I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, tracking the recent anti-asylum hotel protests across the country, from Epping to Canary Wharf, from Norwich all the way down to the south coast in Waterlooville,I’ve been right in the thick of the story that is gripping the country.
Last year, I was in the middle of another news story too, when I covered the outbreak of the violence at Southport that then spread out into what, quite frankly, ended up being race riots. I remember being only a few yards away from police vans loudly beeping out their last breath as they burnt down to the ground, while young lads on the opposite side of me threw bricks and other missiles directly at a mosque, and proceeded to smash up a local corner shop. Later on I was subject to violence from the crowd myself.
As someone in the unique position of being at both Southport and the protests this last fortnight, I can tell you, dear readers, that something different appears to be in the air. As much as the mainstream media loves to paint a picture of “the Farage riots 2.0,” the phenomenon on the streets of Britain this summer is nothing like the riots of 2024.
The attacks in Southport by Axel Rudukubana were a tragedy, and a preventable one to boot. If his parents were never allowed into this country — with their presence remaining mysterious — those three little girls would still be alive today, and that’s a fact. A fact that didn’t go unnoticed by many, who instinctually responded with pure violence and rage at the insanity of a government policy that resulted in the needless death of children at a monster not of our own making. But rage is hot. It burns fast, and bright, and runs out of fuel quickly. The Southport riots only truly lasted for six days, so just under a week.
Today, on the other hand, we’re already over two weeks since the first protest in Epping, and there is zero sign of this stopping. The primary emotion I see on the faces of the crowds across the country is not anger, but determination, and resilience. The violence of last year had no target, and simply erupted with zero leadership or co-ordination in any way, so therefore, with no goal, they were very easy to extinguish. These protests today are focused very specifically on asylum hotels (and, in a few cases, private asylum accommodation). These protests have a goal — to shut them down — and they know exactly where to rally the troops.
With an obvious goal, an ability to exert pressure through days, weeks, or months of repeated protests, and resentment against the government that’s put men who are tens of times more likely to be convicted for sexual assault in their neighbourhoods, comes a far lower capacity for violence. In my travels, I have seen what I like to call “peaceful anger” become the order of the day. Firebombs and bricks have been replaced with painted signs and shouting. It’s often hotter than your usual “peaceful protest,” but it somehow manages to just keep the pan simmering without blowing the lid off. As an example, the times I’ve seen leftist counter-protesters infiltrate the crowds to cause trouble, instead of having their skulls cracked in by some EDL thug, local mums and dads surround them, shout at them, and eject them from the crowd back towards the police line, leaving the masked antifa without a scratch on them.
I’m not sure exactly why we’ve only seen minor outspurts of violence, as was seen in Epping on the first night or two, but I have a few ideas. Firstly, it certainly helps that the protests are being advertised as peaceful, and with an aim to protect women and girls. This then attracts a lot of normal folk who aren’t just looking for a punch-up. Secondly, the riots of last year are still in everyone’s mind, and people know that Starmer and his ilk are foaming at the mouth just to lock up more “far-right rioters.” If you’re not violent, what can they imprison you for? In the same vein, if you have parents peacefully campaigning against criminals, the media will struggle to paint a narrative of “evil far-right Nazi rioters attack poor innocent ethnic minorities.”
The protests of 2025 are also organised in a way that literal communist “community organisers” could only hope to dream of. Sometimes, known activists in the community are responsible for bringing everyone together, like James Harvey and Sydney Jones, who organised the protest in Norwich last weekend. Other times, a Facebook group or WhatsApp chat will be set up, along the lines of “X COMMUNITY SAYS NO TO Y LOCAL HOTEL,” by a completely random local resident, who just decides to start organising protests, despite having absolutely zero experience doing so. Both types of local leaders, veterans and novices, have had a tendency to hold the crowds back, instructing them to keep it peaceful. (As an aside, it is quite funny that I have now had to return to using Facebook after everyone my age in politics abandoned the platform years ago, just to keep up with when the next protest is about to take off.)
Even if one community slows down, there will be two more local protests popping up to replace it
I can’t see an end to these protests. If local organisers try and get people on the streets every single day, then sure, people may get bored, leading to them petering out — but if they hold off to once or twice a week, perhaps on a week-day after work and one in the early afternoon on the weekend, then it almost becomes something to look forward to. Bring your kids and your placards, and see everyone else on the ground, who you may never even have spoken to before this, all unite around a common goal. Even if one community slows down, there will be two more local protests popping up to replace it. This Thursday, I turned out to a new protest in Stanwell, just south of Heathrow, a whole two weeks since Epping kicked off. If the government thinks they can just wait these people out, they’re dead wrong.
Keir Starmer is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If the hotels don’t shut down, then the communities will keep protesting them again and again and again. And if he does bend, and starts closing them down, then everyone knows that peaceful angry protests work. The actual solution, of course, is to simply deport en masse the bogus and often extremely dangerous “asylum seekers”, but for some reason, I don’t think they’ll take the easy and obvious way out. We’ll have to wait and see …
