It was billed as a protest organised by concerned residents living near a flashpoint asylum seeker hotel in Islington.
But when masked anti-fascist activists from ‘London’s Antifa’ descended on the Thistle City Barbican Hotel – and migrants started laughing, waving and blowing kisses from their windows – tensions quickly threatened to boil over.
The three-star hotel has become one of the focal points for anti-migrant anger after it emerged asylum seekers staying there were working illegally as delivery drivers.
The demonstration against the use of the hotel was initially organised by local residents under the banner ‘Thistle Barbican needs to go – locals say no’.
The Metropolitan Police had braced itself for groups outside the local community to join amid the threat of growing anti-migrant sentiment around the country as Labour scrambles to crack down on the small boat crisis.
Several hundred protesters waved Union Jack flags and banners, with some chanting: ‘Get these scum off our street.’
But a huge counter protest, organised by Stand Up To Racism, was announced beforehand, with Jeremy Corbyn – the MP for Islington North – urging activists to join.
Stand Up To Racism, who has mobilised its activists at several anti-migrant hotel protests in recent weeks, were joined by other groups including Finsbury Park Mosque and Islington Labour Party.
What appeared to be yet another anti-migrant versus anti-racism demonstration flared up when protesters from the Central London Anti-Fascists arrived at the hotel.
Posters put up across the capital beforehand by the group were titled ‘Anti-Fascist Action. Kick the racists out of London. Call out by Central London Anti-Fascists.’
The group, which set up its X account in September 2022 and has just over 3,000 followers, called on its supporters to assemble at the Thistle Hotel at 2pm on Saturday and displayed the Antifa logo in the bottom right corner of its posters.
An online Antifa group called for people to ‘amplify and spread London Antifa’s call’, adding: ‘London Antifa has called for mobilization on August 2nd to counter fascists who are planning an attack on Thistle Hotel Barbican, where many migrants are staying.
It marked a return of high-profile Antifa action whose activity has seemingly decreased from its peak in 2020.
Antifa is described as a left-wing anti-fascist political movement which emerged as a response to what they see as the rise of fascism in Europe in the 20th century. The modern movement gained momentum in the US in the 1980s.
In an intimidating tactic, they often dress all in black so they can move as one anonymous group in a ‘black bloc’.
They are known to disrupt right-wing events by shouting and chanting or forming human chains to block off rivals.
Footage from the Thistle Hotel protest showed this in action.
Anti-fascist protesters, covering their faces with masks, balaclavas and keffiyehs, were seen linking arms as they faced off with the rival group.
They appeared to be forming a blockade at the front of the protest, with Stand Up To Racism activists further back in the crowd.
The rival protests group clashed outside while people believed to be migrants watched the protests from the hotel’s windows, with some waving and blowing kisses at those below.
The group blocked a junction outside the hotel in breach of conditions, with officers being forced to push their way into the crowd to detain several demonstrators, dragging them out by their arms and legs.
Then, the group was moved from the road where officers informed them they were in breach of conditions put in place, before forming a circle around the protesters.
In one clip, police officers were seen moving into the crowd, with scuffles breaking out as they try to move an anti-fascist protester.
His supporters show their support by throwing water and other unknown objects at the police officers.
Further scuffles broke out as the anti-fascist protesters attempted to drag one of their own back as police officers managed to pull him from the crowd. He was then bundled into the back of a police van.
The Met Police confirmed to the Daily Mail that it made nine arrests at the protest – eight of whom were counter-protesters.
In forming up outside the conditioned area and marching into the junction between the two areas where protest was permitted, they were in breach of the conditions.
A spokesman said: ‘A 22-year-old woman was arrested for expressing support for Palestine Action.
‘A further three men, aged 30, 21 and 28 and three women, aged 43, 33 and 21 were arrested for breaching the Public Order Act conditions in place.
‘A 21-year-old man was arrested for breaching the Public Order Act conditions in place and also for 2 x assaulting an emergency worker.’
One anti-migrant protester, a 33-year-old man, was arrested for a racially aggravated public order offence.
A student counter-protester outside the Thistle City Barbican Hotel said he came because he wants migrants to ‘feel safe’ in Britain.
Pat Prendergast, 21, said: ‘I want people to feel safe. I think the (rival protesters) over there are making people feel unsafe.
‘I want to stand up in solidarity and say that, you know, we want people here. We want migrants. We want asylum seekers.’
A noticeably smaller group of protesters waved union flags and held banners outside the hotel, with one man chanting in the direction of the hotel: ‘Get these scum off our streets’.
Elsewhere across the UK on Saturday, there were also protests at The Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf and The New Bridge Hotel in Newcastle.
Meanwhile on Friday, about 100 people attended a protest outside the Stanwell Hotel in Spelthorne, Surrey, on Friday, in which a packet of lit firefighters were hurled at police.
Migrant hotel protests first broke out at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex last month after an Ethiopian asylum seeker was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He denies the charges.
