A major police operation, but no repeat of last year’s violent scenes
There were angry scenes on the streets of Bristol on Saturday, as a major police operation kept apart anti-immigration protesters trying to get to a hotel in the city centre that houses asylum seekers, and hundreds of counter-protesters who came out to stop them. The two protests were kept apart and the afternoon was largely peaceful, but noisy and angry, as both sides traded chants rather than missiles and violence.
The major police operation included extra powers to disperse crowds and ask for face masks to be removed, but police were content to allow both sides to continue their protests in large groups, with a 40 yard buffer at the junction of Baldwin Street and Welsh Back.
The protest against the asylum seekers in the Mercure Hotel on Welsh Back was organised largely on Facebook, as part of a national series of similar actions at hotels across the country, including some this weekend in Somerset. The counter-protest was also called on social media, and included several senior figures in Bristol City Council ’s biggest party, the Greens, who said they were pleased at the turnout to counter the anti-immigration protesters.
Around 300 people gathered outside the hotel on Welsh Back at around 11.30am, half an hour before the scheduled start of the anti-immigration protest. Those arriving off Baldwin Street to gather to protest against the hotel were encouraged by police to head to Castle Park instead. By noon, the number of counter-protesters chanting loudly that ‘refugees are welcome here’ had grown to around 400.
Cllr Lorraine Francis (Green, Eastville) was one of several people who made speeches. “They don’t want to educate themselves, look back in history and think about why we are here,” she said, of the few protesters who had gathered on the other side of a police line.
“Once you have educated yourself, and you will understand the history of the UK, the history of the USA, the history of Nigel Farage, the history of other people that are spewing hatred across our city, then we can all be united, because this isn’t about us,” she said.
“This is about years and years of austerity. This is about years and years of no council housing being built. This is about years and years and years of all of us being undermined by a system that’s not fit for purpose,” she added.
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At Castle Park at noon, around 15-20 people carrying St George’s and Union flags had gathered, and after around half an hour, numbers had grown. As more arrived, one woman handed out smaller hand-held Union flags to wave. Two young men carried a large placard which read: “Stop immigration, start deportation.”
“We’ve come to put on a peaceful protest,” said one woman, in a New York baseball cap and draped in a Union Jack. “It’s not racism at all. We’re just not happy with what they are bringing over. We don’t know who they are, or anything like that. Our children aren’t safe anymore – it’s one big joke,” she added.
She was not fazed that the counter-protesters outside the hotel outnumbered those wishing to protest there by around eight to one. “I just think they are all braindead at the end of the day, I really do,” she said. “Because they are allowing it, and they are trying to protect them, for the unknown of what they don’t even know themselves.”
Anti-immigration protesters gathered at Castle Park and walked down to the police lines at Welsh Back(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
By around 12.45pm, the protesters at Castle Park had grown in number to around 50 and they began to move together back to Baldwin Street, where police hastily reinforced the line outside Brewdog at the junction with Welsh Back. A stand-off began that lasted for at least three hours with, at its height, around 60-70 protesters on the corner of Baldwin Street, and 400 or more outside the hotel.
The protesters with the Union flags had music playing from a stereo. The playlist started with things like God Save the King and the theme from the Great Escape, but after a while went into songs like Sweet Caroline – the anthem of the England football team – and even Jump Around by 90s Irish American rap group House of Pain.
In between the songs, there was a back-and-forth in chanting. A year ago, missiles were thrown, and things were a lot more violent. This time, it was angry but ultimately peaceful. When the hundreds outside the hotel chanted ‘Whose streets? Our streets!’ and ‘Whose city? Our city?’ the protesters on the other side of the police line joined in – both sides claiming Bristol and its streets to be their own.
Anti-immigration protesters at police lines on Baldwin Street in Bristol(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
The chants from the counter-protesters revolved on a theme that refugees were welcome in Bristol, and ‘fascists are not welcome here’, while those with the Union and St George’s flags went through a chant repertoire that included stopping the boats, ‘deportation not immigration’ and other chants in support of Tommy Robinson and calling Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer an expletive.
At one point, a man dressed in a St George flag morph suit shared the mic with a man wearing a Ghana football shirt, to chant about ‘sending them home’, while from the large crowd outside the hotel, the louder PA speaker a speech made it across the police lines, even if the protesters couldn’t.
“You are fighting the wrong people. These people are not your enemy,” said a voice from the counter-protesters. “We should be united in fighting the people responsible for this inequity. You should be ashamed of yourself for coming here and scaring the children in this hotel.”
With Baldwin Street and Bristol Bridge the main thoroughfare for tourists, visitors and hen and stag parties coming from Temple Meads to the city centre and its harbourside bars and restaurants, there was regular confusion as groups of people dressed as cowboys or with US prison orange boilersuits tried to pick their way through the crowd of people dancing draped in Union Jack shirts.
The anti-immigration protesters at the junction of Baldwin Street and Welsh Back are held back by a line of police. Beyond them, outside the Mercure Hotel, around 400 counter-protesters chanted ‘refugees are welcome here’.(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
Eventually, just after 2.30pm, some two hours or so after arriving, the bulk of the anti-immigration protesters left, and headed back to Castle Park. The counter-protesters remained at the hotel for another hour or so, and reported some individual harassment as small groups came back and clashed on Welsh Back after the police departed.
Cllr Ani Townsend (Green, Central), was among those in the counter-protest. Afterwards she explained why she came out to join the 400 or so outside the hotel. “It’s gone really well. This hotel is in my ward, as is the other asylum hotel as well,” they said.
Green Party councillors at the counter-protest supporting refugees and asylum seekers outside the hotel in Bristol city centre. Left to right – Lorraine Francis (Green, Eastville), Thomas Daw (Green, Wrington (N Somerset)), Ani Townsend (Central)(Image: Bristol Post)
“We try to work with the residents supporting refugees and asylum seekers inside. It’s really important to come out and show fascism how many people in Bristol say ‘no, this is not a space for them’, and to show the migrants and most marginalised communities how we stand up for them and alongside them,” they added.
She said it was ‘amazing to see’ how much the counter-protesters outnumbered the other side. “It was a very good peaceful protest full of solidarity and singing and comradeship,” she added.