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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics podcast.

I'm Cindy Yu and I'm joined by Katie Balls and James Forsyth. So as of last week, violence started erupting in Belfast from the loyalist factions, but last night it escalated into something more serious. Petro bombs were thrown, a bus was hijacked and there were reports that children as young as 12 and 13 were being involved. James Key explained to listeners what's been going on there and why it's happening.

So these are loyalists rioting. It would be wrong to pretend that there's kind of one simple explanation for what is going on.

I think that there are kind of three facts at play.

One is a police clamp down on some lawless paramilitary's drug trade. I mean, that is driving

some of their anger. I think there is also a sense that the failure to prosecute anyone for the breaches of a COVID

regulations at Bobby Storia and a former IRA man's funeral is a kind of sign that

has been taken by these lawyers. There's a sign that the kind of police is scared of Sinn Féin

and so I think they're trying to make a point on that front. And then finally,

I think there is an element here, which is that there is a sense that no one, that people decided

that you couldn't have a land border on the island of Ireland because people were scared about

terrorist violence. And so there is a desire to create a sense of fear about possible terrorist violence,

perhaps it's kind of half a sea border, but there is in the Irish Sea,

between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

I mean, those are the factors behind the violence.

I think what is most worrying about the situation in Northern Ireland at the moment

is the danger that what

one might call pragmatic unionism finds itself in. If you think back to the start of this year,

Arlene Foster was not a fan of the protocol, but she talked about trying to make it work,

trying to try to sign a situation where Northern Ireland could get the best of both worlds as the phrase goes.

...