UK police brace for more protests as anti-migrant action continues: report
UK Police are preparing for potential disorder in towns across the country this weekend amid the promotion of a range of protests against asylum seekers, with anti-racism activists planning counter-protests.
The Guardian reports that restrictions will be in place on Friday (8 August) at locations including Norwich, while officers will be policing at least 12 other towns and cities that evening.
There are particular concerns around a planned protest on Saturday at council offices in Nuneaton, where Warwickshire police have dismissed claims by a Reform UK council leader that the force held back information over the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl.
“We urge communities to carefully consider the information they read, share and trust from online sources,” Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Operations Coordination Committee, Chief Constable BJ Harrington, told the Guardian.
“It is essential to remain aware of the potential motivations behind such content. We would encourage the public to access formal authorities for accurate information.
“The spread of disinformation and misinformation by individuals or groups can significantly contribute to community tensions and has real-world implications. We all have a responsibility in this respect, and relevant criminal law applies to online actions.”
A new YouGov poll testing attitudes to several immigration scenarios has found that almost half of Britons (45%) say they would support “admitting no more new migrants, and requiring large numbers of migrants who came to the UK in recent years to leave” – a figure which rises to 86% of Reform UK voters, but also encompasses sizeable minorities of Labour and Lib Dem voters (27% apiece).
Key to understanding this finding is the belief among the public that immigration to the UK is primarily ‘illegal’ rather than ‘legal’.
YouGov’s research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
Crucially, this view is held by 72% of those who want to see mass removals. However, these perceptions appear to be wide of the mark.
Estimates of the population of illegal migrants living in the UK range from 120,000 to 1.3 million, with Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf recently putting the figure at 1.2 million.
Regardless of which figure from this range is chosen, it does not come close to the number of migrants living in the UK legally, with 2021/2022 census data putting the entire foreign-born population of the UK at 10.7 million.
If the British public dramatically overestimates the number of illegal migrants to the UK to the extent that they think that most migrants are here illegally, then the possibility arises that, in reality, those who support removals don’t want to see the bulk of migrants removed.
To check this possibility, we tested attitudes towards specific types of migrants among those who want to see large-scale removals.
Unsurprisingly, those who want to see mass deportations almost universally want to see removals of those who come to the UK to claim benefits (91%), small boat migrants (90%), and those coming without work visas to work in unskilled jobs (85%).
