So that’s the problem solved then. After an outburst of racism, all we had to do was to lock up the rioters, throw away the key and everything can now return to normal.

That was Keir Starmer’s attitude to the violence, which was echoed in a self-congratulatory Stormont. Like the unionist response to rioting in the Bogside in 1969, both Stormont and Westminster depicted racism as a problem of law and order (and we know how that turned out).

Politicians here and in Britain condemned the violence, but few explained it. In speeches ranging from the sanctimonious to the self-promotional, one sensible voice rang out. Appropriately it came from an immigrant. Step forward, Lilian Seenoi-Barr, Mayor of Derry and Strabane.

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In an interview with this newspaper, she described the “wave of anti-immigrant sentiment” as “heartbreaking” – and then she offered an analysis. She pointed the finger at Westminster and a dysfunctional Stormont for the collapse of public services in health, welfare,........

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