{"id":350366,"date":"2025-08-17T00:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T00:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/350366\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T00:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T00:14:09","slug":"anti-racism-and-anti-immigration-protesters-in-falkirk-face-off-outside-asylum-hotel-immigration-and-asylum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/350366\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-racism and anti-immigration protesters in Falkirk face off outside asylum hotel | Immigration and asylum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Anti-racism campaigners held a counter-demonstration against people protesting against \u201cuncontrolled illegal immigration\u201d outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk\/scotland\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scotland<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Stand Up to Racism Scotland, Falkirk Trades Union Council and local people said they organised the gathering in Falkirk on Saturday to show that refugees are welcome in the town.<\/p>\n<p>Organisers described it as a \u201csafely stewarded community event with music, speeches from the local community, the trade union movement, local campaigns, faith groups and others\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Demonstrators held placards with messages such as \u201cstop the far right\u201d, \u201crefugees welcome\u201d and \u201cmigrants make our NHS\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Police said Kemper Avenue in Falkirk was closed due to protest activity which began at about 11am.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The road reopened on Saturday night, with Police Scotland confirming a 26-year-old man was arrested in connection with a breach of the cordon line.<\/p>\n<p>Protesters from the group Save Our Future and Our Kids Future outside the Cladhan hotel. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The group Save Our Future &amp; Our Kids Futures had announced plans to hold a protest outside the hotel known as the Cladhan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In a social media post the group said it was \u201cstanding against uncontrolled illegal immigration, with people being placed in our communities without transparency, accountability, or consultation\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">It added: \u201cThis is not about hate, racism, or division. This is about safety, justice, and standing up for the people of Falkirk who deserve better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-8\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1xjndtj\">Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n<p><strong>Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/privacy-policy\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/privacy\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/terms\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-8\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Protesters, some waving union flags, chanted \u201csend them home\u201d while anti-racism demonstrators responded with chants of \u201crefugees are welcome here\u201d and \u201cthis is what community looks like\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Similar protests have been held in recent months in Epping, Essex, near the Bell hotel which houses asylum seekers.<\/p>\n<p>In July, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2025\/jul\/20\/police-warn-inflammatory-online-posts-clashes-essex-asylum-hotel\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">some of the demonstrations descended into violent disorder<\/a> with 28 people arrested after police officers were injured. <\/p>\n<p>The protests in Essex started after an asylum seeker housed at the hotel was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He is in custody awaiting further court hearings.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this August, several demonstrators were detained after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/aug\/02\/protesters-oppose-one-another-at-london-hotel-housing-asylum-seekers\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rival groups faced off over a hotel accommodating asylum seekers in north London<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The counter-protest outside the Thistle City Barbican hotel in Islington was organised by local branches of Stand Up to Racism and was supported by the former Labour leader and Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anti-racism campaigners held a counter-demonstration against people protesting against \u201cuncontrolled illegal immigration\u201d outside a hotel used to house&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-350366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115041223588340997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}