by Evie Clancey
HOYLAKE — Right-wing, anti-immigrant and nationalist demonstrations, from the patriotic and paranoid to the overtly racist and violently extreme, are becoming louder, more widespread and more effective. Strikingly, they are gaining strength in wealthy areas where posh residents are reluctant to counter-protest.
Earlier this month, flags and graffitied red crosses began appearing on public property all over the country — lamp posts, street signs, roundabouts, park benches, pedestrian crossings, bridges and fences now sprout the St. George’s Cross.
Connected to the graffiti and the flag-raising is a GoFundme, started on August 10th, the goal of which is the guerilla flying of English flags in public spaces.
Organisers declare themselves ‘a group of proud English men with a common goal to show Birmingham [where the graffitiing began] and the rest of the country how proud we are of our history, freedoms, and achievements. Giving hope to the local communities that all isn’t lost, and they are not alone.’
In three weeks this appeal has raised £20,964, which organisers say goes towards flags, poles and cable-ties. A vague sentence at the bottom states: “We are also contributing materials to other like-minded individuals.”
Hundreds of people attended a UKIP ‘Liverpool Mass Deportations March’ on the 23rd of August. An equal number of counter-protestors challenged the marchers, vociferously rejecting the idea that refugees are not welcome.
Such sizeable turnouts suggest pro-refugee and anti-racist groups are doing enough to counter the rise of the anti-immigrant right across the UK.
This is not true, anti-racism campaigners claim.
At protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, and in Swindon, Newcastle, Falkirk, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Perth, Bristol, London, Mold in Wales and County Antrim in Northern Ireland, hard right, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups demonstrate an energy, organisation and drive which threatens to overpower counter-protestors.
This imbalance can most clearly be seen in small communities, and in unexpected places.
Hoylake, population around 5300, is a wealthy enclave of the Wirral, an easy twenty-minute drive from Liverpool.
At first sight, the passions and conflicts surrounding the UKIP deportation rally in the city across the Mersey seem remote from this pleasant seaside town. The site of Hoylake’s old Holiday Express has been used to house asylum seekers since 2020.
Single men were accommodated that year, until a brief closure, after which the hotel’s residents were made up of families. They have lived there peacefully over the last four years.
Everything changed three weeks ago. Anti-immigrant and anti-refugee protestors are now a near-fixture outside the hotel, provoked by the Home Office decision to remove the families from the hotel and return its rooms to single men.
Now protestors stand outside the hotel brandishing enormous flags of the United Kingdom, England, and Israel.
Handmade placards scream NO PASSPORT NO ENTRY and PROTECT OUR CHILDREN. The protestors often have megaphones through which they harangue the handful of counter-protestors standing a few feet away. Both groups brandish cameras. They film and taunt each other. The tension is kept in check by the small but steady police presence.
A handful of families remain at the hotel while demonstrations take place outside their windows. Sources familiar with the situation report that the families are too fearful to leave the hotel.
An anti-refugee demonstrator with a camera claims these families are suffering from stress caused by “the Lefties”. There is a clear and strong belief among these demonstrators that they are doing the right thing, in the interest of Hoylake and its community.
They say they are concerned for local children — there is a nursery located nearby — and they claim that male asylum seekers would be a threat.
Strikingly, people holding these views, and more extreme versions, are more numerous than the counter-protestors, whom they have steadily outnumbered since the demonstrations began in Hoylake.
Emboldened by a feeble resistance to their views, compared to the very large anti-racism and pro-refugee crowds which turn out in cities, the numbers of anti-immigrant protestors continues to increase.
The fear, distrust and condemnation of the what they see as the threat posed by refugees grows with them.
There is some resistance to the protestors. Hoylake4All, a group organised by Stand Up to Racism, maintains a presence in front of the hotel. These people aim to peacefully counter-protest the anti-immigration groups and dispel myths and worries held by residents about the incoming male asylum seekers.
‘We want it known that everyone is welcome in our town — and hate is not,’ proclaims Hoylake4All’s Facebook page. While small in number, they are not small in commitment, showing up regularly with banners against racism, hate and xenophobia.
As the right continue to mobilise with ever greater impact and cohesion across the UK, the pressure falls on counter protesters to match and to outnumber their turnouts. In cities voters are consistently more liberal and left-leaning: outside them, the Reform UK party and its fellow travellers on the right are gaining popularity.
Pro-refugee and anti-racist campaigners assert that the only way to successfully challenge the far right, which is empowered by and attracted to residents’ protests like those at Hoylake, is to turn out in greater numbers.
However, many wealthy and upper middle class locals are clearly not comfortable with taking to the streets and proclaiming anti-racist and pro-refugee beliefs. Counter-demonstrating risks drawing attention to the right’s actions, runs one argument for staying at home.
People with experience of this issue believe this is a mistake.
‘If you get an infestation of fascists, show up!’ advises a pro-refugee organiser on the Wirral.
Among the people attending anti-refugee and anti-migrant demonstrations taking place nationally, which seem likely to grow, there is of course a wide spectrum of views.
There are people who oppose the government, people who object to immigration levels, people concerned about small boats, people who wish to assert a particular vision of Britain, or England — and then there are fascists, racists and thugs, for whom this is turning into a fertile year.
The lesson of Hoylake is simple, anti-racist organiser say. If the right and the far right are not to grow in strength and impact, counter-protestors must take to the streets.
