Warnings of potential violence came after the Government announced that it would appeal against the landmark High Court ruling which blocked the use of an Epping Forest hotel in Essex.
Anti-racism activists are expecting at least 30 demonstrations targeting asylum hotels – including Leeds, Oxford, Exeter, Newcastle, Bristol and Perth – on Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday.
Hotels in Wakefield, Stockport, Cannock, Tamworth and Chichester are among the main targets for anti-migrant protests this weekend, The i Paper understands.
“The Epping ruling has meant it’s exploded, with a real surge [of protests] being organised around the country. No one group is taking the lead,” said Neilsen.
The left-wing activist said his own group’s counter-protests were aimed at “offering support and solidarity to people in the hotels, because it must be terrifying”.
Transforming immigration requires a painstaking and coherent assembly of measures applied with patience and competence (Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
The Great British National Protest Facebook page – run by Richard Donaldson – has been one of the biggest groups sharing details of the hotel protests, with places, times and dates.
Donaldson told The i Paper he had helped co-ordinate and fund protests organised by smaller groups of people concerned about asylum seekers in their area. But he claimed he was not part of the far-right.
Recognised far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League, had encouraged people to protest in Epping in recent weeks.
Hope Not Hate also said far-right activists had launched a co-ordinated campaign called “Operation Raise the Colours” to get Union Jack and England flags on lampposts in towns and cities across the UK in recent days.
Britain First, another group Hope Not Hate considers part of the far-right, claimed to have donated flags going up in Manchester and West Midlands.
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But the expert on extremism said it was “not just the far-right” that was responsible for the protests. “There is so much else going on in this online ecosystem,” Dr Winter said.
Protesters demonstrate outside The Roundhouse hotel earlier this month in Bournemouth (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)
Many asylum seekers inside the hotels feel “hunted” amid scenes of “hate and intimidation on Britain’s streets”, the Freedom from Torture charity said.
Ryan Coogan, a previous Reform UK candidate for Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, shared a list of 262 hotels that supposedly housed migrants on his Facebook page earlier in August.
Coogan told The i Paper he had shared the “widely circulated” but “outdated” list as a way of encouraging others to update it – saying the exercise “revealed that several entries were missing, while others were no longer accurate”.
A Reform UK spokesman said critics like Stand Up to Racism accusing Farage of emboldening the far-right were “tone deaf”, adding: “Slandering the British public for having legitimate grievances about the inappropriate use of hotels to house asylum seekers is downright insulting.”
On Tuesday, the High Court granted Conservative-run Epping Forest District Council the temporary injunction to remove asylum seekers from The Bell Hotel in Essex from 12 September.
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Read MoreCouncils across the country controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK are now investigating whether they could also pursue legal challenges against the use of hotels in their areas.
The Home Secretary said the Government appeal was needed so the “closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way right across the country – without creating problems for other areas and local councils”.
Tommy Robinson and Britain First have been approached for comment.
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