From Facebook to street patrols: the growing anti-migrant networks linking Northern Ireland and Scotland

A network of 75 right-wing Facebook groups is being used to spread anti-immigration rhetoric between Northern Ireland and Scotland, reflecting growing links between the two countries as racist violence escalates over migrants.

An investigation by The Detail and Scottish investigative website The Ferret has also found links between former loyalist paramilitaries and far right groups in Scotland.

Both Northern Ireland and Scotland witnessed street violence linked to anti-immigration protests this summer when far right actors rioted.

Human rights groups described our findings as “deeply disturbing” and said they reveal a “toxic cross-over” between anti-immigrant networks. One critic warned that Northern Ireland now appears to be a “model for far right activity to be emulated elsewhere”.

Rioting erupted in Belfast in June after footage of a grotesque knife attack in north Belfast went viral on social media. A Sudanese refugee called Hadi Alodid was later charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie. Despite pleas for calm by Ogilvie’s family, violence took hold in Belfast – mostly in loyalist areas – on 9 and 10 June. Buses and cars were set ablaze and the homes of refugees and asylum seekers were targeted during widespread disorder.

At least 88 households were forced from their homes as a result of the riots, according to figures supplied by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Community organisations estimated more than 200 people were displaced.

Up until this summer Scotland had not suffered the levels of anti-migrant violence seen in Northern Ireland, or in England where rioters set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers in 2024 after three girls were murdered in Southport.

But trouble erupted in Glasgow on 9 June, following the attack on Stephen Ogilvie. Masked men in black ran amok in the city centre following a protest when the banner of white supremacist group Patriotic Alternative was displayed, heralding a summer of discontent over immigration.

People of colour were attacked and police made a number of arrests. Glasgow has since seen more anti-immigration violence and we have exposed clear links between loyalists and Scottish groups.

The Scottish-Northern Irish anti-migrant ecosystem

We collaborated with a Northern Irish group called the Accountability Project which monitors online anti-immigration activity.

There are now at least 40 anti-immigration Facebook pages in Scotland and 35 in Northern Ireland, according to the Accountability Project, whose research we have verified. There is no suggestion that all people with concerns around immigration are racist, but it is well documented that far right actors are exploiting the situation.

Eighty per cent of the Scottish anti-immigration Facebook pages analysed were created during 2025 and 2026, as were the vast majority in Northern Ireland. Many of these entities are also active on X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Collaboration includes reciprocal sharing and amplification of information, says Sara from the Accountability Project, who requested anonymity due to fears over her safety. Other similarities between Scotland and Northern Ireland include a proliferation of so-called “street patrols” in the past year, the “division-style” namings of groups such as “Patriots” and “Against Illegal Immigration” plus the sharing of propaganda framed around women’s safety and cultural identity.

The publication online of photos and footage of people of colour alongside allegations of criminality or suspicious behaviour is common, says Sara, as is the filming of mosques and targeting of ethnic-minority owned businesses. So-called paedophile-hunting is also on the rise, an activity often exploited by far right actors.

Scottish groups include Unite the Clans Scotland, Aberdeen Against Illegal Migration, which has 67,000 followers, Scottish Patriot Scene News, and Nature’s Nationalist. A Facebook group called Save Our Future and Our Kids Futures organised protests for months in the Scottish town of Falkirk but permanently shut down in January after admitting that neo-Nazis had infiltrated its demonstrations.

Key Northern Ireland anti-immigration pages include The Great Province-wide Protest NI, which has 51,000 followers, and Our Northern Ireland Voice ,with 40,000 followers. The latter claims to be “dedicated to protecting, preserving, and celebrating the culture, traditions, and heritage that make Northern Ireland unique”. A recent post with more than 11,000 ‘likes’ called for the televised public hangings of politicians who “imported third world parasites”. Another post said: “I don't want them to assimilate...I want them to fuck right back off to where they came from!!!”.

But this isn’t just online abuse. It spills, Sara stresses, into real world harm. She sent screenshots of posts by a Facebook page called Loyalist Glengormley whose content is currently available. On 9 June it posted messages the day after the attack on Stephen Ogilvie. The first was a “request” to people in the Cloughfern, Rathcoole and Rathfern areas of Belfast to turn off ring doorbells and cameras that evening, along with a “strict” warning that no phones or recordings were to be made. The “Glengormley anti-immigration division” is now at “war”, the post said.

On 10 June locals were urged to protest outside accommodation for asylum seekers at Chimney Corner Hotel, just outside of Belfast. A post on 29 June by Loyalist Glengormley said: “There will be a few homes that will soon be freed-up in the Queens Park Estate to accommodate local people, boat jockeys or fake so-called asylum seekers will not be made to feel welcome. These animals will soon learn that they have passed the fuck around stage of their journey. Now it’s time for the find out stage and unfortunately for them it’s a one way fuckin ticket.”

Children were among those burned out of their homes in June, prompting outrage. Geraldine Hanna, the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime in Northern Ireland, said she’d heard “horror stories of families hiding in roof spaces to escape racist mobs attacking their homes” after speaking to victims’ representatives, adding that Northern Ireland has seen “truly sickening scenes of racist and anti-migrant violence” over the last three years.

Meanwhile, as Belfast burned, tensions started rising in Glasgow and loyalists from Northern Ireland visited Scotland in July following the riots. They included Jim Dowson, the Scottish frontman of a right wing Christian group called Knights Templar. Based in Northern Ireland, Dowson visited Glasgow to distribute equipment for Scottish "night patrols" bought with funds raised by his far right organisation. He said there was no paramilitary involvement in the Northern Irish anti-immigration movement and accused “lefties” of causing violence in Glasgow. “Those mad lefties, the Green Brigade [an ultras group following Celtic football club] had weapons and attacked people in Glasgow Green. The real violence comes from illegal undocumented migrants who rape and kill. They are entering the country illegally and no-one is doing anything about it,” he added.

East Belfast’s vigilantes

East Belfast is of particular interest because street patrols started here around two years ago – a controversial phenomenon that spread to Scotland this year apparently modelled on Northern Ireland. It was back in July 2025 that footage emerged of men patrolling east Belfast’s streets, confronting people from ethnic minority backgrounds and demanding documents. Police described the patrols as“racism, pure and simple”. Those involved denied the charge.

A group of “vigilantes” call themselves East Belfast First Division (EBFD). One man linked to the group is Mark Sinclair, formerly of the UVF, who was jailed for armed robberies in Scotland. He now claims to be a citizen journalist and calls himself ‘Freedom Dad’ on YouTube, where he rails against immigration and multiculturalism and argues that Northern Ireland must remain a “white christian country”. He’s a regular visitor to Scotland. In one video about Glasgow he falsely claims that migrants now out-number Scots telling followers: “It was spot the white man unfortunately”.

Another person closely linked to East Belfast First Division is Glen Kane, a killer who was jailed for nine years for being part of a loyalist mob that killed a Cath­olic man dur­ing a sec­tarian riot in 1992. Kane, aka ‘Mr X’, is a former member of the British National Party, a racist political organisation. Kane was accused of possessing a religious pamphlet for stirring up racial hatred but won a legal battle in September to have the prosecution halted. The proceedings were formally ended after a judge ruled she had no jurisdiction to hear the case because a required certificate of consent from the Director of Public Prosecutions had not been obtained. The ruling did not determine whether or not the alleged material amounted to racial hatred.

Both Kane and Sinclair deny being racists.

Sinclair has links to former loyalist paramilitary leader Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, who has lived on Scotland’s Ayrshire coast for more than two decades. The former Shankill Road commander of the Ulster Defence Association said recently he would get involved in anti-immigration politics and warned of “serious serious civil unrest” in the near future. “The threat that is coming is not republicanism, the threat is illegal immigration. These people will rape, they will kill, they will steal and they have no common value of life,” said Adair in an interview on YouTube, adding he would draw on his experiences during The Troubles.

Sinclair has travelled to Manchester and Dublin for anti-immigration protests and both he and Kane were pictured with the English activist Danny Thomas (Tommo) in east Belfast on 9 June following the riots. Thomas, a convicted attempted kidnapper and associate of the anti-Islam figure Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is behind a new group called Patriot Platform. In September he rallied hundreds of masked men to protest against migrants in Dover and Portsmouth, reflecting a growing trend within the far right to quickly mobilise groups who often dress in black and wear balaclavas. Critics claim this modus operandi is paramilitary cosplaying designed to intimidate. Tommo previously said he “came away inspired” after his time in Belfast during the racist riots.

Both Sinclair and Kane also visited Glasgow in July for an anti-immigration protest organised by a group called Unite the Clans. The demo took place during the 2026 Commonwealth Games when the city was busy with tourists. The pair were among a group kettled by police and questioned but they were not arrested. Sinclair also has links to a Glasgow street patrol called Scots Active, which denies being racist but shares far right propaganda on its channels.

Patrick Corrigan, head of nations and regions at Amnesty International UK, described our findings as “deeply disturbing” and said increased cooperation between individuals with alleged links to paramilitary groups is a “deeply sinister escalation” that should serve as a “wake-up call” to authorities.

Both police and politicians across the UK must treat this “escalating far right threat as the urgent priority it is”, added Corrigan, who called for a coordinated response that offers “proper protection to vulnerable communities, holds perpetrators accountable and sends a clear message that racist vigilantism will not be tolerated”.

Anti-Muslim hatred

There is widespread opposition to Islam within this growing anti-immigration network, a rallying call for the far right in both Northern Ireland and Scotland. “Unite the Clans” is a phrase used by Jim Dowson and Scottish activists: Muslims are the enemy now, not Catholics, not each other.

In Newtownabbey a mural on the Rathfern Estate depicts a church in flames, apparently set ablaze by Muslims, with lettering underneath proclaiming: “Islam is Satanic” and a “new evil has risen”.

In Cloughfern, another loyalist area, there’s a mural depicting cloaked figures holding the flag of Pakistan in a Christian graveyard, an apparent reference to the UK being “invaded” by foreigners. The mural offers an apology and says “sorry it was all for nothing”. “It’s on each and every one of us to save what our forefathers fought and died for,” it adds – an apparent reference to those who died in the first and second world wars.

The “apology” rhetoric has been replicated in Scotland this summer by groups clad in black who held several so-called “silent protests” in towns and cities. The first was on 18 June, when around 60 people organised into four columns outside Glasgow Cathedral, in paramilitary fashion, and laid a “wreath to our fallen” with the words “we apologise”. Six days later a similar protest was held outside the Scottish Parliament. The protests were filmed in black and white for slick propaganda videos promoted on social media by anti-Islam activists including Tommy Robinson.

The “apologies” are understood to refer to the way the UK has allowed mass immigration to happen – and while there are no murals in Scotland demonising Islam, there have been an increasing number of attacks on mosques and Muslims in recent years, mirroring the situation in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

According to Daniel Holder, director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice, Northern Ireland now appears to be a “model for far right activity to be emulated elsewhere” and Scotland could be “particularly vulnerable to this” given there are “already networks in play”.

Pointing to recent reports by the United Nations expressing concern over links between paramilitarism and racist violence, he said there has been a “long pattern of elements or factions within loyalist paramilitary groups” being involved in acts of racist violence and intimidation. For three summers in a row, he continued, this has “escalated into orchestrated racist pogroms” and that during the rest of the year there is “racist intimidation” surrounding housing.

“Part of this pattern is the display of materials in public spaces that either incite racial hatred – such as Islamophobic murals – or posters that directly threaten landlords who rent to migrants or Muslims,” Holder said. “Flags are also used, including paramilitary and union flags when new housing is built, along with slogans such as ‘locals only’ to deter people from taking up housing.”

While the policing response has improved, he added, other public authorities remain hesitant to remove these materials because they are often placed in areas under suspected paramilitary control. “Consequently, those responsible for racist intimidation face a minimal state response to their activities in a way that would not be tolerated elsewhere on these islands,” he continued.

For Sara, a major concern is the infrastructure rapidly developing around anti-immigration sentiment in both Northern Ireland and Scotland, which, she says, increasingly has strategy, financial capabilities, and wide ranging social media platforms for audience reach and amplification. “Our concern is therefore not about policing people's political opinions or opposition to immigration policy,” she says.

“It is about recognising patterns early enough that institutions and communities are not left trying to reconstruct them only after harm has occurred. Serious disorder does not begin at the moment the first object is thrown. There can be an observable period beforehand in which networks develop, grievances converge, audiences are built, tactics evolve and mobilisation becomes increasingly normalised.”

The Northern Ireland Executive Office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said:

“The right to peaceful protest must never be used to justify violence, intimidation or any other criminal behaviour. We must stand against racism, hatred and intimidation and those who would seek to divide our communities.

“We have urged the UK Government to take stronger action on tackling harmful online content.”

Billy Briggs is a Scottish journalist and a founder of The Ferret