Man to appear in court over Belfast knife attack as rioting described as ‘race-based pogrom’ by SDLP leader

Key events

PSNI chief constable defends releasing information about suspect’s nationality

Jon Boutcher, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, has defended his force’s decision to tell the public yesterday that the man arrested for the Belfast knife attack on Monday night was Sudanese.

In an interview on the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster, he said:

We have learned that if we don’t give information, then online misinformation and lies lead to people believing things that aren’t true and start to mindlessly conduct attacks – and that was what happened at Southport not that long ago.

Asked about the force originally suggesting the suspect was from Somalia, Boutcher said:

We said we ‘believe’ that because that was the information that we were given after the incident occurred and we’re always going to get more detailed information as time passes by.
I was pushing very directly with the Home Office to give us the information that we required so that we could comply with the lessons learned previously.

Here is our report by Hannah Al-Othman and Rory Carroll on the rioting in Belfast last night.

And here is Guardian video of a bus being set on fire.

Bus set on fire as disorder flares up in Belfast – video

Labour chair Anna Turley says Elon Musk’s interventions encouraging unrest in Belfast have been ‘appalling’

Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, said that what Elon Musk had done in trying to stir up unrest in the UK after the Belfast knife attack was “appalling”.

In an interview on LBC, asked how the government viewed Musk’s actions and how he was trying to “whip up unrest”, she replied:

I think it’s appalling. Anyone that is seeking to drive and exploit a situation like this to drive their own political agenda is grievously wrong and doing damage.
He’s not someone who’s having to live in a community where the consequences of this, of the anger that is whipped up, [are felt].
We’ve seen children, families having to flee their homes on the streets of Belfast last night.
We do not want to see this kind of disruption, damage, thuggery, violence on our streets, and anyone that is seeking to whip that up should be condemned.

Asked if the government should boycott X, Musk’s social media platform, in response, Turley said:

I think about that all the time.
I think that there are lots of concerns about X. I personally find it a really positive way to engage with some of my constituents, but there’s no doubt that there are some really deeply worrying messages being conveyed through social media.
We are concerned about the use of disinformation in our democracy. These are things that I know the government is taking very seriously in looking at.

Good morning. Soon after becoming PM in 2024, Keir Starmer had to deal with a period of rioting in England, prompted by the Southport murders and mostly targeted at asylum seekers. Last night, in Northern Ireland, there were similar race riots, triggered by a knife attack involving a Sudanese suspect. Here is our overnight story about the rioting.

And this is what Claire Hanna, the SDLP leader and MP for Belfast South and Mid Down, said about the attacks on Newsnight last night.

What you’re seeing is a race-based pogrom. We are seeing men going door to door asking to get the foreigners out based exclusively on the colour of their skin. It’s not based on what they’re contributing to society, what their status here is and it’s terrifying for people in Belfast who want this sort of politics to be far beyond them.

Starmer is taking PMQs at noon and the Belfast disorder is likely to be the main talking point.

There are two issues that Starmer will be expected to address.

1) What is he going to do about the common travel area asylum “loophole”? The Belfast knife attack suspect was an asylum seeker who had been granted leave to remain in the UK three years ago, but he did not arrive on a small boat. He arrived in Belfast from Dublin, having flown to Ireland from Paris, and then – because of the common travel area – he was able to cross the border into Northern Ireland without facing any checks. Starmer is under pressure to close this “loophole”, as the Telegraph calls it, although a version of the common travel area has been in force for more than a century and so it has hard to see how it can be closed without colossal upheaval.

2) What is he going to do about rightwingers using social media to incite people in Northern Ireland to riot? Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, played a key role last night in amplifying calls for protests after the Belfast knife attack. He has been at it again overnight. Again, it is not obvious what Starmer can do about this, but he is bound to be asked whether this is tolerable.

Anna Turley, the Labour party chair and Cabinet Office minister, has been giving interviews this morning. Speaking to Sky News, she said the common travel area should not be used as “a back route for people to come here and exploit our asylum system”. She also said “conversations are happening” in government about what could be done to stop this.

She said:

If people are exploiting the common travel agreement in this way, that’s not acceptable. That’s not what it’s there for.
It’s been in existence for over 100 years and it’s absolutely right that people can travel between the island and Northern Ireland freely.
But it’s really important we make sure that we have a fair system that is led by data and intelligence, and we make sure that people are not able to exploit the asylum system.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.15am: Sarah Jones, the policing minister, speaks at the launch of the new national policing AI centre PoliceAI.

10am: Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, holds a press conference, which is meant to be about the party’s plans to deal with fly-tipping.

Morning: A man will appear at Belfast magistrates’ court charged with attempted murder after the knife attack on Monday night.

Morning: Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, is in Belfast meeting the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Jon Boutcher.

11am: Jim Mackey, the NHS England chief executive, speaks at the NHS ConfedExpo 2026 in Manchester.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs

5pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, are due to speak at press conference in London with their Australian counterparts, after the annual UK-Australia defence/security summit.

I’m afraid comments won’t be open this morning because we are focusing on a story where criminal proceedings are live, which creates a contempt of court risk.

If you want to flag something up urgently to me, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.