UK braces for potentially volatile summer after anti-immigrant protests
A year after major riots, police warn of escalating tensions fuelled by far-right activism and Channel migrant crossings
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.
Protesters shouted “save our children” and “send them home”, while banners called for the expulsion of “foreign criminals”.