RACISM against ethnic minorities is on the increase in Northern Ireland to such a degree that it is now being nicknamed the racist capital of Europe.

Chinese, Romanian and Ugandan families have all been burnt out of their Belfast homes over recent months. Muslims have also been attacked.

The attacks are being committed by loyalist paramilitaries in Protestant working-class areas, but why is it happening now?

The number of people settling in Northern Ireland from ethnic minorities has increased over recent years, but communities like the Chinese have been in residence for many decades.

During the years of the troubles, such ethnic minority groups seem to have been largely left alone. Duncan Morrow of the Community Relations Council has said that there is "a lazy toleration of racism in this community. The situation now is what might have happened in Britain in the 1950s."

There is, no doubt, some truth in this view. But, to get to the root of the problem, a closer look needs to be taken into loyalist communities.

Despite still being in the majority and represented by the largest number of members in the Northern Ireland Assembly, there is a perception among loyalists that they are under siege.

Such thinking makes little sense to Catholics, who merely see some power-sharing and wonder why the loyalists should feel this way.

For loyalists, not being in total charge, with the Catholics fulfilling the role of second-class citizens, amounts to a substantial change in the power indices of the North.

This siege mentality has been responsible for much of the arbitrary violence handed out to the Catholic community since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.

Though little reported, there has been a low-intensity war being conducted against Catholics ever since the agreement was signed.

Pipe bombs, shootings and young children being stopped from going to Holy Cross School have all been part of this war. Whenever there has been a perceived big step forward in the peace process, a subsequent violent reaction has resulted against the Catholics from the loyalists.

Of course, not everyone among the Protestant community is part of this violent approach. However, the more extreme elements have never accepted the agreement and still believe that they have to defend their areas. Arbitrarily attacking Catholics was seen as the best way to do that.

At first glance, the attacks on the ethnic minority groups almost seem like a throwback to the days of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s.

At that time, Catholics were being burned out as loyalist mobs sought to drive them from their areas. Now, it is ethnic minorities who are being burned out.

The present attacks on ethnic minorities should be seen in the context of a broadening of the violent approach of loyalists.

However, there are other forces at play. For years now, there have been close links between loyalist groups and the far-right in the remainder of Britain.

Groups like the fascist BNP and Combat 18 have made common cause with some loyalist groups. The BNP recently announced that it would be stepping up recruitment in the north of Ireland, no doubt to capitalise on the hotbed of racism that is already simmering here.

It is also surprising to see the number of English, Welsh and Scottish football clubs who seem to have loyalist attachments. There is the Swansea Loyal, Charlton Loyal, Cheltenham Loyal and Blues Brothers, a site for Chelsea, Rangers and Linfield loyalist fans.

The Chelsea Loyalists website declares: "Whilst the website supports a peace process which would be acceptable to British citizens, rather than bowing to republican terror groups' demands, we also pay tribute to those who defended their families and homes from the enemies of the UK."

The Yorkshire Loyalists site, meanwhile, has a page devoted "in loving memory of John Gregg, commander of South East Antrim UDA."

So, the growing fascist influence among loyalist groups, when added to the self-perceived siege mentality, has played an important role in fomenting racial violence.

Another consideration is the open racism whipped up against asylum-seekers by many in the British media. Asylum-seekers have settled down well in the North of Ireland.

The racist bile directed at refugees in Britain has increased the level of racist violence here. It is strange, though, that, wherever racial intolerance or religious bigotry are on show, the Orange Order never seems far away.

The Orange Order's operations in Britain are something of which many people seem unaware. There are Orange lodges in Portsmouth, Bedford, Chester, Lewes and Liverpool.

It is curious that there should be an Orange lodge in Lewes, where the annual ceremony of burning an effigy of the Pope Paul V takes place.

There have been no direct links drawn between the Orange lodge and the anti-Catholic ceremony each year, but it does seem rather coincidental that the two elements should come so close together.

The presence of the Orange Order, wherever it appears, seems to denote a certain backward-looking culture. A visit to Lewes, in east Sussex, on November 5 each year is possibly the closest that anyone is likely to get to going back 400 years.

The religious intolerance on display is the same as four centuries ago. The event is dismissed as a harmless bit of fun, with the burning of the pope's effigy and general ridicule of the Catholic church.

But it will be interesting to see how the revellers react this year when Catholic Joe O'Keefe arrives with his supporters to make a peaceful protest.

Will they be greeted in a peaceful way or, as one particularly vicious letter to O'Keefe suggested, "put on the bonfire" themselves? It is easy to be tolerant when the other side doesn't show up.

The activities in Lewes are the closest thing in Britain to the annual march to Drumcree church in Northern Ireland. The same intolerant religious attitude is on display at both venues, while the dress and behaviour appear to come from a bygone age.

The march to Drumcree and then back through the Catholic Garvaghy Road is about domination over a minority. The reaction to O'Keefe next November will denote whether the ceremony in Lewes is about the same thing.

The racism being shown to ethnic minorities in the North of Ireland and parts of Britain is the same thing - the desire of a large group to stamp what it believes is its authority on another.

What the need to exercise dominance at every available opportunity really betrays is insecurity. The loyalists were happy as long as the Catholics stayed in their places and did not step out of line.

The moment they did, it was time to adopt violent means to put them back in place. Such an approach continued for 30 years of conflict and is ongoing today with the low-intensity violence directed towards the Catholic community.

Attacks on ethnic minorities are the other side of the same coin. Northern Ireland desperately needs the skills of the ethnic-minority community, but the most insecure in society feel their positions threatened by incomers.

When the threat can be so easily manipulated, it makes ready ground for fascists to prosper, which is also happening to some degree in Britain.

The commonality between the workings of the Orange Order, the activities of loyalist groups in Protestant working-class areas in Northern Ireland and certain right-wing elements in Britain are undeniable.

The challenge is to confront the insecurities that such bodies feed on and so move to a multiracial and religiously tolerant society.