London asylum seeker protests: Locals demand to be heard over migrant hotel in Canary Wharf

The Age

3 days ago

The concerns about crime are based on British reports that spread fast on social media. An Afghan asylum seeker was charged last week with raping a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton, near Coventry. An Ethiopian asylum seeker was charged last month with assaulting a young girl in Epping, north-west of London. Both deny the charges, which are yet to be tested in court.
With cases like these in the news, the English air has the whiff of petrol. One year ago, the awful murders of three young girls in Southport set off riots when rumours spread that the killer was an asylum seeker. The rumours were false. He was born in the UK. But at least 100 people were charged in the riots – an example of the explosive emotions around migration.
'Where are the women and children? If there was women and children first, we'd be happy. The community would be happy to take them in.' Nicola, Canary Wharf protester
Jackie Sheldon, a mother of eight children, has lived in the Canary Wharf area all her life. 'They're coming here, and they're committing disgusting crimes,' she says of the migrants. 'We want to protect our community from that. That's not OK. We want these people gone.'
There are no face masks in this group. The protesters are local and they know each other. They have a banner to challenge the idea that they are right-wing extremists. 'We're not far right – but we're not far wrong,' it says. 'Don't gamble with our lives. Stop the boats.'
Nicola, 47, is a third-generation member of the community. 'I don't mind immigration, as long as it's done legally,' she says. She is concerned that the asylum seekers are mostly young men – a fact borne out in government statistics as well as the news broadcasts that show people on the boats when they leave French beaches.
'Where are the women and children?' she asks. 'If there was women and children first, we'd be happy. The community would be happy to take them in.'
Two women hold a St George's flag outside the Britannia Hotel at the Canary Wharf protest. Credit: PA Images via Getty Images
There is a strong feeling here that Britain will break if it takes too many more people, so the overwhelming mood is that the country is full.
'If you have a boat that holds 300 people and you put 600 in it, it's going to sink,' says Lorraine. 'And that's what's happening to us, right? Our infrastructure cannot cope with the amount of people that's coming in.
'People here, I wouldn't know when the last time they was able to get a dentist appointment. The doctors' appointments are all online. People have been told it's a minimum 12 years to even be considered for a flat on the Isle of Dogs.' She is referring to the waiting list for public housing in a council flat – and she says her children cannot afford to buy a home in the community where they were raised. 'It took a long, long time'
One of her children, Ben, a scaffolder, says the Isle of Dogs accepted women and children from Ukraine in the past few years. He says it integrated a large Bangladeshi community over a longer period. 'It took a long, long time, but now we co-exist with each other, we get on with each other,' he says. 'But now you're obviously putting up undocumented men, which we know nothing about, into a community that is already struggling financially. You're gonna see a bit of unrest.'
That is what happens when a lone asylum seeker walks out of the hotel and down the street. He is a young black man, and says nothing, but the protest changes instantly. Women who were talking quietly to each other suddenly turn and yell at him to go home. Men jeer as he runs the gauntlet of the protest.
Police stand guard outside the Britannia Hotel. Credit: Getty Images
Tempers are frayed, but there is no violence. So far. One reason is that the protesters are not confronted by any opposition. Things were different one day earlier, when protesters outside an asylum hotel in the Barbican district of London were met by masked protesters dressed in black and chanting 'we are anti-fascist' – one of them vocally supporting Palestine Action, which the government has banned as a terrorist group.
In the violence between the groups and authorities at the Barbican, the Metropolitan Police arrested one of the anti-immigration protesters for a racially aggravated public order offence. It arrested one of the anti-fascists for supporting Palestine Action, and it arrested seven other counter-protesters for breaching orders aimed at separating the two groups.
Loading
At Canary Wharf, however, the protesters against the asylum hotel have the street to themselves. Their star speaker is Young Bob – a student who posts by that name on X and is a member of Turning Point UK, an offshoot of an American right-wing group. He is critical of Muslims and multiculturalism, but he says he is not racist.
His message is that migration is destroying working-class jobs by making it easy for big companies to use cheap contract migrant labour. He wants people to boycott services like Deliveroo. He is only 17, but he taps into a deep anxiety about the loss of old British ways.
The protest drags on with long speeches. It is deliberately noisy and confronting for the asylum seekers inside the hotel, being told they are not wanted, but there are no faces at the windows. There is no trigger for violence.
Until a dozen young men arrive in black masks. The police brace and prepare for impact. They harden their line to prevent the men from getting to the front of the hotel. These protesters want confrontation, so they let off flares, chant about shutting down the asylum hotel and move up so they are inches away from the police, eyeballing the officers.
It takes less than a minute for the protest to turn into a scrum of police and angry men, swarming over the street as some try to get into the hotel. The flares cover the crowd in smoke. One protester, waving an English flag, strides toward the barricade but is intercepted before he can break through.
The crowd supports them, but does not join them. If tempers were hotter, the crowd could use its numbers to rush the hotel. But the men seem to want to vent their anger and make a point for the media, without throwing punches. When one goes too far, a handful of police pin him to a wall and arrest him. He is later charged with assault, the Met Police tell me. Another man is charged with failing to obey an order to disperse.
Migrants sit on a dinghy as it prepares to sail into the English Channel on July 10. Credit: Getty Images
The men in masks walk away. Some of the women seem to know them. 'Good on you, boys,' calls out one. The crowd cools down. Young Bob takes the microphone again for another long speech. Then, in a sudden change in mood, the loudspeaker starts playing Sweet Caroline . The women in pink dance in the street, singing Neil Diamond. They own this neighbourhood, and they have made their point.
Every protest is different. This one ends with people drifting home. The Barbican protest was more violent. The riot in Epping three weeks ago reached a fever pitch, with police assaulted and their vehicles damaged. And there are demonstrations every weekend, at asylum hotels up and down the country.
Loading
I leave the protest to return to Canary Wharf tube station, where families are enjoying the sunshine on the lawns around the shopping mall. Young people are paddleboarding on an inlet of the Thames. Parents are buying ice cream for their children. You could make a film here about modern, multicultural, harmonious Britain.
This peace, however, is easily shattered by economic and social pressure. Polling firm YouGov found last month that 38 per cent of UK voters wanted asylum seekers immediately removed from the country if they arrived by boat. Another 43 per cent said they should have their claims assessed and decided on a case-by-case basis. Migration is now a basic test for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The government is running out of places to house the people who cross the English Channel, with hundreds arriving every week. Every new asylum hotel becomes the target for a new protest. The problem is simple, and the solution is complex. And the longer it goes on, the angrier England is likely to get.
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what's making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.