Latest news with #BritanniaHotel
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
DANIEL HANNAN: The Online Safety Bill will make us less happy, wealthy and free - and this fit of moral panic won't stop tech-savvy teens
The first many people knew of the Online Safety Act was when it was used to prevent users on X from viewing images from an anti-immigration protest in Yorkshire at the weekend. After a demonstration outside the Britannia Hotel in Leeds on Friday, users claimed the website blocked footage of police detaining activists. They were instead shown the message: 'Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age.'
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
‘Racist, far-Right' protesters: a Sikh, a Chinese man and a veteran with mixed-race kids
Of the thousands of bankers in Canary Wharf, only one crossed the footbridge to the newly designated migrant hotel opposite the district's glass towers, curious to witness the commotion. Metal fencing surrounded the entrance of the Britannia Hotel, guarded by a wall of police and a private security guard in a surgical mask. Territorial support vans crawled past. It was hard to escape the feeling that a great crime had been committed. Across the road, a smattering of protesters milled about – some live-streaming the police, who filmed them in return – while others cheered as cars honked in support. The lone banker, smartly dressed in a suit, watched from the edge. His colleagues weren't overly bothered by the disturbance. 'They live in Battersea and Fulham.' The demonstration outside the Britannia was in its second day, having originally been sparked by a false rumour that asylum seekers from the Bell Hotel in Epping had been moved here. The Home Office have nonetheless confirmed the hotel will be used to house another group of asylum seekers, after reports of tourists having room bookings suddenly cancelled without proper explanation were shared online. Few residents welcomed the prospect of people fresh off dinghies arriving in the sanitised core of London's financial district. 'This is the only place in London you'd walk around in a Rolex,' the banker said. 'A lot of Chinese, Japanese and Hong-kongers live here. It's not like Tower Hamlets.' Hotels have been used to house migrants for decades, usually in peripheral Northern towns few in Westminster knew or cared much about. In 2017, it was found that 57 per cent of asylum seekers were housed in the poorest third of Britain; the wealthiest hosted only 10 per cent. That quiet dispersal worked for a while. The benefits of porous borders were privatised – cheap labour for the gig economy, rising rents for landlords – while the costs were offloaded onto the public via tax-funded migrant support, suppressed wages, overstretched services, and housing shortages. The scheme spared ministers the grubby work of signing off on border control, creating conditions that allowed a small class of opportunists to enrich themselves from the crisis. Slum landlords could become Home Office millionaires, while the ageing magnates of hotel empires – among them, Britannia's owner Alex Langsam – were spared from market forces by taxpayer-funded subsidy. Over 170,000 people have now arrived in Britain by crossing the Channel. There are simply no 'suitable' locations left for accommodation. The use of hotels, itself a concession to the need to quickly house the excessive number of arrivals, has seen asylum seekers placed both in leafy market towns like Epping and Diss and London cultural centres like Shoreditch and the Barbican. Even Canary Wharf, a place once intended to advertise modern Britain to the world, is expected to share in the burden. Perhaps the strangeness of the decision to house asylum seekers – here of all places – was reflected in the surprising diversity of those hanging around the demonstration. A brawny Sikh man in a Louis Vuitton-branded turban held a sign reading, 'Stop calling us far-Right. Protect our women and children.' Nearby, a smartly dressed Chinese man waved a similar placard, standing alongside residents from Malaysia and Australia. They mingled among more provocative signs, including a St George's flag emblazoned with, 'The English began to hate', a line from Kipling's wartime ballad The Beginning. A visibly agitated Frenchman implored passing journalists to cover the protest fairly. The Reform chairman for Newham and Tower Hamlets Lee Nallalingham, speaking in a personal capacity, claimed the coalition extended to his own family. 'Look, when my Sri Lankan father, my Ukrainian step-mother and my Japanese wife are all sharing the same views, there's clearly something there,' he said. 'We like to pretend it's some stereotypical demographic issue. If it was, I wouldn't be here.' Concerns about safety and fairness predominated. The deal arranged by the Home Office would house up to 400 asylum seekers in the hotel for £81 per night. At full capacity, the cost is just shy of £12 million per year, in an area where the average one-bed rent is £3,000 and around 20,000 people are stuck on housing wait lists. Perhaps Tower Hamlets Council feels it can afford the expense: it recently advertised a £40,000 post to expedite asylum housing and tackle 'racism and inequality'. 'I don't agree with it,' said Terry Humm, 56, his beret marking him as a former member of the 2nd Battalion Royal Green Jackets. 'There are thousands of ex-servicemen on the streets in England – what about housing people who fought for Queen and Country?' He was quick to head off any charge of prejudice. 'I'm not racist at all, my children are mixed race,' he said. 'I just find it disgusting.' Mr Humm, who joined the army in 1989 and served in Northern Ireland, warned of renewed sectarian tension on this side of the Irish Sea. 'The ingredients are in the mixing bowl – someone's bound to make the cake'. A Met officer who'd served in the Welsh Guards passed by and paid his respects. Humm heard about the demonstration on TikTok. Others mentioned WhatsApp groups that had grown from 100 to over 3,000 members in the space of weeks. There was talk of 'civil war' and Britain being a 'ticking bomb', echoing government fears of unrest spreading across the country. 'There's going to be riots within the next six weeks, mark my words,' said one man, a builder in his 40s from Stepney. 'They've brought them here because they think Canary Wharf is secure. But what they don't realise is Tower Hamlets will not have this. It will escalate into a war,' he said, his voice rising. 'Epping set an example,' he added. 'It showed that as a community if you stand together you can make your voice be heard. The rhetoric of protesters seems to match up with the reality of increasingly inflamed tensions this summer. Earlier this month, migrants in Gravelines lobbed Molotov cocktails at French police, reportedly using fuel siphoned from the very dinghies they intended to board for Britain. A spate of sexual assaults and other violent crimes by illegal migrants stoked public frustration at an asylum system that appears impervious to reasonable adaptation. The protest remained fairly civil until the arrival of counter-demonstrators from Stand Up To Racism, an organisation open about its collaboration with the Socialist Workers Party. Divided by the road, the two groups screamed abuse at each other: 'paedophile protectors!' met with a reply of 'racists!' One female activist reminded me of someone I had met while reporting on the Bibby Stockholm barge, who furnished migrants aboard with toiletries, pens and maps. Earlier this month, one of its occupants was convicted of assaulting a teenage girl on a beach, telling her he'd 'never been this close to a white woman'. As I spoke to another far-Left activist, an egg splattered on the pavement between us, lobbed from the balcony of a luxury apartment building next to the hotel. The first 15 or so floors are reserved for affordable housing. South Asian residents in Islamic attire gathered on balconies to watch the scene. Inside their separate entrance, the only visible signs were an 'Eid haircut price list' and a notice warning residents not to hang clothes, toss cigarettes, or display flags or banners from their windows. Apartments there can cost millions. According to one resident, their Saudi neighbour is 'furious' at the decision to place the migrants next door, and the occupant of the penthouse flat is rumoured to have decided to sell up. Canary Wharf was once lauded as a turning point in Britain's post-war decline – 'a citadel of finance,' as Reuters put it, 'atop once-derelict docks.' It stands as a crowning accomplishment of the Thatcher years. But London is no longer the unquestioned centre of international finance. Canary Wharf appears now to be sliding back to its pre-regeneration state, blighted by empty commercial lots and chintzy stores that never seem to have customers. Residents of luxury residential buildings will live side by side with asylum seekers, just as the rest of the country is expected to. Amidst the pomp of Canary Wharf's creation, Margaret Thatcher warned that 'where there is no vision, the people perish.' She no doubt had the glittering financial district just across the river in mind. Today we need only look at the Britannia Hotel.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Angry protests erupt outside taxpayer-funded asylum hotel as demonstrators shout: 'Back in your rubber dinghies!'
Angry protests erupted outside a taxpayer-funded asylum hotel in Leeds today, with demonstrators shouting 'back in your rubber dinghies' to those inside. Police were out in force as crowds waving Union flags and banging instruments converged on the Britannia Hotel in the Seacroft area of the city. Officers formed a defensive cordon around the building, which was targeted during last summer's riots. Today, protesters - some of them masked - were seen shouting 'get them out, get them out' in the faces of police, who refused to let them through. One man screamed 'back in your rubber dinghies', while another said: 'Not only have they got a free hotel they have extra bobbies looking after them'. There were also screams of 'paedo' by protesters who accused one migrant of taking pictures of a young girl at the nearby Tesco. Residents were instructed to remain inside the hotel during the protest, which saw at least one man arrested - according to a livestream video. Footage of the demonstration ended with the organisers thanking people for coming, with one speaker saying: 'You have done yourselves proud.' Protests took place earlier this week outside The Britannia International Hotel in London's Canary Wharf. Multiple demonstrations have also been held outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, since July 13 after an asylum seeker was charged with allegedly attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl. In response, the Home Office has said it is working to close hotels and 'restore order'. And in a bid to stop migrants rejecting alternative housing without a valid reason, ministers will bring in new rules to tackle non-compliance. A 'Failure to Travel' policy will ensure illegal migrants who are moved from hotels to other 'suitable' accommodation must take it. If they refuse they could lose their housing and support, the Home Office said. Around 100 asylum seekers refuse to move accommodation each week, the Mail understands, and ministers currently have no powers to force them. Under the Conservatives, the Government threatened to remove housing and support from those who refused to move to the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is no longer in use. Labour's new plan will mirror the Tory rules, but will be applied more widely to other forms of accommodation. The 'firm but fair' policy is part of the Government's drive to end the use of expensive hotels to house asylum seekers. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has vowed to put a stop to the practice by 2029 - in a move she says will save £1billion a year. Currently, taxpayers are forking out £5.7million per day to house asylum seekers in hotels - at an average cost of £118.87 per person per night. Other accommodation, such as shared houses, is estimated to cost just £15 per night. Ministers are looking to buy tower blocks and former student accommodation to house migrants in a bid to reduce the hotel bill. More than 106,000 asylum seekers were in receipt of taxpayer-funded support as of March this year, including 32,000 in hotels. The Home Office has said it is working to close hotels and 'restore order' Asylum seekers are given free accommodation and a weekly allowance if the Home Office believes they would otherwise be destitute. The majority of those arriving on small boats qualify. Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Dame Angela Eagle, said: 'We inherited an asylum system on the brink of collapse - mismanaged, under strain, and costing the public a fortune. We are getting a grip. 'We are working to close hotels, restore order, and put fairness and value for money at the heart of our asylum system. This government is making those necessary decisions to protect the taxpayer and uphold the integrity of our borders. 'These reforms to the Failure to Travel policy are another example of this government's action to transform the asylum accommodation system and crack down on those who abuse our system, so it operates fairly and saves the taxpayer money.'
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
These are not extremists. Ordinary British people are being criminalised
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.
Sydney Morning Herald
7 days ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Summer of riots' fear as UK police admit drawing clashing protests together
Hours later, the Britannia International Hotel at Canary Wharf was the scene of competing protests from refugee advocates and opponents, with police surrounding the hotel. The Tower Hamlets Council, the local authority for the area, confirmed in a statement that the hotel would be used to house asylum seekers. 'We are aware of the government's decision to use the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers,' it said in a statement. Farage seized on the events at the Epping asylum hotel to call on police to explain their actions with the Refugees Welcome group. 'Essex Police escorted ANTIFA protesters to the Bell Hotel in Epping to force a confrontation,' he said on X. 'Initially, they denied that it had ever happened in the first place. Heads must roll.' The video of the event shows police walking quietly with refugee advocates along the street, with no sign of the violence sometimes associated with anti-fascist groups. The video does not show police forcing protesters towards each other. The London Telegraph reported the video was taken at the protest last Thursday night. Loading The protests at Epping were larger and more violent on Sunday night, when an estimated 1000 people gathered in the town and around the asylum hotel. While some Epping residents blamed the violence on outsiders, Essex Police confirmed they had charged five men over violent disorder. Two of those named live in the town, two nearby and one in Wickford, also in Essex. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to find more ways to discourage boat arrivals across the channel, but he declared there was 'lots of housing available' for British people needing homes as well as the asylum seekers. When he was asked in a parliamentary committee whether councils were competing with the Home Office to provide homes for local people or for asylum seekers, Starmer sought to blame the previous government for failing to stop the arrivals. 'I am so furious at the last government for leaving tens of thousands of asylum seekers unprocessed, with nowhere to live, other than accommodation paid for by the taxpayer,' he said. correspondents on what's making headlines around the world. .
