Asylum seekers and refugees left terrified by far-right mobs

Outside the asylum seeker hotel the far-right mob were baying: "Get them out" while hurling rocks, fireworks and other missiles. Behind the hotel windows the residents cowered in terror.

- Diane Taylor

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, Merseyside, on 10 February 2023.

The far-right tactics have not 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 increased security at hotels, but despite many social media posts about the far right intending to demonstrate in the car park of the Rotherham hotel, the damage was not prevented.