Concern was mounting that recent violent anti-immigrant protests could herald a new summer of unrest, a year after the UK was rocked by its worst riots in decades.
Police have arrested 16 people since protests flared last week outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in the town of Epping, northeast of London. In one demonstration, eight police officers were injured.
The unrest was “not just a troubling one-off”, said the chairwoman of the Police Federation, Tiff Lynch.
“It was a signal flare. A reminder of how little it takes for tensions to erupt and how ill-prepared we remain to deal with it,” she wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
Tensions remain palpable in Epping, a middle-class suburban town with a population of 12,000. Photo: AFP
Protesters shouted “save our children” and “send them home”, while banners called for the expulsion of “foreign criminals”.