𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Ministers are facing rising fury over an asylum loophole that allows migrants to sneak into Britain undetected. Belfast knife attack suspect Hadi Alodid sought refuge in Belfast after crossing the border unchallenged from Dublin.

And both the British and Irish Governments were facing demands to clamp down on the crisis. The Home Office tonight (Wednesday) insisted it will ramp up efforts to “track down, detain, arrest and remove illegal migrants in Northern Ireland”. Dublin was told it must not become a “conduit” for illegal migration.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “I do understand why people are angry. The suspect came into the UK illegally – he should never have been here in the first place. Mainstream politicians must now understand how angry the public are about mass illegal immigration. If mainstream politics does not stop this, the public will turn elsewhere.”

DUP politician Sammy Wilson said: “If the law is going to apply to those who protested, it should also apply to those who have broken into our country illegally, broken our immigration laws and become the source of many of the problems we face.

“Instead of that, they are taken by the hand – they have state resources spent on them and accommodation made available to them, and they are then given the right to stay here, even though they have come in illegally.

“If this issue is to be addressed, the Government must change their attitude. Those who come into our country illegally should be told, ‘You will never get asylum’.

“The Irish Government should be spoken to as well, so that the Irish Republic does not become the conduit for illegal immigration, as the route used by the person who has been accused of this crime.”

Local officials fear paramilitary groups are ordering violent protests in Belfast to “send a message” to the Government over who controls their community.

Community leaders in Northern Ireland fear the gangs are filling a “vacuum” as anger over Westminster’s failures on immigration intensifies.

This fury has been weaponised by groups in Belfast, who are using it to warn Labour of their determination to rule over their communities with an iron fist.

Thugs firebombed houses, torched cars and ripped families from their homes as they went door to door targeting people from ethnic minorities.

Security chiefs are braced for more violence, with businesses in Belfast ordered to shut early today and transport services suspended.

A source told the Daily Express: “When politicians don’t deliver, a vacuum remains.

“That vacuum is filled by paramilitaries with an altogether more aggressive attitude.

“They live in the community and therefore have the same concerns for the community but an altogether more nefarious way of thinking.

“Al Capone existed in a similar way nurturing the community he hid in.”

Another said: “When it comes to a protest, particularly in a working-class area, the paramilitaries, either loyalist or nationalist, decide whether there is trouble or not.

“Elected representatives don’t have any influence over it.”

Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said 200 more officers would be on the streets on Wednesday night.

“We will deal with this,” he said.

“We will be on the streets tonight in numbers even more than we were last night.”

On Tuesday, a bus was set alight in east Belfast, in Lendrick Street several cars were burned and Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service officers had to remove some residents from houses after they were set alight.

A number of houses and vehicles were set on fire near the Ligoniel Road area of Belfast and a police car was set alight in Portadown.

A two-month-old baby was among those rescued during the violence, the chief constable said.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the rioting in Belfast was “shocking and completely unacceptable”.

“It is clear that people were targeted last night because of their background and I will not tolerate it,” he said.

“Those responsible will feel the full force of the law.”

And Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was told Britain’s migrant crisis must be treated as a national security issue because it is “destabilising” the country.

Jonathan Hall told Ms Mahmood “national security is the health of the nation”, with tensions over immigration threatening to rip communities into pieces.

Mr Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, pointed towards Donald Trump’s warning that mass migration is destabilising Europe.

The admission comes after Sudanese asylum seeker Hadi Alodid allegedly stabbed a man in the head and neck in the middle of the street in Belfast.

And a police detective told a Belfast court the man injured in the ferocious assault on Monday has lost his left eye.

She also told the court that the defendant said “I’ve killed someone, I don’t know if they are dead” while in hospital receiving treatment for a hand injury and told medical staff “I will kill you”.

Alodid claimed asylum in Belfast after travelling across the border from Dublin on a bus, prompting fears the soft border is being abused.

Jonathan Hall KC told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m interested in whether foreign nationality is becoming more relevant to the national security picture. It makes me think of something, which I haven’t really heard a good answer to in the UK, which is what was said in Trump’s national security strategy in November 2025.

“He said there’s this destabilisation of Europe. He put an awful lot of that down to migration. It does raise the question if certain countries are more likely to commit either serious offences or particular offences, or to get involved in state-threat activity, do we need to start thinking about migration not simply in terms of the economy or housing but also in terms of national security.”

He added of the attack in Belfast: “It has had huge ramifications for this country. It is extraordinarily destabilising.

“National security is the health of the nation and having a stable nation that feels it can go about its business.

“At the moment, you have people who happen to be black and brown, but who are as British as you and me, who probably don’t feel as though they can go about their business. That is destabilising to the nation.”