Bell Hotel protestors claim to care about women and girls – they’re lying

Rioting, inciting hatred and threatening violence is the way to protect women and girls in Britain today, apparently. 

Well, that’s what I deduce from the fact that Epping Forest District Council has been granted a temporary High Court injunction blocking the Home Office from housing migrants at The Bell Hotel – a recent epicentre for anti-migration protests that have been mischaracterised as concerned parents speaking up for their kids. 

In my view, it sets a grim precedent – and does nothing to protect women and girls from the real epidemic of violence against them in the UK. 

Because it was never truly about that for these protestors.

While many are celebrating the hotel’s closure, we need to be honest about what we are seeing here.

Not only in the true colours of right-wing politicians and agitators fanning the flames of hate, but how little women and girls are helped by demonising vulnerable individuals who have fled unstable and hostile home countries in search of safety, opportunities and a better life.

And the alleged actions of one migrant at the Bell Hotel, charged with sexual assaults, which he denies, don’t justify the targeting of all people living in that accommodation. 

In my book, though, this is less about those being placed in hotels and more the political climate that has erupted around this issue – with, inevitably, Nigel Farage leading the charge, but others also joining in. 

Senior Tory Robert Jenrick has lent his approval for their cause by saying he wouldn’t want his family living near ‘men from backwards countries who broke into Britain illegally and about whom you know next to nothing’. 

The fact is, it is neither illegal to seek asylum nor is it their fault that they are being housed in a hotel pending government review of their case. 

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And when joining a rally in Epping last week, Jenrick described them as ‘peaceful, patriotic protesters’, despite, it has since been revealed, a former key member of the British National Party being present.

Again, I don’t know how Jenrick, who says women and girls are being put in danger by mass migration’, thinks that being pictured with such people makes us more safe.

Farage has encouraged more protests against ‘migrant hotels’ across Britain, calling on people to ‘step up the pressure’ and vowing that Reform-controlled local authorities will do everything in their power to close them down. 

But Epping shows us the reality of what that ‘pressure’ looks like – riots that became a platform for those with racist and xenophobic views to express their divisive incendiary ideas – a way to legitimise what is extremism by any other name, hiding behind the veneer of protecting women. 

While some have presented these as well-intentioned locals acting to save their women and girls from the apparent dangers posed by asylum seekers in their communities, footage on social media has circulated showing a darker side to the protests.

Staff at The Bell Hotel in Epping have allegedly been assaulted in racially-motivated attacks, mistaken for migrant guests. 

A sign reading ‘kill them all’ was wielded at an anti-immigration protest in Falkirk just this week, while at the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf, delivery drivers were accosted and accused of being migrants working illegally – a claim amplified by Tory MP Nick Timothy. 

Does this sound like the rational, valid concern of those with good intentions? 

These are not concerned citizens grouping together for the common good. 

They are organised, highly-political and dangerous sites of hate. 

This is exemplified by the fact that two in five of those arrested for last summer’s riots – which many justified as being about protecting women and girls – had been reported for domestic abuse. 

How can those claiming to be protecting the safety and dignity of women and girls have such high numbers of domestic abusers in their ranks?

The reality is that this was never about women and girls or about protecting Britain. If it was, they’d be taking to the streets every time a story breaks of a man killing or assaulting a woman, not just when the alleged perpetrator is a migrant. 

This has also been made clear by 100 women’s rights groups, who this week wrote to the government calling on politicians to stop the ‘dangerous narrative’ of linking sex attacks to migration.

They have a point. 

Politicians jumping on the bandwagon, reinvigorating what should be long-dead political careers (think: Nigel Farage’s resurgence or Robert Jenrick’s entire platform of late), are stoking the flames of resentment for their own ends – and making our communities more divided and less safe in the process. 

But perhaps the most troubling fact of all is that when anti-immigration riots first erupted last summer, politicians seemed to be in agreement that it was right to present them as a  danger to the public, an expression of extremism that was damaging to the public good. 

With Epping, too many public figures think it’s the opposite. 

And the High Court judgement has given those behind the unrest the confidence that their actions work. 

The message is now clear. 

If you don’t want immigration, if you want to violently eject those seeking asylum, then the way to get your voice heard isn’t electoral politics, it is violence and criminal damage, while pretending you are protecting women and girls. 

My fear is that these riots will become commonplace anywhere seen to be a hub of migration – from places of worship to faith schools. 

As a woman who looks visibly ‘other’ despite being born in the UK, I can’t quite remember ever feeling so unsafe.

So much for being ‘protected’. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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