The far right has clung to the narrative that anti-migrant protests and mass flag operations are being run by everyday Brits, consisting of ‘concerned parents’ and mild-mannered patriots. Protesters claim they oppose immigration due to the supposed increase in crime which comes from allowing people seeking asylum into the community; they are not racist, they are simply concerned about local people.
However, HOPE not hate can reveal that many of the individuals leading anti-migrant movements possess their own criminal records and are perfectly comfortable with threatening or enacting violence on locals who disagree with their views. Organisers of Operation Raise the Colours have quickly shown their true intentions in a flurry of racist abuse and property damage. Clearly, criminality only worries these ‘local residents’ when the perpetrator is not white.
Glen Saffer, an ex-English Defence League (EDL) member, has been at the forefront of anti-migrant protests in Norwich. Saffer is a longtime Tommy Robinson ally and, for a period, acted as his bodyguard. If his extremist past was not enough to put Norwich protesters off him, his role in harassing a local lad should be
18-year-old Reuben, a local young man, gave a brief interview to the media during last week’s protest. Reuben was not part of the protest nor the counter-protest; he was nuanced and understanding, acknowledging that while people seeking asylum do sometimes commit crimes, they should be judged as individuals rather than painting an entire ethnic group as criminals. He joked that the biggest disturbance he has had in the area is that the protests have disturbed his sleep.
Saffer then appeared, aggressively asking if Reuben is a ‘leftie’. As Reuben attempted to walk away, Saffer pursued him down the road, flanked with followers, and repeatedly called him a ‘pedo’. Reuben was then chased by six men attempting to push him over, until police managed to place themselves between him and the attackers.
The violence was condemned by Sydney Jones, the young woman who up until recently had been organising the Norwich protests. Jones had hosted Saffer at many of these events, but said that she is no longer in contact with him, claiming to have stepped away from activism.
Saffer is just one example of a leading anti-migrant organiser who might preach about community safety, but will in the next moment chase down local people who disagree with him.
In the small Kent town of Faversham, anti-migrant protests have been led by Harry Hilden. Despite requesting background checks on the residents of a local former care home being used to house children seeking asylum, Hilden himself was previously given a six month prison sentence over a connection to gang related violence.
Hilden has also been leading a flagging campaign in the area. In one clip, a ‘patriot’ threatens to headbutt a man who is attempting to remove a flag from outside his house, and repeatedly gives thinly veiled threats: “I don’t want to catch anyone else trying to take them down… Do it and find out”. He shouts to who appears to be another member of the flagging group in a passing car to “text Harry (Hilden) and tell him I’m here filming them”.
Hilden has organised ‘watch duties’ for his team to prevent anybody from removing the flags. His social media is littered with videos of locals attempting to stop his team from putting flags up, and members of his group respond with the same vague threats: “I dare you to touch that flag… see what happens”. If Hilden was truly representing local interests, surely he would allow locals the freedom to remove flags from outside their homes if they so wish?
In the same area, a Guardian article reported that flaggers shouted ‘Seig Heil’ as they hung flags (no evidence specifically points to Hilden in this case, though). There is a twisted irony in a group of men roaming the streets at night, threatening to hurt those who attempt to remove flags and allegedly shouting Nazi phrases, all in the name of keeping the local community safe from migrants.
Alongside Hilden is Mike Gott. Gott is an ex-National Front member who was given a suspended sentence for assault by beating in 2019. He was also caught in possession of an offensive weapon – a knuckleduster – in a public setting. Gott can be seen at events in Kent draped in the flag of the British National Socialist Movement, the most overtly neo-Nazi organisation in the UK.
If Hilden’s concern over criminal track records is authentic, he clearly had a blind spot when it came to Gott’s grizzly past. Like Saffer, Hilden claims to ‘protect local people’ all while threatening any locals who challenge his views.
In Salford, a flagging campaign has been led by ‘Salford T-bone’ and his team. HOPE not hate revealed that Salford T-bone was none other than Lee Twamley, a man who appeared at the forefront of Britain First‘s ‘March for Remigration’ in Manchester last month, despite being a convicted human trafficker.
In 2016, Twamley pled guilty to conspiring to facilitate illegal entry into the UK. He had attempted to smuggle Vietnamese migrants across the channel in a van in order to pay off drug debts.
Despite this obvious hiccup in his anti-immigration career, Twamley has now taken to hanging flags around Salford and posting “STOP THE BOATS” on social media. Perhaps he is just upset that migrants are not using vans instead.
In Aberdeen, one of the speakers at anti-migrant protests outside Marischal College is Geoffrey Farquharson. He opened his speech by claiming that Jesus was white, and that Scotland should be a white country. He continued the ethnonationalism with the claim that “white countries are allowed to be white” and barked that the men of Aberdeen need to be “the shields to defend” Scottish women and children.
But defend them from whom?
In 2016, Farquharson was given a suspended sentence after he sent a voice message containing death threats to Labour MP Ben Bradshaw. The message also contained racist and homophobic language. How is a man who has been convicted for sending death threats to an MP suited to protecting the community?
His participation in the protest was rooted in racism, not any level of authentic concern for the community. This is a trend we see across protests, whereby migrants are blamed for local crime by the very people who make residents feel most unsafe.
There has also been an uptick in racist hate crimes which are related to flagging and anti-migrant protests.
In Sutton, a music venue had its windows smashed in after the owner confronted a group of men hanging Union Jacks on a lamppost outside. In York, a Chinese takeaway was covered in racist graffiti and St George’s crosses. In Halifax, an NHS worker of 15 years was racially abused by a couple who grabbed her hair and repeatedly asked her if she had “come off a rubber boat”. In Basildon, a man shouted Islamophobic abuse at a woman wearing a headscarf as he painted St George’s flags on the walls of local flats. In the same town, a local mosque was spraypainted with flags.
Operation Raise the Colours claims to be about ‘bringing the community together’. In reality, threats, violence and property damage shows that it is the community who suffers most if they dare to disagree with flaggers.
But there is hope. Through the violence, it is clear that we are certainly no island of strangers.
Over £35,000 was donated to The Sound Lounge in Sutton to cover the costs of the five broken glass panels. Members of the community gathered to scrub the beloved Chinese restaurant in York clean of racist vitriol. A solidarity picnic has been organised in Halifax to unite the community against racist abuse. Volunteers worked through the night to scrub graffiti off the Basildon mosque before worshippers arrived in the morning.
In an unexpected turn of events, anti-migrant activists have been somewhat successful in their pursuit of uniting local people. Unfortunately for them, most locals have united in solidarity against division and hate.
Prefer to listen? Click the play button to hear the audio version. Harry Shukman Reform UK is staffed by oddballs and enigmas, but none odder…
