Look no further than the EU if you want to understand the current riots on the UK's streets

The tragic events of this week in Belfast have once again shone a light on the North-South border on the island of Ireland.

Most British and Irish citizens are aware of something called the Common Travel Area, which unites their countries.

Many will know this dates back to the secession of 22 counties of the Republic in the early 1920s and the formation of the Irish Free State.

There have been a great many changes in the rules of the Common Travel Area over the past 100 years, including its complete suspension for many years from the start of WWII in September 1939.

For most of the latter part of its existence, however, one thing has been clear: the CTA applies only to British and Irish citizens.

It seems he had travelled from his home country of Sudan to an EU country, France.

He was then able to travel to another EU country, the Republic of Ireland.

Finally, it is believed he caught a bus from Dublin to Belfast.

The EU has a treaty obligation to be a good neighbour to surrounding countries.

In this case – and in 180,000 others since 2018 – it allowed an illegal migrant to enter its territory and apparently to travel freely, with no checks, detention or any other impediment.

We now know the terrible consequences of the EU’s inaction.

It was one year ago to this same week that we were watching and reading about a week-long duration of riots in Northern Ireland.

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So serious were these, we saw the reports in newspapers from all around the world.

In that case, once again it was immigration that provoked the disorder.

The violence stemmed from a case that had horrified the Province as well as places further afield.

As many readers will recall, two Roma boys had been charged with the attempted rape of a teenage girl in the Ballymena area.

The background here is important.

During the previous 10 years, the population churn in the area had exceeded 50 per cent, largely as a result of Roma people having been bused in large groups from their communities in the Republic.

Naturally, this had completely changed the nature of this part of Ballymena.

Critically, it was alleged that whilst the EU (and its puppets in the N.I. Office and Whitehall) cared a great deal about supervising the North-South border in respect of UK goods, it made no checks on people moving from the South to the North.

In percentage terms, the population of places like North Belfast has not changed as much as in some parts of Northern Ireland.

Some of these areas are, after all, amongst the most deprived in the United Kingdom and therefore less appealing.

Nevertheless, the population divides in Northern Ireland are highly sensitive, and this is often not understood on mainland GB.

The ‘community’ you are from is fundamental to who you are and where you dare walk alone at night.

Yes, the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement – which had nothing to do with the EU – made a difference to the visible levels of violence, but sectarianism remains a powerful force under the surface.

The influx of even relatively small (by mainland UK standards) members of other communities as a result of immigration from the EU is enough to disturb the fabric.

When a migrant, such as the suspect in this case, allegedly commits such a heinous act, tensions are always going to rise higher than elsewhere in the Kingdom.

When the nature of sectarian violence from the Troubles is still embedded in the public consciousness, these tensions can spill over into the forms of violence we have seen.

Ultimately, say the Unionists and those who are pro-Brexit, this is about the consequences of the EU completely failing to understand that its entire policy on Northern Ireland has been wrong from the start.

The UK Government shows no signs of calling out the EU on its inability to control its borders and instead the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has thrown another £600million+ of public money to France to do a job which it might be thought is its own responsibility to perform and pay for.

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