Protesters returned to a migrant hotel in Epping, England, on Thursday night, July 17th, for a second demonstration that escalated into violence. Eggs and fireworks were thrown at the hotel and police, and one person was arrested for affray. Much of the disorder occurred after the main protest ended, as people were dispersing.
Residents in the Essex town blocked roads and clashed with police in response to the continued housing of asylum seekers at the Bell Hotel—among them 38-year-old Ethiopian Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu. Kebatu, who crossed the Channel illegally on June 29th, 2025, was later charged with three sexual assaults and is due to stand trial next month at Colchester magistrates’ court. He is now in detention.
Remarkably, state broadcaster the BBC quoted its Essex political reporter Simon Dedman as estimating “there were about 40 pro-refugee protesters and about 400 members of far-right groups” at the scene. In fact, the counter-demonstrators were led by Stand Up To Racism, widely considered to be a front for the far-left Socialist Workers Party (of which its secretary, Weyman Bennett, has been a member). The BBC’s claim about “far-right group members” implies that few, if any, of the protesters were concerned local residents, despite widespread anger over the presence of Kebatu and others like him.
Local Conservative politicians—including district council leader Chris Whitbread and MPs Neil Hudson and Alex Burghart—have called for the Bell Hotel to stop housing asylum seekers. They also criticised the Home Office for what they described as poor judgment in placing migrants in Epping.