These are not extremists. Ordinary British people are being criminalised

Telegraph

25-07-2025

It is becoming harder by the day to pretend this is all normal. Epping, a leafy Essex town not known for rabble-rousing, has suddenly become a bellwether. It is not extremists making the noise, but mothers: ordinary, decent, quietly exhausted. One protestor's placard said it best: 'I'm not far-Right. I'm worried about my kids.'
Eight days. That's how long it took from Hadush Kebatu's illegal arrival on our shores to his alleged assault of a local teenage girl. This criminal charge has pierced through the political haze, not because it is an anomaly, but because it is no longer rare. The British people are not imagining the chaos. They are living it.
They see it in Canary Wharf where the once-prestigious Britannia Hotel, now rented by the Home Office at eye-watering prices, is being used to house illegal arrivals. The images are not abstract. The anger is not theoretical. The reality is visible from their windows.
In Waterlooville, my own constituency, 35 illegal migrants are earmarked to be placed right in the centre of the shopping centre. Shopkeepers ask how this decision was made. Residents wonder if they were consulted. They weren't. They never are. Indefensibly, the local Lab/Lib council failed to even respond to the Home Office's inquiries about the suitability of the location, such is the level of incompetence.
Meanwhile, 1.3 million British citizens sit on housing waiting lists. But when it comes to newly arrived migrants – many of whom have crossed the Channel unlawfully – there are apartments, hotels, hot meals, legal representation and round-the-clock care. The Prime Minister breezily told Parliament this week that 'many local authorities have spare housing' for asylum seekers. Has he visited them? Has he walked through the town centres now marred by decay, disorder, and despair?
This is not fringe rhetoric. It is the mainstream voice of Britain. And yet it is silenced, patronised, and, increasingly, criminalised.
Up to a quarter of all sexual offences in the UK are committed by foreign nationals. That is not a 'talking point.' That is a statistical fact, available in verified data. And yet to mention it is to risk professional ruin, or worse.
People are not fools. They know what they see. Their communities have changed beyond recognition. They watch their taxes rise, yet their schools and hospitals crumble under unmanageable pressure. They are told to tighten belts, while millions are spent accommodating those who arrive in rubber dinghies with no papers, no background checks and no right to be here. This is not just policy failure. It is a moral abdication.
And who stands for the British people in this storm? Certainly not the Prime Minister – polished, rehearsed, and utterly insulated. His concern is always too little, too late, and too forced to mean anything. He is not just out of touch. He is out of time.
As for law and order, one cannot look at the response of Chief Constable BJ Harrington without concluding that something is deeply rotten in British policing. His now-infamous press conference confirmed what many had long suspected: that there is, in practice, a two-tier system of policing in this country. One for 'approved' protestors and minority groups; another for everyone else. It is not simply ineffectiveness. It is complicity.
This same Chief Constable was responsible for the vexatious use of non-crime hate incidents against a journalist, Allison Pearson. But this week, he has surpassed himself. His officers allegedly escorted 'anti-racism' protestors directly into the vicinity of the Bell Hotel, knowing full well tensions were high. Violence followed. Who could have guessed?
Public order policing has long relied on one simple principle: keep hostile factions apart. On that day, it was abandoned. The result was predictable, and avoidable. But this is not incompetence born of error. It is ideology dressed in uniform. The same ideology that now governs our police academies, civil service departments, and – let's be honest – most of Westminster.
Of course, BJ Harrington is not alone. He has the precedent of Sir Mark Rowley at the Met, who has all but codified two-tier policing in the capital. Antisemitism is waved through on London's streets while British Jews are told to hide their symbols and stay indoors. This is not safety. It is surrender.
And it leaves ordinary people with an impossible choice: submit, or act. That is how civil order dies – not in some dramatic coup, but in the slow erosion of trust, until citizens begin to take matters into their own hands. We are closer to that cliff edge than most in power realise.
This country is walking on glass. Every step, more fragile than the last.
What is needed now is not platitudes. We need leadership – honest, unflinching, and brave. We need a politics that respects the people who built this country, not one that apologises for their existence.