Last Wednesday, businesses closed early and shops boarded up in anticipation of an outbreak of far-right violence in some parts of the country. Six thousand trained police officers were on standby to respond. In the end, it did not materialise on anything like the scale feared: relatively few agitators were dwarfed by huge crowds of anti-racist demonstrators sending a message that the far-right were not welcome in their communities.
That was a huge relief, but, as the prime minister warned on Friday, there is no room for complacency. With hindsight, the social media posts that claimed there would be action in many locations looked more like an attempt to instigate it than a sign of networked organisation. The prompt arrest of so many rioters in preceding days, with some already sentenced to long spells in prison, undoubtedly had a deterrent effect. But on Thursday and Friday nights, anti-immigration unrest continued in Belfast and the police remain on alert this weekend.
