War of words City hotel demo met by hundreds of counter-protesters

HERE were angry scenes on the streets of Bristol on Saturday, as a major police operation kept apart anti-immigration protesters trying to get to a hotel in the city centre that houses asylum seekers, and hundreds of counter-protesters who came out to stop them.

- Tristan CORK

The two protests were kept apart and the afternoon was largely peaceful, but noisy and angry, as both sides traded chants rather than missiles and violence.

The major police operation included extra powers to disperse crowds and ask for face masks to be removed, but police were content to allow both sides to continue their protests in large groups, with a 40-yard buffer at the junction of Baldwin Street and Welsh Back.

The protest against the asylum seekers in the Mercure Hotel on Welsh Back was organised largely on Facebook, as part of a series of similar actions at hotels across the country, including some in Somerset. The counter-protest was also arranged on social media, and included several senior figures in Bristol City Council's biggest party, the Greens, who said they were pleased at the turnout to counter the anti-immigration protesters.

Around 300 people gathered outside the hotel on Welsh Back at around 11.30am, half an hour before the scheduled start of the anti-immigration protest. Those arriving off Baldwin Street to gather to protest against the hotel were encouraged by police to head to Castle Park instead. By noon, the number of counter-protesters chanting loudly that “refugees are welcome here” had grown to around 400.

Councillor Lorraine Francis (Green, Eastville) was one of several people who made speeches. “They don't want to educate themselves, look back in history and think about why we are here,’ she said, of the few protesters who had gathered on the other side of a police line.