Outside the asylum seeker hotel, the far-right mob are baying “get them out” while hurling rocks, fireworks and other missiles. Behind the hotel windows, those who live there cower in terror.
But this was not the scene outside the asylum seeker hotel in Rotherham that was attacked by far-right thugs on Sunday, nor in Hull on Saturday. This happened outside the Suites hotel in Knowsley on 10 February 2023.
The far-right tactics haven’t changed much between then and now. The Home Office policy of housing tens of thousands of asylum seekers in hotels has made them a soft and visible target.
In the case of Knowsley, the trigger was a video of questionable origin purporting to show an asylum seeker propositioning an alleged schoolgirl , assisted by days of leafleting before the disturbances by the far-right group Patriotic Alternative. This time, false rumours appeared online that the suspect in an attack on children in Southport had recently arrived in the UK on a small boat, when in fact he had been born in Cardiff.
The far-right organisation Britain First has been targeting asylum seeker hotels since 2020, initially simply barging in, banging on bedroom doors and demanding to know whether they were paying for their accommodation.
The Home Office subsequently stepped up security at hotels, but despite many social media posts about the far right intending to gather in the car park of the Rotherham hotel, the damage was not prevented.
One asylum seeker, who had been living in the hotel for five months, said he and others had been aware of undercurrents of hostility, with white people shouting racist abuse from their cars as the asylum seekers walked down the street.
“We faced this abuse many times,” he said. “Before the weekend, we were told not to leave the hotel and to stay away from the windows. It was terrifying when they broke through the hotel gate and got into the hotel. They caused so much damage and some of them threatened to kill us. I am glad we have been moved to a safer place.”
One of the people at the Hull hotel said that the inhabitants were now very fearful.
They added: “Before Saturday the hotel and the area outside it was a place where we felt safe. We would leave the hotel and go out to appointments and come back to the hotel at the end of the day. And we never felt threatened. Now everything has changed.
“We are afraid to go out from the hotel because we fear we will be attacked in the next five minutes. If they think we look as if we are Muslim will they target us?
“We want to say to the British people how very sorry we are about the death of the children at the dance class in Southport. We hope the person who committed that crime will be brought to justice. We are crying for those children but we are sad to see all this violence against asylum seekers after this terrible thing happened. This crime was not connected to us.”
A refugee from Afghanistan who also lives in Hull was horrified to see the far-right rallies in the centre of town on Saturday.
They said: “They were shouting that asylum seekers should go back to our countries and that they wanted to take back this country for English people. There were about 150 of the protesters and they lit a fire in the road and destroyed the wall of a mosque. Many of them wore masks so I could not see their faces.”
Steve Smith, the chief executive of Care4Calais, a refugee charity that works with asylum seekers in hotels in many cities across the UK, said: “Our volunteers are supporting asylum seekers across the country who are feeling frightened and isolated as they watch far-right thugs engage in what can only be described as race riots. We are in no doubt that the targeting of asylum accommodation is part of a concerted racist endeavour by these groups to sow hatred and division in our communities.
“But deliberate fire-raising at asylum accommodation, while residents and staff are known to be inside, goes way beyond the violence, vandalism and racist chanting that has already been condemned – it is attempted murder. Care4Calais, and many others, will stand beside refugees in this country and will not allow far-right hate to win.”
The refugee from Afghanistan said: “I was so frightened when I saw the far-right protesters in the middle of Hull on Saturday but I know that these people are just a small minority and that the British people are very kind and nice people. When I think about the racists and feel scared I tell myself to remember that.”
