UK police under ‘chronic pressure’ due to asylum protests
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has warned that increasing tension and division within the country is placing police forces under ‘chronic pressure’.
NPCC chairman Gavin Stephens urged political leaders to avoid sowing further division, highlighting the strain that policing protests related to the migrant crisis has put on forces this summer.
“It’s clear to all of us that we can see more community tension and more division,” Stephens said. “And I think we all have a responsibility, policing included, to set the tone.”
“Anybody in a leadership position should think about how we can reduce and diffuse tensions and not sow division.”
Stephens said the public needed to be aware of the demands placed on policing forces across the country, with this chronic pressure exacerbated by political tension potentially detracting from the day-to-day duties of the police.
“I think people need to understand that the officers, staff and volunteers that respond to this is the same group of officers, staff and volunteers that are doing all the other things that are asked of the police,” he said.
“And so they come from response teams and investigation teams and neighbourhood policing teams and roads policing.”
“We don’t have an extra resource for public order and public safety – it comes from day-to-day duties.”
Protests related to migration have surged in recent months, with many politicians weighing in on the topic and proposing wide-ranging interventions.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced that should his party take power, he would take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and begin the mass deportation of illegal migrants living in the country.
These proposals have attracted criticism from several quarters, including the Institute for Government, which said this would have serious implications for the UK’s international relations and may not be legally possible.
The current Labour government has also continued to tighten the criteria for immigrants and refugees, implementing the raft of changes announced in its Immigration White Paper earlier this year and expanding its reform of the asylum system with new restrictions on the families of those granted asylum in the UK and a pledge to end the usage of asylum hotels.
