Todays protests at a Bristol hotel housing asylum seekers. Five arrets were made according to Avon and Somerset Police.
Two main groups descended on the Mercure hotel, mainly the far-right ‘Bristol Patriots’ and a collection of ‘anti-fascist’ and ‘anti-racist’ far-left counter protests.
By late morning, police were positioned at both entrances of the hotel, forming a perimeter, though the far-left counter demonstrators were the first to accumulate.
Speaking to James, a member of the ‘anti-racist’ Stand Up to Racism, he made the message that the blame was solely on the rich, and not the asylum seekers.
He was not afraid of getting arrested on the day, saying he was “proud if he got arrested” and to be a “martyr” for the cause.
Mark, a member of the Bristol Patriots, felt “ashamed of this country” and the “government aint doing anything to help”. He said “they’re getting benefits in these hotels, some of these hotels are letting them do ‘Uber jobs’. “They can’t even spare 20 rooms for old people [or homeless] – but they can put everybody else here”.
“They don’t integrate with none of us, they won’t speak to you” – “why are they all young men?”. He repeated that he was only against illegal immigration, “no one’s against anyone coming to our country. If you’re genuinely coming from from a war-torn country, I’d let you in my house, I’d open my door for you.”
An observer, who didn’t represent either side, described the atmosphere like a “football match”, as counter protesters started chanting. He said that it was all “manipulated by the media” and agreed that the ultra-rich were to blame, profiteering from the government failures. “The same kind of thing has been going on for many decades”.
One counter-protester, Emily didn’t think the word ‘antifa’ existed, they were just against fascism, and there to fight it, “I used to work in that building [Mercure hotel] and I am anti-fascist”.
While talking to her, a stream of protesters came raining down, violently chased by police, covering their faces. An officer later commented that facial recognition was not used on the day.
One woman holding up a Black Lives Matter banner said “I don’t think shouting at a bunch of people is helping – those trapped in the hotels, which is a government decision” – “coming and shouting at people in the hotel is just going to intimidate them and that’s not nice”.
The protest, which was meant to begin at 1pm was organised by the ‘Bristol Patriots’ although some other groups were clearly involved, notably, Nick Tenconi, leader of UKIP. Although one member of the group admitted they are not representative of Bristol, many more turned up than expected, almost equalling the size of the counter-protests.
After hearing a cocktail of mostly radical voices from the event today, almost all of them had one belief in common – the dislike of the current government.