Calm 'hysteria' over migration and crime, say former ministers

Conservative and Reform UK politicians are fuelling "hysteria and anger" over immigration, with criminal trials put at risk of collapse, former ministers and police have said.

- Jessica Elgot Eleni Courea Vikram Dodd

Protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers have spread across the country in recent weeks, while debate about immigration - including misinformation - has intensified.

At a Reform press conference on Monday, a man awaiting trial was referred to as "the criminal" by a Reform council leader, despite not being convicted of any crime. Questioned on whether contempt laws had been broken, the party's leader, Nigel Farage, said it was "good" that the council leader had become "slightly emotional".

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said yesterday she had asked for a change in official guidance to permit police to release the ethnicity or immigration status of suspects. Dominic Grieve, the former Conservative attorney general, said he was concerned about the "fuelling of hysteria by politicians" and said some were breaking the law by commenting on future trials in serious cases such as rape and abduction. Certain politicians "seem to have thrown the rulebook in the bonfire", he said.

Britain's former head of counter-terrorism said comments from Farage and the Tory shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, risked "unwittingly" inciting violence.

Neil Basu, the former assistant commissioner with the Metropolitan police, said it was "appealing to the worst kind of populist sentiment". Asked if such rhetoric risks repeating last summer's violence, Basu said: "Yes... they should be very careful about the language they use. It is capable, demonstrably, of causing violence."

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, called on the attorney general, Richard Hermer, to issue a formal warning to Farage about comments on live criminal cases.