Partly due to Protestant movement to the suburbs and outlying towns, working class Loyalist areas are experiencing the highest rates of demographic change in Belfast as migrants dispersed from the British mainland are resettled in previously homogeneous, tight-knit communities, dominated by paramilitary factions. It is not always a recipe for harmony. “Nobody’s racist here, we just want the best for our community,” Jenny, a young woman who had just walked barefoot through the smoke-filled no-man’s-land between police and rioters, carrying her high-heels in her hand from a night out, said, before accusing recently arrived migrants of “preying” on local women and girls. “And God help them wee ones in Southport,” she added, “This is where it’s all came from, all of this.”

On the other side of the police cordon, masked youths had set fire to cars as barricades, blocking the PSNI from moving deeper into the area. They whooped as they threw stones and aimed fireworks at the dazzling blue lights of the police lines, smashing up masonry in the flame light for ease of hurling. The air was thick with the stench of burning plastic and rubbish from the bins that had been set ablaze. A crowd had gathered to watch the riot, drinking, and vaping. “Put that there camera away,” one ski-masked lad ordered me, “or you’ll have it taken off you.”

Outside the Royal bar, bedecked with British and Israeli flags and doing roaring trade behind steel shutters, drinkers watched firefighters extinguishing the blaze of the burned out Sham supermarket, a Syrian-owned store with flats above, long a focus of local attacks. Armoured Land Rovers had surrounded the pub. Behind them a giant electric traffic sign blinked “DELAYS EXPECTED,” perhaps superfluously. Other ethnic minority stores had been left untouched: drinkers gave differing reasons for why this particular shop had been targeted. “Everyone has their own beliefs, whatever they want,” said Jenny, after emerging from inside the pub with a drink. “But some of their beliefs are wrong, and belittle women.” Her black friend beside her, tottering on her heels, nodded as she watched the firefighters buzzsaw through the charred shop shutters.

As a line of PSNI Land Rovers curved past the pub in convoy, an older drinker berated them in a thick Belfast accent. “You’re the fuckin’ scum of the earth,” he shouted, as riot police in bulky body armour and round helmets filed past like astronauts behind their shields. “Do your Sinn Féin masters’ bidding, you bastards,” he shouted, “Fuck the lot of yous.” England’s riots may have sparked the current round of disorder, but there’s a specifically local undertow of Loyalist disaffection brewing in this rapidly changing community.