Epping
England’s migrant hotel protests gained new ferocity as Sunday’s demonstration in Epping resulted in clashes with police. The confrontation came after the Court of Appeal overturned an injunction which would have temporarily stopped the housing of asylum seekers in the Essex town’s Bell Hotel. Those protesting are increasingly seeking not only to close the migrant hotel, but to overturn a political system which appears deaf to their concerns. As anger grows, the Labour government is doing all it can do avoid a repeat of last summer’s widespread civil unrest.
The Bell Hotel in Epping has seen regular protests since July, when an asylum seeker staying there was arrested and subsequently charged with multiple offences including the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl. Last week’s ruling has only amped up the intensity.
One of the protest’s organisers, Reform UK parliamentary candidate Orla Minihane, told the crowd that “the council has let us down” and that locals had been “betrayed by the Government”. She also criticised the Home Office for believing that “migrants were more important than the British people”. Minihane introduced another speaker, Sarah White, who read out a “statement to the press” claiming that the demonstrators were following in the footsteps of protest movements “from the Peasant’s Revolt to Peterloo”.
White ended her speech by telling the crowd to “refuse to pay the [BBC] license fee” and said: “we will not pay council taxes.” After shouting “Onward Christian Soldiers”, she then led a march from the Bell Hotel to the council building. On reaching the building, White tried to place a flag over the entrance and was arrested by police officers when she refused to obey their commands to stop. This sparked clashes between protesters and police as officers were accused of being “traitors”. As White was carried into a police van, another organiser — Callum Barker, who has links to the Homeland Party — was also led away by the police.
Protesters to whom I spoke earlier in the day were unsurprisingly furious about last week’s ruling. GB News commentator and Epping local Adam Brooks said the decision was a “disgrace and a clear indication of the Government being against the people”, while a mother attending the protest with her two daughters said it was “outrageous”. Others echoed Nigel Farage’s claim that “the Government had used the ECHR against the people of Epping.”
Many protesters called into question presiding judge Lord Justice Bean’s links to the Labour Party, including his membership of the Fabians. One local, Bill Smith, told me the “decision was made before the hearing started”. He doubted whether Farage, if his party gain power at the next election, could even change anything. “I’m not sure the establishment would let him,” Smith said. Local Reform Councillor Jaymey McIvor was present at the protest and didn’t condemn the organiser’s calls to withhold council tax payment, saying: “People are in charge of their own money.”
Despite the clear presence of some Reform UK supporters, it was hardly a teal washout. As protesters walked down the High Street some chanted “where the f*** is Nigel Farage?” Others suggested the Reform leader is a “flip flopper” and that “Farage only likes Nigel Farage.” They, like others I spoke to, felt more optimistic about former Farage ally Ben Habib and Tommy Robinson’s Advance UK movement. X owner Elon Musk has recently backed Habib’s group, and protesters yesterday chanted: “Elon, Elon, help us out”. Rather than ebbing as summer draws to a close, the protests against migrant hotels only seem to be becoming more intense.