for women and children. Their goal is to claim that the ‘vulnerable’ are threatened by a wave of dangerous immigrants, and apply an extra veneer of credibility to these assertions via a women-led movement. The original group have largely kept their rhetoric to somewhat more veiled references to immigrants having “a particular type of culture” that permits the view they have a “right to abuse” women.

Racist Pink Ladies strike again

The North of Ireland group are less circumspect, filling their Facebook group with all manner of hateful posts. Images were provided to the Canary by a source within the group of 1,100 members. The posts range from baseless anti-immigrant material:

To the Islamophobic:

And anti-Roma:

They continued this hateful theme on Saturday, as far-right influencer Lynsey Brown took the microphone. She kicked off by seemingly citing comments from activist Shakeel Afsar in which he said:

We are not here to take part. We are here to take over.

Fevered lies about Islamic takeover

Afsar was replying to a question asking for his reaction to those who tell him to “go back to where he comes from”. He goes on to say he has no intention of leaving a country (England) that his forefathers were instrumental in rebuilding after World War II. He then says the words lifted by Brown. It seems to be the case that Afsar was simply referring to English of South Asian descent in the last 80 years, in his own flamboyant manner.

However, Brown conveniently twists this to mean “radical Islamists” are intent on bringing “honour killings”, “child marriage” and “acid attacks” to Britain. Brown then goes on to produce another quote from an unnamed source, who apparently said:

We are here to take over and have Sharia law. You can’t stop us.

Like much of the content of speeches at far-right rallies, this ‘quote’ appears to be entirely confected. More uncited, almost certainly fictional quotes follow:

Your laws are done. We are building the caliphate here, one street at a time. No assimilation.

And:

We [Muslims] will vote in enough to flip the system.

So standard far-right fare – scaremongering via an entirely fictional narrative about a violent and backward Muslim horde plotting to take over Britain or the West. The latter part of Brown’s speech carried some rhetorical power, however, as she talked about her own struggle with drug addiction; the importance of mental and spiritual health; the dangers of social media; and the need to train and provide training for, and instil self-belief in, working class communities. It made for a powerful cocktail – the identification of genuine social problems with a simple, arresting (but entirely untrue) portrayal of a foreign invading force largely responsible for causing them.

Belfast urged to put aside sectarian hatred to…hate Muslims instead

Less eloquent was speaker Nicola Cree, who offered the following:

Fuck Islam, fuck Islam, fuck Islam, fuck Islam, fuck Islam, fuck Islam!

That contribution will likely land her in trouble under hate speech legislation, though it did convey the central message of the rally more effectively than anything else. Prior to the above, she had followed another trope beloved of the North of Ireland far-right, when she asked Catholics and Protestants to set aside their old sectarian hatred, and join together in embracing a fresh enmity towards Muslims:

Guys, we all need to come together – united, Catholics and Protestants! This is a Christian country, and Islam will not be taking over!

Well, a Christian country apart from the atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Satanists and Jedis, of course. Challenged on X that the event had been organised by loyalists by a user called DOZA raising the “fuck Islam” tirade, the Pink Ladies retweeted a response that this had been a “cross community event”. Certainly, cross community apart from anyone who’s atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Hin…you get the idea.

The Ulster Pink Ladies also have ties to prominent male figures in local far-right activism. Robyn Barnes of UPL is the partner of Steven Baker, one of the organisers behind the anti-immigrant Great Province Wide Protest NI. Baker, who was recently in court charged with vandalising a bus stop, has been known for his conspiracy-laden diatribes against Palestine protesters, unions and the left more broadly. He in turn associates with animal abuser and racist thug Neil Pinkerton.

Express your intolerance in style with kitsch knuckle dusters

Our source tells us that UPL also have ties to “members of patrol groups in Ballymena, formed during the Ballymena riots”. These violent pogroms have led to the ethnic cleansing of the town, driving out two-thirds of the Roma community. There is no indication that UPL have engaged in violence themselves, though they did offer a cat head-shaped knuckle duster as part of a ‘safety pack’ given out to the roughly 50 demonstrators present on Saturday.

This is considered an illegal offensive weapon, but its nature was partially disguised by being bound together with a hair band.

Though not directly engaged in violence, the groups are clearly involved in pushing the apocalyptic reactionary narrative of Muslim invaders engulfing Britain and Ireland, molesting every woman and child they encounter. That has real consequences, as can be seen in the last week, in distressing footage of a terrified Muslim boy being attacked in Galway, and the appearance in court of men accused of plotting to blow up a mosque.

Gaza genocide the end result from years of unchecked Islamophobia

However, the outcomes are seen in their most dire form in Gaza. Just as centuries of antisemitism resulted in the holocaust of Jewish people under Nazi rule, 100s of years of Western-fuelled racist Islamophobia – accelerated in recent decades – has resulted in the Gaza holocaust. Western ruling classes – and a not insignificant section of the populations they rule over – sit unmoved at the sight of Muslims being slaughtered in droves, so dehumanised have adherents to the faith become. While the likes of the far-right agitators protesting in Belfast may seem comical, the hateful narrative they feed yields horrifying results. The Trump presidency’s brutal immigration crackdowns are an example of that logic being turned slowly inward to the metropole, and the same methods may yet find their way to these shores if the spewing of hatred and lies persists unchecked.

Featured image via author

By Robert Freeman

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