Peaceful pink-wearing mothers' migrants protest turns to violence: Masked men hijack demonstration, trying to rush gates at asylum seekers hotel before police crack down
The group of women and children gathered outside the four-star Britannia International hotel in Canary Wharf, London, today where they sat and chanted 'stop the boats'.
The group held up England flags and wore pink clothing to raise awareness of how women and young people are being 'let down' by the migrant crisis.
But the peaceful protest quickly turned to chaos as a group of up to 30 balaclava-clad men - all with their faces covered - swarmed the crowd.
The thugs caused a huge bang as they set off smoke bombs and chanted ' Keir Starmer is a w*****'.
After trying to charge the fence surrounding the hotel, the group of far-right activists ran back in the direction they came from - but were caught by police and several arrests were made.
Protester Kim, 60, a resident of the area, said she was demonstrating as she worries for the safety of her family.
'I live in this area, I have kids and grandkids and it needs to be safe for them to live. We don't know them [asylum seekers], we don't know what they've done. My son can't get a house; he has been on the council list since he was 17.'
Speaking about the disruption from masked protesters, Kim said: 'It is disgraceful. It completely upset the atmosphere. I don't want to see that and I don't want my kids to see.
'If that was one of my children I would embarrassed. It ruined the atmosphere. This was meant to be a peaceful protest for women and children.'
A 17-year-old protester, who goes by the nickname of 'Young Bob', said he is concerned migrants will struggle to 'integrate' if they are housed in hotels in Canary Wharf.
Young Bob, who was part of the peaceful mothers' protest, said: 'The counter demonstrators libel us as Nazis.
'But financial districts like these are not ideal for refugees who in the long term need integration.
'During the weekday there are not a lot of people around.
'How will they assimilate into Britishness in this environment?
'Business people who had bookings in the hotel are being turned away which will impact businesses round here.'
He added: 'The biggest diversity we can have is the diversity of opinion.
'The protesters who disagree with us should relax in the expletives because it demonstrates a childishness.'
On Saturday, people believed to be asylum seekers appeared to move into the four-star hotel in London under the cover of darkness.
A coach full of suspected migrants was seen arriving at the Britannia International Hotel at around 1.40am on Saturday morning.
Tower Hamlets Council confirmed the Government intends to use the hotel - which has around 500 rooms - for asylum seekers in a move that has angered anti-migrant protesters and guests whose bookings have been cancelled.
Footage of the passengers getting off the coach showed they were all men, with the vast majority dressed in matching grey tracksuit tops and bottoms.
They were helped by masked security guards, some of whom appeared to be wearing body cameras.
Last week, workers were seen hauling beds and mattresses into the hotel in preparation for the arrival of 'hundreds' of asylum seekers.
A barricade of metal fencing was placed around the hotel by the Metropolitan Police after anti-migrant demonstrators protested the plan for immigrants to be housed there.
The Daily Mail has contacted the Met Police for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
26 minutes ago
- The Independent
David Tennant discusses ‘very intense' role in new ITV real-life drama
ITV 's forthcoming seven-part drama, The Hack, will explore the phone hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World. David Tennant stars as investigative journalist Nick Davies, who uncovered the unethical practices of the newspaper. The series will cover events between 2002 and 2012, detailing how journalists illegally accessed voicemails of celebrities, murder victims, and the Royal Family. Written by Jack Thorne, the drama also features Robert Carlyle as former Met Police detective Dave Cook and Toby Jones as former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger; the series is set to air on ITV and STV later this year. Tennant said that shooting the series had been 'very intense' due to the complex nature of the phone hacking scandal, but was proud to be part of the new drama.
The Sun
26 minutes ago
- The Sun
How brutal Hells Angel leader led gang in deadly riots, rape & rock gig killing…as ex-wife opens up on savage beating
THE roar of Harley-Davidsons and stench of petrol was all it took to announce the Hells Angels were in town. And leading the pack of leather-clad outlaws for decades was hardman Sonny Barger, whose name struck fear into the hearts of even the toughest of bikers. 14 14 As California became gripped with drug-fuelled mania and political instability, Sonny was the man at the head of a group that left a trail of violence everywhere they went. From leading deadly riots, running drugs, and even threatening Keith Richards with a gun, it's little surprise that Sonny and his crew were dubbed 'vikings on acid'. Many now romanticise him as a legend - but the truth is that he presided over a group that carried out gang rapes of teenagers and that committed twisted acts of cruelty without blinking an eye. And ex-wife Noel Black, who says Barger was an "old school charmer" when they met, soon saw his violent side. 'After the first ass kicking, I should have left,' she says. 'He didn't kill me, but I should have just ran.' Now, the life and times of Sonny Barger is told by those who knew him in the documentary Secrets of the Hells Angels, airing tonight on Channel 4. Four months after he was born in 1938, his mother ran off with a bus driver and he was raised by his alcoholic father and sister in the rough port district of Oakland, California. School was attended just to pick fights with his fellow classmates, and at 16 he was expelled for hitting a teacher with a baseball bat. Then he tried the army - but after forging his birth certificate so he could join without parental permission, he was given an honourable discharge just 18 months later. Instead he joined a bike club, popular with other ex-military men, named the Oakland Panthers. Bloodsoaked world of UK's Hells Angels as Mafia-style bikers drag bodies of rivals down streets and stash rocket launchers & uzis for war 'I needed a second family,' Sonny wrote in his autobiography about this time. 'I wanted a group less interested in a wife and 2 ½ kids…and more interested in riding, drag-racing, and raising hell.' But the Panthers were only weekend riders - and Sonny wanted more. Throughout the 50s, the Hells Angels consisted of loosely organized chapters throughout California, with members often unaware that other chapters existed. Forming his own group, the Oakland Hells Angels, in 1957, he made contact with other Hells Angels groups, and when the overall president was sent to prison in 1958, a 20-year old Sonny took the lead. Brutal beatings By the 1960s and Sonny and his now-worldwide gang of outlaw bikers had developed a serious reputation for violence - for good reason. First gaining a criminal record in 1963 for cannabis possession, he was then arrested for assault with a deadly weapon in 1965, when he forced a pistol into a man's mouth after he criticised the Hells Angels. An unrepentant Sonny later wrote: 'Since the motherf*cker was already shot in the head, I bent him over the pool table and shot him again.' 14 14 14 Though much of his legal income was made from consulting on Hollywood films about bikers, they also took part in robberies, drug running, and harboured white supremacists. In January 1963, the Oakland Hells Angels headquarters was raided by police, with seven members charged with the alleged gang rape of a 29-year-old woman. During the raid, police also found a swastika flag and a picture of Adolph Hitler with the inscription 'Hitler is alive, our buddy.' 'The way we were depicted, we were like Vikings on acid, raping our way across sunny California on motorcycles forged in the furnaces of hell', he wrote. One of the most infamous nights of mayhem happened at a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in 1969. Offered free beer in exchange for providing security, the crowd got restless as the Stones failed to appear on stage. Fights broke out, the bikers beat the crowd with pool cues, and one frightened fan - Meredith Hunter - was knifed to death with the assailant, Alan Passaro, getting away with it on grounds of self-defence. '[They] were out of it on bad acid and cheap wine, and they were just looking for trouble,' remembered Keith Richards. 'Somebody knocked their bikes over and the next minute this black kid got scared, pulls a gun, and they did him'. To many, it was the day that the peace of love of the 1960s died. Sonny and his bikers for their part blamed the Stones for coming on late And not even being a member of one of the biggest bands in the world would keep you safe from Sonny's wrath. 'I stood next to him and stuck my pistol into his side and told him to start playing his guitar, or he was dead', Sonny remembered. 'Altamont may have been some big catastrophe to the hippies, but it was just another Hells Angels event to me.' 14 Misogynistic violence Though the Angels were a lawless rabble, they maintained a strict code of honour within themselves. Disloyalty meant death - as Paul 'German' Ingalls found out in 1968. After being found guilty of stealing Sonny's valuable coin collection by an internal Hells Angels 'court', Ingalls was forced to consume barbiturates until he suffered an overdose. Equally brutal were the Hells Angels' sexual crimes, with wives and girlfriends seen as the 'property' of the men. Sonny's first wife, Elsie Mae, had died of an embolism in 1967 after a (then illegal) abortion, and he split with his second wife, Sharon, in 1996. Three years later he married Beth Noel Black, but this came to an end in 2003 after Sonny attacked her so ferociously she found herself hospitalised. 14 14 14 14 'I loved Sonny so much, but marriages sometimes are bad, and sometimes if you hang around tough people things happen to you,' she said. 'He would get aggressive with it. After the first ass kicking, I should have left.' During one outburst, Sonny kicked her in the back, causing it to break in three places and leaving her with a lacerated spleen. He called 911, and can be heard admitting that he had beaten his wife her so badly she was "paralysed and cannot move". He claimed she had pulled a gun on him, in a row over a mistress, but despite being convicted for aggravated assault he spent only eight days in jail for this crime. Justice served Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sonny and his Hells Angels had a complicated relationship with the police as they expanded the club into an international organisation. In 1972, Oakland sergeant Ted Hilliard testified that he had accepted guns, dynamite and grenades from Sonny in return for the release of Hells Angels members from prison, as the police wished to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Black Panthers and Marxist groups. Sonny was keen to go further - offering 'to deliver the bagged body of a leftist for every Angel released from jail' - but this was refused. By now, Sonny had developed a serious cocaine addiction and funded this by selling heroin, and Hells Angels chapters around the country practically controlled the entire market for meth. When police raided his home in December 1972, they found eight guns throughout his house and even a human skull on his dresser that to this day remains unidentified. He was finally convicted in 1973 for possession of heroin and firearms. 14 14 Sentenced to ten years, he served only four and a half, running the Hells Angels from his cell and marrying his second wife, Sharon, there. Thanks to his habit of smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, Sonny contracted throat cancer in 1983. This led him to become a public anti-smoking advocate, even saying: "Want to be a rebel? Don't smoke as the rest of the world." Having his vocal cords removed didn't stop him from being convicted in 1988 for conspiring to blow up the clubhouse of rival club the Outlaws, though he insisted he was merely the victim of entrapment by the FBI. In total, Sonny spent 13 years in prison throughout his life. By the 2000s, he had stepped away from his public leadership of the gang, though in 2002 he tried to organise a peace conference when warfare between the Hells Angels and Mongols gang exploded. However, this conference was cancelled after a mass riot in Laughlin, Nevada, between bitter rivals left three dead and dozens injured. Hells Angels members swarmed a casino, with CCTV capturing the moment bullets whizzed around slot machines. One Mongol member was stabbed to death and two Hells Angels members died from gunshots. He married his fourth wife, Zorana, in 2005, and spent the final portion of his life contributing to books about biker life, as well as appearing on the TV drama Sons of Anarchy. Following a short battle with liver cancer, Sonny passed away in 2022 at the age of 83 - but left a legacy that will be forever part of the story of 20th century America.
The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Spotlight on Keir Starmer's recognition of Palestine
I'm puzzled by the conditions Keir Starmer has set for Israel to meet, failing which he'll recognise Palestine as a state (UK to recognise state of Palestine in September unless Israel holds to a ceasefire, 29 July). Why does recognition depend on Israel's actions? Surely it should depend on Palestine's: commitments to abjure terrorism, disarm Hamas, hold democratic elections and, of course, to release the hostages. As for Israel, UK policy should be to impose draconian sanctions: if Israel continues to act like a pariah state, let it be treated as one. Without sanctions, there would probably still be an apartheid regime in South Africa. The UK must act now, not half-heartedly in September; thousands of children in Gaza can't wait until MaughanDunblane, Perthshire Like so many people in the UK, I thought that my despair and shame over the situation in Gaza could not be deepened. Keir Starmer achieved that. How like this prime minister to obfuscate further and kick any sense of decisiveness into the long grass of contingency. One might think that Britain has some special responsibility for recognising the state of Palestine, whose population it abandoned to the predations of its neighbour in 1948. What will be left of Gaza, the West Bank and its people by September? A genocide? A diaspora? The UK doesn't negotiate with terrorists, just with war Prof Graham MortLancaster University Soon after the atrocities of 7 October 2023 I heard someone on the radio say, with respect to Israel's imminent invasion of Gaza, 'Beware of being goaded by your enemy into doing what your enemy wants you to do.' Nearly two years on, the Israeli government seems hell-bent on creating a moral equivalence between itself and Hamas. If you become like your enemy, then your enemy has won. Thus, despite what it says about recent moves to recognise a Palestinian state, the Israeli government, more than any other, is 'rewarding' Hamas for its terrorist actions. The Rev Rob KelseyBerwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland It is impossible for us to know the depth of despair Palestinians must feel to hear western nations pontificating that we will not recognise them as a nation if their oppressors stop killing them. It seems this is the ultimate acknowledgment that they have no rights except those we deem to give them. We have expelled them from the land in which they lived to ensure that Europe didn't have the problem of resettling the thousands displaced by a European war. They are being attacked in Gaza and the West Bank with weapons supplied by western governments. They are being starved in Gaza to keep their oppressor-in-chief in office. And now our governments are praised for condescending to recognise the fact that they are a nation (that has existed for more than 1,000 years). How can we think we have any integrity left in our dealings with the oppressed?Michael McLoughlinWallington, London What will give greater weight to the call for a two-state solution is outlining the building blocks for establishment of a Palestinian state: for example, Gaza would be placed under UN control to allow for demilitarisation, the physical reconstruction and drawing up a basic law to guide the development of a constitutional WeirCape Town, South Africa Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
