British and Irish unite in condemnation of Northern Ireland riots

The UK prime minister and Irish premier have made a joint call for calm after days of unrest in Northern Ireland.

Boris Johnson and Taoiseach Micheal Martin spoke over the phone yesterday about the violent clashes in mainly loyalist areas over the last week.

In a statement, the Irish Government said the two leaders stressed that violence was unacceptable.

“The way forward is through dialogue and working the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement,” it said.

They agreed that the two governments would continue to stay in contact.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis welcomed a united message of condemnation of the violence by the Stormont parties and denied that the UK Government had abandoned unionists through the new Brexit arrangements, one of the concerns inflaming tensions among loyalists that have sparked a week of violence, which police said had been on a scale not seen in recent years.

Mr Lewis arrived in Northern Ireland yesterday to speak to political and faith leaders, as well as the police.

He said there could be no justification for the violence, but recognises the “sense of identity challenges that people in the unionist community have felt around the protocol and the practical outworkings of it”.

He added: “That’s why we took the actions we took just a couple of weeks ago to help businesses and consumers here in Northern Ireland.”

Mr Lewis expressed his confidence in the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s (PSNI) Chief Constable Simon Byrne, who the DUP has urged to resign over a decision by prosecutors not to prosecute Sinn Fein politicians over alleged coronavirus breaches at a funeral last year.

In the latest violent scenes, which took place in west Belfast on Wednesday night, a bus was hijacked and set on fire, petrol bombs, masonry and fireworks were thrown at police officers and a peace wall gate was set alight.

Police quelled crowds of 600 people on either side of the peace walls that separate communities in the city and deployed a type of plastic bullet, as well as arresting two men, aged 18 and 28, on suspicion of rioting.

Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill said illegal loyalist paramilitaries were influencing young people and orchestrating the violence.

But PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Jonathan Roberts later said during a press conference: “I can’t confirm the involvement of paramilitaries but the orchestration of last night’s disorder and the previous nights is the subject of investigation. The scale of the disorder last night was at a scale that we have not seen in recent years in Belfast or further afield.”

Earlier in the day, ministers in the Stormont Executive condemned the violence and Stormont MLAs unanimously passed a motion calling for an end to the disorder, after being recalled from Easter recess for an emergency sitting.

In a joint statement, the five-party executive said: “While our political positions are very different on many issues, we are all united in our support for law and order and we collectively state our support for policing and for the police officers who have been putting themselves in harm’s way to protect others. We, and our departments, will continue to work together to maximise the support we can give to communities and the PSNI to prevent further violence and unrest.”

CALL FOR CALM: Youths in Northern Ireland attacked police officers with petrol bombs and fireworks in recent outbreaks of violence.