Inside plan to target asylum hotels – and the counter protests being scrambled ...Middle East

Dozens of towns and cities across Britain are braced for an “explosion” of anti-migrant demonstrations at hotels housing asylum seekers this weekend.

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.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said closing asylum hotels must be “orderly” rather than through “piecemeal court decisions”, as the cabinet minister called for calm.

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.

Stand Up to Racism has scrambled to organise counter-protests outside the hotels in as many of these places as possible in support of “terrified” migrants.

Hotels in Wakefield, Stockport, Cannock, Tamworth and Chichester are among the main targets for anti-migrant protests this weekend, The i Paper understands.

Lewis Nielsen, a Stand Up to Racism campaigner, said it had been difficult to keep track of all the hotels being targeted because there was no “top down” organising by one group.

“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.

“I don’t think everyone on these demos are racists and fascists, but there is organised right-right activity within it.”

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”.

He added: “It’s a really dangerous moment. We think we’re on the brink of violence that is being egged on by Reform UK and the Conservatives. Mainstream politicians are using the language of the far-right, which gives them confidence.”

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.

The Facebook page also shared a website with a map showing hundreds of hotels, saying it was “the most accurate list we have”.

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.

“We’ve essentially rounded up all these different splinter movements – a protest page with a few hundred followers and other pages with thousands. We’ve been promoting them, and we’ve funding them as well. We’re definitely not right-wing.”

Recognised far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League, had encouraged people to protest in Epping in recent weeks.

Robinson has also used X to share videos of anti-migrant activists targeting a hotel in Norwich, as well as sharing posts by those planning to protest at a hotel in Newcastle.

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.

An ally of Robinson, Andrew Currien, also known as Andy Saxon, shared details on X with links to a fundraising page to “help us purchase new flags so we can continue putting them up”.

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.

Telegram, AI and the spreading of ‘fake news’

Dr Aaron Winter, senior lecturer in sociology at Lancaster University, said there was “organised far-right activity” by groups who typically used Telegram, which offers encrypted messaging, to encourage the spread of the protests.

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.

“You have individual influencers. You have so many people sharing fake news and making AI images. The distinction between ordinary people and the far-right is a false distinction.”

Many asylum seekers inside the hotels feel “hunted” amid scenes of “hate and intimidation on Britain’s streets”, the Freedom from Torture charity said.

There is growing concern about misinformation and the only partial accuracy of some of the lists of hotels housing asylum seekers being shared online.

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.

The Home Office recently said it only operates 210 hotels. Coogan admitted to his followers the list he shared “may not be 100% accurate”.

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”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has urged the public to join “peaceful protests outside the migrant hotels” to put pressure on councils to go to court to block the Home Office.

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.”

Senior Conservative MP Robert Jenrick praised the “peaceful patriots” who protested at Epping, writing in The Telegraph on Friday that it was “heartening to see people from all backgrounds fighting back against a rotten status quo”.

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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The accommodation site had been at the centre of after an asylum seeker was charged with trying to kiss a 14-year-old girl, which he denies.

Councils 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.

Cooper said on Friday that the Home Office will seek to appeal against the High Court’s refusal to allow it to intervene in the Epping case, and to then further appeal against the temporary injunction.

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”.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she “encourages” more Conservative councils to launch legal challenges over asylum hotels. Labour dismissed her comments as “desperate and hypocritical nonsense”.

Tommy Robinson and Britain First have been approached for comment.

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