Donaldson committed vile crimes, yet loyalist rioters seem strangely inactive

A court has convicted former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Jeffrey Donaldson of appalling crimes – sexual abuse of two children, including rape. Yet the streets in the north of Ireland remain strangely quiet. No masked men are blocking roads, no thugs are driving DUP members from their burning homes. If their rhetoric is to be believed, those carrying out such violence do so out of moral outrage following horrifying crimes, which Donaldson’s certainly were. That was their line when Belfast burned in response to an attack by a Sudanese man in North Belfast.

Similarly, when two Romanian teenagers were accused of sexual assault against a teenage girl in Ballymena, loyalist mobs conducted a wave of ethnic cleansing that drove roughly two-thirds of the Roma community from the town. Note they were merely accused, not convicted, as in the case of Donaldson. Police later dropped the charges against the two youths. Yet a court has now proven Donaldson guilty of 18 – eighteen – child sexual abuse charges, and Ballymena remains dormant.

Donaldson: no riots in response to long list of loyalist crimes

Donaldson was a member of the Orange Order until his post-conviction expulsion from the organisation. On the same day the court found Donaldson guilty, the Belfast Telegraph reported that another Orangeman “had a telescope fixed to watch a primary and nursery school”. The man in question is Warren Conn. Like Donaldson, he is a paedophile rapist.

Loyalist far-right groups and influencers targeting migrants and Muslims are riddled with violent criminals. Leader of Our Northern Ireland Voice (ONIV) Dan Grundle/Douglas is a convicted rioter. The group’s vice-chair was jailed for grievous bodily harm, stemming from his role in the killing of Catholic man Kevin McDaid in 2009. Racist influencer Freedom Dad has a conviction for armed robbery.

As reported by the Detail:

Almost half those arrested for race hate disorder in Belfast last August [2025] had previously been reported to the PSNI for domestic abuse…

None of the usual ‘concerned’ citizens seem to be throwing around questions asking what is wrong with this culture, causing it to produce such consistently deviant behaviour. They aren’t suggesting that these men, and all that are part of the same culture or ethnic group, ought to be deported. Yet that’s what we hear if a migrant or Muslim commits a crime.

Migrants don’t bring a violent culture – it’s here already

Many members of Donaldson’s party support so-called ‘Israel’, an entity dedicated to the murder and sexual assault of children. The pseudo-state has murdered over 20,000 kids during its holocaust in Gaza. ‘Israeli’ authorities subject 69% of Palestinian children abductees to sexual abuse. The land theft project is a well-known safe haven for paedophiles fleeing justice. It has strong ties to the world’s most notorious child rapist, Jeffrey Epstein.

Before complaining about the dangers of “alien” cultures, perhaps Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader needs to look at what’s wrong with his own.

When a Muslim commits a crime, racists ask us to believe it’s indicative of a barbaric religion that programs its adherents to engage in wrongdoing. Yet, as even the BBC acknowledged, Donaldson’s trial had a “Christian theme“. A Christian leader, Davey Hoy, who oversaw an apology from Donaldson to one of his victims, seemed to show an enormous lack of curiosity about what the apology might have been for.

Additionally, Donaldson is a member of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), an organisation that the PSNI is currently investigating for massive safeguarding issues. Parents of sexual abuse victims have said the church failed to act swiftly when they presented allegations to the PCI.

Is this an indication that Christianity is a “satanic” faith “spawned in hell”, as racists tell us Islam is? We understand perfectly well that these cases aren’t representative of all Christians, and we shouldn’t cast aspersions on them as a result. A similar courtesy ought to be extended to the world’s two billion Muslims, who aren’t represented by the tiny minority who carry out crimes.

The silence is loud

So yes, the streets in Belfast are quiet, and will remain so any time a white man carries out an egregious offence. The obvious truth is that loyalist rioters don’t actually care about serious crimes and their victims. They care about ethnically cleansing people based on the colour of their skin, their faith, and their migration status. That’s why these mobs have carried out three waves of horrific pogroms across three successive summers in the north of Ireland.

What the Donaldson case tells us is that crimes are enabled by power. He could get away with it for so long because he’s a powerful man who others were reluctant to challenge. Loyalist paramilitaries get away with staging pogroms because they wield brutish power over their communities. Epstein got away with his hideous abuses because his vast wealth granted him power.

If riots do take place, they ought to take place at the mansions of billionaires, and at parliament buildings. They should not be at the terraced houses of minoritised communities, who are the least likely to wield the sort of power that enables the hideous crimes of Donaldson and his ilk.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman