UK police clash with far-right protesters trying to enter hotel allegedly housing asylum seekers

LONDON (AP) — Police in the northern English town of Rotherham were struggling to contain a crowd of far-right protesters who were trying to storm a hotel believed to be housing asylum seekers.

Sky News footage showed a line of police with shields facing a barrage of missiles, including pieces of wood, chairs and fire extinguishers, as they tried to stop protesters from entering the Holiday Inn Express hotel. A small fire was also visible as windows in the hotel were smashed.

A police helicopter hovered overhead and at least one injured officer in riot gear was carried away as the atmosphere grew increasingly febrile.

It was the latest outbreak of rioting to hit the UK after a stabbing in a dance class last week in northern England, which left three girls dead and several others injured.

Brendan Cox, whose MP wife Jo Cox was murdered by a right-wing extremist in 2016, told X that the scenes in Rotherham “are an ongoing attempt to murder the men, women and children inside by burning them alive”, adding that “the stench of those days will linger around those who incited and justified it for the rest of their lives”.

Elsewhere, the atmosphere is also particularly tense in the northeastern town of Middlesborough, where protesters broke free from a police guard.

More demonstrations are taking place across the UK, but particularly in England, with counter-protesters also ready to make their presence felt.

Far-right activists clashed with anti-racism protesters across the UK on Saturday, with violent scenes unfolding in locations across the UK from Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, to Liverpool in the northwest of England and Bristol in the west. Around 100 people were arrested, but more are likely to be arrested as police comb through CCTV, social media and body camera footage.

Police have warned that widespread security measures, with thousands of officers deployed, mean other crimes may not be fully investigated.

“We are seeing officers being taken out of day-to-day policing,” Tiffany Lynch, from the Police Federation of England and Wales, told the BBC. “But while that is happening, the communities that are out there having incidents against them – victims of crime – unfortunately, their crimes are not being investigated.”

Violence erupted earlier this week, ostensibly in protest at Monday’s stabbing attack in Southport. A 17-year-old man was arrested.

False rumors spread online that the young man was a Muslim and an immigrant, fueling anger among far-right supporters. Suspects under 18 are not usually named in the UK, but Judge Andrew Menary ordered that Axel Rudakubana, who was born in Wales to Rwandan parents, be named, in part to prevent the spread of misinformation. Rudakubana has been charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder.

Police said many of the actions were being organised online by shadowy far-right groups, who were rallying support online with slogans such as “enough”, “save our children” and “stop the boats”. They were exploiting concerns about the scale of immigration into the country, in particular the tens of thousands of migrants arriving in small boats from France across the English Channel.

Calls for protests have come from a scattered group of social media accounts, but a key player in amplifying them is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a longtime far-right agitator who goes by the name Tommy Robinson. He has led the English Defence League, which Merseyside Police have linked to the violent protest in Southport on Tuesday, a day after the stabbing attack.

The group first emerged around 2009, leading a series of protests against what it described as militant Islam that often turned violent. Yaxley-Lennon was banned from Twitter in 2018, but was allowed back after it was bought by Elon Musk and renamed X. He has more than 800,000 followers.

The group’s membership and impact waned after a few years, and Yaxley-Lennon, 41, has faced a myriad of legal troubles. He was arrested for assault, contempt of court and mortgage fraud and is currently facing an arrest warrant after leaving the UK last week ahead of a scheduled hearing in a contempt of court case against him.

Nigel Farage, who was elected to parliament in July for the first time as leader of Reform UKHe was also blamed by many for indirectly encouraging the anti-immigrant sentiment that has been evident in recent days. In condemning the violence, he criticized the government for blaming “a few far-right thugs” and saying that “the far right is a reaction to fear… shared by tens of millions of people.”

Far-right protesters have held several violent gatherings since the stabbing, clashing with police on Tuesday outside a mosque in Southport — close to the scene of the stabbing — and throwing beer cans, bottles and flares near the prime minister’s office in London the following day. Many in Southport expressed anger at the organized acts of violence in the wake of the tragedy.

New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer blamed the violence on “far-right hatred” and swore to end the chaosHe said police across the UK would be given more resources to prevent “a breakdown of law and order on our streets”.

Police Minister Diana Johnson told the BBC there was “no need” to bring in the army to help police in their efforts to tackle violence.

“The police have made it very clear that they have all the resources they need at this time,” she said.

___

Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed to this report.