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Protests and counter protests to be held outside asylum hotels across UK

By Molly Stubbs
Protesters gather outside an asylum hotel in central London. Photo credit: PA Wire

A number of protests and counter protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers, including one in Flintshire, will take place across the UK on Saturday.

Demonstrations under the Abolish Asylum System slogan will be held in major towns and cities around England, including Bristol, Exeter, Tamworth, Cannock, Nuneaton, Liverpool, Wakefield, Newcastle, Horley in Surrey and Canary Wharf in central London.

Aberdeen and Perth in Scotland and Mold in Flintshire, Wales, will also hold their own protests.

A separate batch of protests organised by Stand Up to Racism will be held in Bristol, Cannock, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Wakefield, Horley and Long Eaton in Derbyshire.

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'Get them out'

Several similar protests were held on Friday, including outside an asylum hotel in south east London.

Dozens of protesters could be heard shouting “Get them out” and “Save our children” while others held Union and England flags beside the TLK hotel in Orpington, while counter protesters, who had marched to the hotel, could be seen holding banners and Stand Up To Racism placards which read ‘Refugees welcome, Stop the far right’.

A large police cordon was formed in between the two groups and the hotel. The Metropolitan Police later confirmed that no arrests were made.

It comes after tensions around the use of the hotels for asylum seekers spiked earlier this week.

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Temporary injunction 

On Tuesday, the High Court granted Epping Forest District Council the temporary injunction to remove asylum seekers from the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, from September 12.

Regular protests had been held outside the hotel in recent weeks after an asylum seeker was charged with trying to kiss a 14-year-old girl, which he denies.

The Government then announced plans on Friday to appeal against the High Court’s refusal to allow it to intervene in the case, and to then further appeal against the temporary injunction.

A group of other local councils also publicly announced their intentions to seek legal advice as to whether they could achieve a similar injunction for their hotels.

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33 comments

Jeff

Disgusting. Farage, usual suspect press and co need taking to task. They stoke the fires of hate and and hope there is violence. They will not care if anyone is harmed or worse this weekend. farage will call it a win. Quietly though, because that is what he is.

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Amir

I hate racists. These folks are running away from war. These protest won't bother them. These protests are not about them. These protests are about people like me. Welsh people of colour. These racist bullies want to intimidate people like me. Nasty people.

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Felicity

Yes, but dangerous too. If it wasn't asylum seekers today, who would they be coming for tomorrow?

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Anianegwr

I highly recommend this as a read: https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/04/15/the-deep-roots-of-fascist-thought/

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Fenton

We didn't need hotels before Nigel's Brexit.

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Fanny Hill

Farage is loving it. He doesn't want to "Stop the Boats". He's making too much political capital from a situation he created in the first place.

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Adam

I genuinely believe that dodgy nige is making some serious cash out of them.

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Felicity

Time perhaps to investigate where these far right groups are getting their money from? Engaging against their devisive tactics is just playing into their agenda of 'us and them'. The media needs to give them the cold shoulder instead, because they thrive on publicity. Follow the money.

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Fanny Hill

You don’t need to look far, there’s a bottomless pot of gold flooding in from America, Musk was going to lob cash at Reform until he lost interest in Farage. Then there are the mugs who fill Yaxley-Lennon’s begging bowl whenever he needs to fund another luxury foreign holiday.

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Dai Ponty

When Farage mob wave the hated union flag and the English flag its called Patriotism when Welsh People wave Welsh flags about the invasion English people its called RACIST by the Welsh hating right wing Media especially the Daily Mail

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Amir

Probably. But racists are just horrible beings.

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Fenton

France received considerably more applications for asylum than the UK last year.

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Tucker

I was speaking to an ex counter terrorism officer the other day and he told me nearly 90% of cases they had to investigate over the last 10 years were far right, home grown terrorists. I wonder why successive governments haven't been prioritising that fact to the public. Instead of stoking the vitriol against asylum seekers.

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Fanny Hill

I just hope they're investigating Farage and his inflammatory language. What aren't we being told?

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Jeff

illegal, how. Do explain. Explain how the law works that we signed up for.

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Fanny Hill

Why would any mother who turns up at these demos waving a "Protect our Kids" placard bring along their young child and expose them to far right morons shouting racist abuse at asylum seekers? Where are Social Services?

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Jeff

Interesting dynamic. But I expect the kids are props for the "concerned". It is rather clever, blokes told to stay away until they want the riot to start.

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Adam

If they're exposing their child to that filth, they should have them removed from their care. Completely disgusting.

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Anianegwr

Try reading it 🤦‍♂️

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hdavies15

Hard work, too dry and lacking in excitement. Not enough pictures and cartoon characters.

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Fi yn unig

‘Save our children’ again. It should be ‘Save ALL children’. I wonder how many individuals in any illegal racist hate crime mob gathering which falsely accuses people inside a hotel of child abuse will go back to their homes and beat up the mothers of their own children because taking the percentage figure following the Farij riots last year, the chances are very high. There may.be some brilliant surgeons in these hotels who could save our children on an operating table but these brain donors do not possess the cognitive ability to consider that.

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Amir

If they are genuine asylum seekers, why have we not provided them with a pathway to UK like we did to the Ukrainians?

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Fenton

The current rules require people claiming asylum to get here first. Thre's no visa for that.

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Fenton

But the majority wanted to stop an arrangement where we outsourced asylum claims processing to the first safe European country and only took in a few thousand after they'd been identified and had their claims verified. That's why we didn't need hotels in 2016. You should respect democracy.

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Fenton

What is this legal route you speak of? The rules say they have to get here before claiming asylum.

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Amir

So one rule for Ukrainians and another for everyone else that are not brilliant white.

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Fenton

Here's some Government data: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/operation-of-police-powers-under-tact-2000-to-december-2024/operation-of-police-powers-under-the-terrorism-act-2000-and-subsequent-legislation-arrests-outcomes-and-stop-and-search-great-britain-quarterly-u "of those in custody, the majority (61%) were categorised as holding Islamist-extremist views; a further 30% were categorised as holding Extreme Right-Wing ideologies and 9% were categorised as holding Other ideologies" So you're both wrong.

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Pete

I'm less wrong. Winner.

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Fenton

The vast majority do, the UK takes far less than most as a share of the population. But the international rules don't apply a first safe country rule to avoid countries bordering conflict zones collapsing and creating their own refugees. The EU has a first safe country rule but Boris chose to opt out of that (because Nigel told him to end all European cooperation) which is when the small boats really kicked off.

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Jeff

Not clued up are you.

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Jeff

What voices. Known far right racist agitators that crop up in the news clips for one town and remarkably pop up in another? farage running around telling lies and stringing people along? Far right racism relies on lies and hate. There are orders of magnitude greater the number for crimes from us Brits. Funny that. Farage is quiet on them, he had an abuser as an MP. Touts an abuser and adjudicated rapist as a friend, holds tate as a good example for young men, nige don't look too hard when its mostly white British.

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Pete

Qais Al Aswad. Look it up. Understand their fears. Farage plays on it. To stop Farage you need to understand this. Do something to stop the likes of Al Aswad coming anywhere near the UK and Farage loses.

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Amir

Usually in war zones, there are proper functioning consulate or airports. Not sure how to go about getting a visa or obtaining an exit stamp in my passport or even get a passport or a safe operational plane.

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I genuinely believe that dodgy nige is making some serious cash out of them.

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