The circus came to town last week in Hull when protesters gathered to express their feelings about the housing of asylum seekers, the vast majority young Muslim men, in the heart of the city in the Royal Hotel attached to Hull’s Paragon Station. Their presence has left many feeling uneasy, mainly those who live and work in proximity to the Royal Hotel.
While the working classes of Hull—where unemployment is above the national average— find it hard to find jobs and houses (I have two grandchildren with no fixed abode), money is being poured into housing asylum seekers, providing them with mobile phones and allowances. Then news reaches us from just along the coast of luxury flats being handed over to asylum seekers.
What we get in return is groups of young men congregating in the city centre, being less than respectful to our young ladies and changing the face of Hull rapidly. Too rapidly for some. The presence of the protesters in our city centre is compounded by the fact that people there seem powerless to do anything while, on the other hand, in the leafy suburb of Cottingham, the chattering classes—who, ironically claim to be the most sympathetic towards asylum seekers—came out en masse when it was proposed they be housed there. It seems that enthusiasm and proximity are reciprocally related. The plans to house asylum seekers in Cottingham were shelved.
Therefore, the frustration of the residents of Hull at their predicament is understandable and, on Saturday 3 August, things turned nasty. In tandem with other UK cities, protests took place in Hull focused on the Royal Hotel where windows were smashed, and police were injured. A great deal of other damage was done, and looting took place. We don’t condone violence at TNC and can easily distinguish between legitimate protest and violent protest.
It is possible that agitators (or even agents provocateurs) were present. On the other hand, it appears that most arrests in connection with the riots were of local people and not, as Kier Starmer would have us believe, that this was all centrally organised and that ‘far-right’ protesters were bussed into cities to lead the charge.
And did you hear about the Muslim men at the mosque in Hull throwing stones this week at passers-by? Thought so, but according to one of their own social media channels that is exactly what they were doing. Hundreds of arrests did not follow.
As for the looting, any connection to the riots or to ‘far-right’ protesters is purely coincidental. Given what was targeted by looters in Hull it is clear that this was just local hooligans taking advantage of a good crisis when Humberside Police were otherwise engaged. The main targets of the looting were a designer shoe shop (always par for the course at such events) and Lush, the purveyor of highly perfumed soaps and bath bombs. Shouldn’t have been too hard to catch the criminals; you could probably smell them, like you can a Lush shop, hundreds of yards away.
Speaking of a good crisis, the government and its law enforcing henchmen are certainly not wasting one. There have been several predictions this week of ‘100 more far-right protests’ around the UK. On the whole, these have not materialised. But these predictions have a familiar ring to them. Remember Covid and how we were all going to die? A virus was sweeping the earth and posing an existential treat to humanity.
The same is happening with the riots, which are clearly being used to manipulate us…and it is working. This Wednesday I received the first of two messages from my GP surgery, the first telling me that due to the threat of social unrest in the area the surgery would close at 4:30pm. Two hours later the second message, implying that that situation was so threatening that they had decided to close at 2pm instead.
The pattern is unbelievably familiar. We are under such threat that health services must close. There are also proposals for ‘Covid-style controls’ (aka lockdowns) in response to the riots.
This is all remarkably reminiscent of Covid and, of course, that message will have gone out to thousands of patients registered with my practice and was probably echoed across the city. Doctors, being a trusted source of information on all things, must be telling the truth and without doubt this will have spread some fear and concern across the city.
On Thursday morning, expecting to hear tales of carnage and far-right hatred, the Humberside Police website reported ‘No disorder in Hull last night’. Fancy that!
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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Of course we are being manipulated and msm is once more doing the government’s dirty work. Starmer will do diddly squat because like those in ‘comfortable’ suburbs, eg Cottingham, he and his ilk, will be untouched by and violence, disorder, looting, stone throwing, machete wielding youths/ men. It is the lot of the working classes- they have to deal with it, or rather, just accept it. Starmer is a very dangerous politician at this juncture….he is weak (not able to resist his Davos ‘bosses’…. even if he wanted to) at the same time as he is fast becoming coldly dictatorial. Actually he showed that unlovely facet of his character as he egged on the Tory government to more draconian application of covid regs.
I think it was residents of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, who displayed similar hypocrisy.
This is a most telling article, exposing the hypocrisy of the comfortable ‘chattering classes’ who claim to “welcome refugees” (but don’t want them next door!), the various increasingly aggressive minorities and the new UK Government which is showing alarming signs of naked autocracy. See Frederick Edward’s excellent article today: “Britain’s self-inflicted wounds” (A last Bastion of Sanity [https://frederickedward.substack.com/subscribe?r=1q8pao&next=https%3A%2F%2Ffrederickedward.substack.com%2Fp%2Fbritains-self-inflicted-wounds]).
Roger, thanks for amusing me – Shoezone a designer shoe shop! It mainly sells the kind of shoes that the Royal Station Hotel residents wouldn’t be seen in even if given free.
If Cottingham residents baulk at having aliens housed among them, think what the view would be in Beverley – and that’s the problem, it’s easy to be ‘nice’ when you’re not affected and can then call others who are racist.
This is beyond ghastly. I despair, feel impotent and afraid, and have no idea what to do. I am fortunate enough to live in a part of the country which so far has largely escaped being overrun with immigrants, but with Ange the gob stating that we will all ‘have to take our share’, I suspect that things will only get worse. All I can offer is my sympathy, which I know is pretty useless.