A LABOUR MP has been slammed after meeting with an anti-migrant group linked with Tommy Robinson supporters.
Labour backbencher Alex Baker has been accused of “pandering” to the far-right after meeting representatives of a group in her constituency called Rushmoor People First.
In a video posted to Twitter/X, Baker said she was “listening” to local concerns about plans to house asylum seekers in a new-build development in Farnborough, Hampshire, which she has described as being “dream homes” for her Aldershot constituents.
Rushmoor People First’s Facebook group is partly run by an account called Doron Kohen, who is a supporter of far-right thug and activist Tommy Robinson (below).
Members of the group are pictured in post by Kohen, displayed prominently on the page, which depicts supporters carrying signs with slogans including: “Men don't flee war and there is no war in France”, “Stop rewarding illegal immigrants with brand new apartments”, “Enough is enough”, “No apartments for illegals” and “Stop the invasion”.
While the group has organised several protests in the area, they do not appear to have been involved in organising a gathering outside Potters International Hotel in Aldershot which on Wednesday last week saw a police officer injured.
Hampshire Police said there had also been cases of criminal damage, racial abuse, and intimidation at the protest outside the hotel, which is used to house asylum seekers, but that it was not linked to the killing of three girls in Southport, which sparked riots across England.
Baker told The National that Rushmoor People First had been “peacefully” protesting as asylum seekers are being housed at Pinehurst Hill Side, a new build block of flats in Farnborough in the constituency.
Former minister Leo Docherty, who was the MP for Aldershot before the election, in June accused then-home secretary James Cleverly of breaking his word over plans to house asylum seekers in the flats after they were taken off ice just before the pre-election purdah period.
Baker, who has represented the constituency since the election, said there were “genuine issues around asylum accommodation in our community”.
She said: “We have are in the top 10 in the country, against our population size for the amount of asylum seekers that the Home Office is looking to house in our community.”
Baker said that residents were outraged that asylum seekers were being housed in flats which would be “dream houses of the majority of my residents”.
She added: “I’ve got a lot of people in this community who don’t have adequate housing, I’ve got 1800 people in this community on the housing waiting list themselves and they see asylum seekers moving into those flats and they can’t get housing themselves.”
The Labour MP insisted she was “very for this community having to do its fair share and house asylum seekers” but added: “I’ve opposed Hill Side because it creates the perception that people are being moved into luxury housing which is not helpful from a cohesion point of view and causes, there is a perception issue around Hill Side.”
It is understood Baker's meeting with Rushmoor People First came before violence broke out in her patch last week amid far-right riots across England and Northern Ireland.
Greens MSP Maggie Chapman (below) told The National: “You cannot appease fascism with cosy meetings and pandering words, you must stand together and defeat it.
“The reality is that both the Tories and Labour have been complicit in fuelling the kind of reactionary politics and far-right talking points that result in the violence and destruction we have witnessed.
“Both parties have spent much of the last 14 years trying to outdo each other in terms of who can be 'toughest' on immigration, all egged on by parts of the media."
Commentator and activist Owen Jones slammed Baker for her social media message, saying: “This is absolutely chilling. Britain is in the grip of a far-right insurgency.
“This Labour MP has decided to respond by pandering to it.”
Baker denied having met Kohen and Jez Stocking, the other admin of the Rushmoor People First Facebook group but was unable to say which “representatives” she had met.
Kohen and Stocking were approached for comment.
A spokesperson for Hampshire Police on Tuesday said that a total of seven people had been arrested in connection with the Potters International Hotel riot last week.
They said that “a minority of the 200 people present got involved in criminal activity, throwing objects and subjecting people to racial abuse”.
Labour were approached for comment.
