UK fears new summer of unrest

CONCERN is mounting in Britain that recent violent anti-immigrant protests could herald a new summer of unrest, a year after the UK was rocked by its worst riots in decades.

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Eighteen people have now been arrested since protests flared last week outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in the town of Epping, northeast of London and seven people have been charged, Essex police said on Thursday. In one demonstration, eight police officers were injured.

The unrest was “not just a troubling one-off”, said the chairperson of the Police Federation, Tiff Lynch.

“It was a signal flare. A reminder of how little it takes for tensions to erupt and how ill-prepared we remain to deal with it,” she wrote in the Daily Telegraph. During the demonstrations, protesters shouted “save our children” and “send them home”, while banners called for the expulsion of “foreign criminals”.