Epping is a charming, close-knit community. Locals are well within their rights to be horrified by what has been imposed upon them
22 July 2025
Daily Telegraph
Sunday saw another night of protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping. Essex police were eager to clamp down on the subsequent demonstrations, arresting a total of six people and describing the atmosphere as “angry and violent”. Locals had for years expressed frustration at the area being used to house asylum seekers, a feeling which overflowed last week.
This is not the first time protesters have clashed with police over the Government’s decision to place those who cross the Channel in hotels. But the events of the past week should suggest to us that these disturbances will become more common. Epping is not like the largely Northern, post-industrial towns which protested last summer after the Southport attack. It is a leafy area, where you need a middle-class income to afford a mortgage.
One of the videos from Thursday’s protest showed the difference. A mother who looked like she would be more at home on the school run in an SUV than with a megaphone gave a rousing speech, saying that they were there to protect their children. That is because the trigger for the protests was an alleged sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl by a recently arrived Ethiopian asylum seeker, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, staying at the asylum hotel.
The failure of this Government and the last to stop the small boats crossings is radicalising Middle England. Every week brings more young men from some of the poorest and most violent societies on earth. Some will successfully claim asylum because they claim to come from places to which they cannot be deported. They are often kept in hotels, at a cost of billions to the tax payer. Although the Government brags that hotel numbers are on the way down, asylum seekers are also being put in flats and HMOs across the country.
Increasingly there is nowhere you can go where you won’t find asylum seekers barracked nearby, with all the risks that come with that. Most recently, Eritrean Aron Hadash was convicted of assaulting a 19-year-old with learning difficulties, which make her “very childlike”. That did not matter to Hadash, who was living at taxpayer expense in a nearby Holiday Inn. Intoxicated, he pinned her down, grabbed her breasts, and touched her crotch for several minutes before she escaped. Despite showing no remorse and the judge saying that he poses a “high risk of serious harm to the public”, he was sentenced to only 14 months and has already been released after serving a year on remand.
That is why ordinary people came out onto the streets of Epping. Although there have been reports of members of the far-Right attending, the hand-made signs and mixed nature of the crowd suggests that it is largely locals. Tommy Robinson may have said he will join the protests this coming weekend, but that shows that he too was caught out. Most of the professional protestors were from counter-protestors from Stand up to Racism, who arrived from out of town with their professionally printed placards, only to be run out again by furious locals. That should actually worry the authorities more. A handful of troublemakers is one thing, a community up in arms is another.
There is a logic to such community backlash. Last month, in Ballymena, the horrific rape of a local girl, allegedly by Roma teenagers, led to riots over several days that targeted Roma and other foreigners. In the aftermath, many of the Roma have left or been moved to new accommodation. Many locals are said to be pleased, claiming that anti-social behaviour has subsequently reduced.
This shift in attitudes can also be seen in the increasingly fractious relationship between the police and the public. Images of a police van smashing into a protestor without stopping on Thursday shocked many. The sight of the police evacuating Stand up to Racism protestors in vans was also controversial, even if it was probably a sensible tactical decision to get them away. The revelation last week of a secret, multi-billion pound programme to smuggle Afghans into Britain while muzzling the press has only further reduced trust. People find it hard to believe in the rule of law when our borders go unguarded, while prosperous market towns have riot police on the streets.
Restoring trust requires action. Our broken human rights laws are at the root of the small boat crisis, which is why Suella Braverman and I co-wrote a paper published this week which shows how Britain can leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Once we have regained control of our borders, we can begin closing the asylum hotels and HMOs. Those granted asylum over the last few years should have their cases reexamined, to see if they are genuine or if they were only beneficiaries of our overly-generous laws. This will help make our country safer for women and girls, bringing peace back to our streets.
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