THE sight of St George and Union flags appearing across Britain has caused alarm.
There is more than a resemblance to the streets of Loyalist parts of Belfast, with the flags and union jack kerbstones.
When coupled with the 100,000 plus protesters out on Tommy Robinson's march in London a few weeks ago, there is a real intimidatory feel to the whole thing.
A major focus is the small boats coming across the channel.
The way in which this issue has been used to whip up racism is incredible.
The number of people taking this hazardous route to refuge in this green and pleasant land is relatively small.
Some 35,000 made the trip so far this year (a medium sized football ground).
Yet a combination of Nigel Farage's Reform, Robinson and the rabid supporting cast, amongst Britain's right wing media, have presented the boats as some sort of threatening invasion force.
Using the flag symbolism plugs into the 'we will fight them on the beaches' mentality of Second World War fame.
Fortunately, it does seem like the Labour government is at last beginning to stand up and defend the values of a pluralist, inclusive, multicultural society.
The Prime Minister Keir Starmer did well recently in calling out Farage and Reform for their anti-migrant rhetoric.
However, for the Irish community, especially of Belfast, this whole issue must have an eerie feel.
There have of course also been ethnic tensions in the North with minorities being targeted.
Some 3.4 per cent of the population of the North come from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to 18 per cent in England and Wales.
But whilst historically the background causes of the divisions in Ireland are different, the hardening of attitudes and physical division of communities seen in the North could provide a glimpse of the future in Britain. A land of segregation.
Instead of pluralism, the communities shrink into their religious or ethnic groups. Tensions rise.
The trend over the years of seeing developments in the North, later extend to the rest of Britain, is well known.
Methods of policing, military actions and laws have all come home as it were.
Not usually for the common good.
Will the latest manifestation be any different?
So how things go over the next few years in Britain will be interesting to see.
Certainly, the continual rise of the racist right will see an exodus from Britain to places like Ireland, which today appears, for the most part, a country must more at ease with itself, inside Europe, despite other tensions.
Terror atrocities cannot be used to cut civil liberties
It is sad to see the government once again moving to cut civil rights following terrorist atrocity.
The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced more police powers to restrict the right to protest, after the tragic attack that led to the deaths of two men at a Manchester synagogue, followed by the latest Gaza protest march.
Moves to cut civil liberties, following terror atrocities has a sense of déjà vu for Irish people.
So often over the period of the conflict in the north of Ireland, terrorist atrocities were used as a justification to cut civil liberties.
The passing of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and subsequent anti-terror laws usually followed terror atrocities. The first PTA came in following the Birmingham and Guildford pub bombings.
A whole system of laws and courts developed reducing human rights.
Today, moves to cut the right to protest are no answer, if the country intends to remain a democratic state.
Restricting protest, only forces frustrations into other formats. It can encourage violence.
The response to those who threaten democratic societies should be to defiantly widen civil rights, not capitulate to authoritarianism - that is a lesson from the conflict in the north of Ireland, which needs to be re-learnt here.
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