ELECTORAL POLITICS| GOVERNMENT POLICY
As anti-migrant, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI rhetoric in electoral campaigning are increasingly interlinked, we reflect this in the coverage below which also includes information on the influence of the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.
20 August: After Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu claims rising incidents of antisemitism in France since the government officially recognised the Palestinian state, President Macron criticises his ‘abject’ and ‘erroneous’ remarks and accuses him of manipulation. (Guardian, 20 August 2025)
20 August: In the Telegraph, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage calls for more protests outside asylum hotels, stating that ‘Wherever people are concerned about the threat posed by young undocumented males living in local hotels and who are free to walk the streets, they should follow the example of the town in Essex’. (Guardian, 20 August 2025)
22 August: In the Times, Nigel Farage says Reform would carry out mass deportations of small boat arrivals. He plans to deport hundreds of thousands of people, with five charter flights leaving the UK each day, also suggesting that this is the only way to stop public anger spilling over into disorder. (Guardian, 23 August 2025)
22 August: 67 civil society organisations send an open letter to Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urging him to repudiate recent political disparagement of volunteer groups and to reject proposed restrictions on groups working with migrants. (Ekathimerini, 22 August 2025)
23 August: West Yorkshire Labour MP Anna Dixon accuses Conservative MP Robbie Moore of irresponsibly spreading ‘misinformation’ about her stance on ‘grooming gangs’, linking threats of death and misogynistic violence that she received to a video that Moore posted online. (Guardian, 23 August 2025)
24 August: Government sources say ministers will issue guidance to judges tightening the criteria for allowing immigration appeals on human rights grounds following calls from MPs, including one Labour MP, to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (Observer, 24 August 2025)
25 August: The Home Office says it will have a big surge of asylum hotel closures in the new year in an attempt to head off further legal and political challenges and street protests. (Guardian, 25 August 2025)
29 August: Following a reversal by Nigel Farage, who says he would not include women and children in his ‘plans’ to detain and deport 600,000 asylum seekers, the leader of the Conservative party says she would be happy to deport women and children. (Left Foot Forward, 29 August 2025)
29 August: Retiring Merseyside police chief Serena Kennedy criticises politicians, including Nigel Farage, for attacks on EDI and for making questionable statements at times of ‘heightened tension’, such as immediately after the Southport riots. She adds that suggestions of ‘two-tier policing’ are ludicrous and dismisses claims that asylum seekers are to blame for a crime wave. (Guardian, 29 August 2025)
ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT
With anti-migrant, anti-Muslim, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI activities increasingly interlinking, we now incorporate information on the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.
19 August: In Germany, ‘Soko Rex’ investigates two suspected neo-Nazis after a left-wing 19-year-old is attacked and injured in Dresden. Prosecutors say the 36- and 41-year-old men, linked to the far Right, allegedly beat the victim in late July, leaving him with serious facial injuries. (Diesachen, 19 August 2025)
21 August: A media investigation of recent anti-migrant demonstrations lists numerous examples of Reform UK councillors sharing platforms with, being photographed alongside or sharing the posts of far-right or neo-Nazi groups like Patriotic Alternative, the British Movement and the Traditional Britain Group, or expressing support for Tommy Robinson. (Byline Times, 21 August 2025)
🔴The Reform and Conservative Politicians Mingling With Neo-Nazis and Fascists at Asylum Hotel Protests
The recent wave of anti-migrant protests are providing a bridge between right-wing elected politicians and extremist groups
bylinetimes.com/2025/08/21/t…
— Byline Times (@bylinetimes.bsky.social) 24 August 2025 at 00:01
21 August: A teenager who planned a terrorist attack on a mosque in Greenock is sentenced to 10 years’ custody after pleading guilty to two terrorism charges in Glasgow High Court. (Guardian, 21 August 2025)
21 August: As at least 20 far-right protests are planned over the next few days. Stand Up to Racism announces counter-demonstrations in Bournemouth, Cardiff, Chichester, Leeds, Leicester, Orpington, Portsmouth, Bristol, Cannock, Horley, Leicester, Liverpool, Long Eaton, Newcastle and Wakefield. (Morning Star, 21 August 2025)
21 August: A petition to shut down Safeguard Force in Bournemouth, on the grounds that it is a far-right anti-migrant vigilante group, and that its Facebook group ‘Taking Back Our Country’ is awash with Islamophobic and anti-migrant content, gathers over 2,000 signatures. (Bournemouth Echo, 21 August 2025)
22 August: Counter-mobilisations to far-right protests are held in Bromley, Greater London, where anti-refugee protesters target the TLK Apartment Hotels, as well as in Portsmouth. (Morning Star, 22 August 2025)
23 August: In England, ‘Abolish Asylum System’ protests take place in Bristol, Exeter, Tamworth, Cannock, Nuneaton, Liverpool, Wakefield, Newcastle upon Tyne, Horley (Surrey) and Canary Wharf (east London). In Bristol, mounted police are deployed. The Liverpool ‘mass deportations march’ is organised by UKIP. In Horley, near Gatwick airport, police make three arrests outside the Sheraton Hotel, where anti-asylum protesters sing songs in support of Tommy Robinson. (Guardian, 23 August 2025; Bristol Live, 23 August 2025; ITV, 23 August 2025; BBC News, 23 August 2025)
23 August: In Scotland, anti-immigrant protests take place in Perth and Aberdeen. Perth and Kinross Council party leaders issue a joint statement, highlighting misinformation about asylum seekers and stating that ‘welcoming refugees is part of our history, and who we are’. (BBC News, 23 August 2025)
23 August: In Northern Ireland, around 40 people gather outside a hotel being used to house asylum seekers. Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council start an investigation into its legal planning status. (BBC News, 23 August 2025)
23 August: A media analysis of Facebook posts finds that members of the far-right Homeland party have set up a number of online groups to help organise protests outside hotels used to house asylum seekers, including in Epping, Wethersfield, Peterborough and Nuneaton. (Guardian, 23 August 2025)
24 August: Anti-immigration protests are announced in Manchester, Birmingham, Dudley, Norwich, Epping, and London. (Sky News, 24 August 2025)
Demonstrations under the Abolish Asylum System slogan were confronted with anti-racism counter-protestors in Bristol.
Footage shows mounted police separating the two groups in the Castle Park, with officers scuffling with protesters.
Read more: https://t.co/982u3Ktivi pic.twitter.com/tmWhVZwOWS
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 23, 2025
24 August: Political analysts stress that the ‘the widely touted national protest against immigration failed to materialise’ and that headlines like ‘asylum protests swell’ are belied by the actual numbers: around 700 people in seven locations, according to one estimate. (X [Nick Lowles], 23 August 2025; X [Sunder Katwala], 23 August 2025)
26 August: Protesters waving Union Jacks and claiming to be ‘making a stand for Warrington men, women and children’ demonstrate outside the Holiday Inn in Woolston. (Warrington Guardian, 26 August 2025)
28 August: Great Yarmouth is set to host Britain’s biggest white power concert in more than a decade, with over 500 neo-Nazi skinheads expected to attend. The event is organised by Rob Claymore, a British Movement supporter and guitarist in far-right bands, along with Blood and Honour veteran Robert Bray. Despite claims it is non-political, the lineup includes notorious far-right groups linked to Combat 18, Patriotic Alternative, and the banned network Blood and Honour. (HopeNotHate, 28 August 2025)
28 August: Former Polish health minister Adam Niedzielski is assaulted by two men in Siedlce who shout ‘death to traitors of the homeland’, a slogan used by the far Right. He blames the government for withdrawing his protection despite repeated threats over his Covid policies. Police detain the suspects and prime minister Donald Tusk vows there will be ‘no mercy’ for those responsible. (NotesFromPoland, 28 August 2025)
29 August: Retiring Merseyside police chief Serena Kennedy says that there was a ‘far-right and organised element’ to the summer 2024 riots in Southport, with ‘officers on the ground’ reporting that ‘carfuls of people turned up’ to drop people off, swelling the crowd. She points out that white working class people turned out in their numbers to repair the mosque that was attacked at the end of the rally. (Guardian, 29 August 2025)
29 August: Following the High Court ruling overturning the decision to close the Bell Hotel accommodating asylum seekers in Epping, Essex, and as protesters gather outside the Delta Marriot hotel in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the police issue a dispersal order, citing ‘the threat of anti-social behaviour and criminality by people attempting to conceal their identity’ with face masks and balaclavas. Protesters attempt to travel to Epping where at least two arrests are made. (Daily Express, 29 August 2025)
30 August: Five people are arrested as a group of masked men damage security fences and try to force entry into the Crowne Plaza in Stockley Road, West Drayton, during a demonstration called by anti-asylum groups. Demonstrators move towards Novotel and a Holiday Inn in West Drayton and a dispersal order is put in place by police. In Essex, police place a dispersal order and a section 60AA order to enforce the removal of face covering before a planned protest in Epping. In Falkirk, demonstrations are called by Save Our Future and Our Kids Futures over alleged crimes linked to the Cladhan hotel. (Guardian, 30 August 2025; BBC News, 30 August 2025)
31 August: Following a demonstration outside the Britannia International hotel on Marsh Wall, police fire pepper spray inside Canary Wharf shopping centre in east London as they clash with aggressive masked anti-migrant hotel protestors. A police officer is allegedly punched in the face and four people are arrested. (The Standard, 1 September 2025; Guardian, 31 August 2025)
ANTI-TERRORISM AND NATIONAL SECURITY
27 August: Carmarthenshire council and associated safeguarding boards criticise multi-agency oversights in relation to a failure to refer to Prevent the 13-year-old Child A, who stabbed her teachers and was subsequently convicted of attempted murder after having expressed a fascination with Hitler and weapons. (Guardian, 27 August 2025)
POLICING| PRISONS| CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
27 August: Five complaints are made against Avon & Somerset police, as Stand Up to Racism and the Green party allege ‘appalling’ behaviour towards anti-racist protesters opposing an anti-immigration rally in Bristol, where people were hit over the head with truncheons and police used horses to push counter-protesters back. (B247, 27 August 2025)
28 August: Police Scotland warn the public not to share misinformation about an incident in Dundee in which a Bulgarian couple were approached by young people, including a 12-year old girl in possession of a bladed weapon, who claimed she had been harassed by migrants. A crowdfunder on social media, which depicts the arrested girl as Braveheart, generates £20,000 in donations. (Guardian, 28 August 2025)
30 August: In Berlin, Germany, the Irish Ambassador contacts German authorities to express concern after Kitty O’Brien, an Irish demonstrator, is struck twice in the face and dragged away by a police officer during a protest in Berlin in support of Palestine, and requires surgery for an arm injury sustained during the incident. (RTE, 30 August 2025)
ASYLUM | MIGRATION| BORDERS| CITIZENSHIP
Asylum and migrant rights
21 August: Home Office statistics to the year ending June 2025 show that the number of positive grant rates for initial asylum decisions has dropped from 58 to 48 per cent, with sharp drops in grant rates for nationalities such as Afghan and Turkish, and an increasing backlog of appeals against unsuccessful decisions. (EIN, 22 August 2025)
24 August: The home secretary is to establish a ‘swift’ asylum appeals system to clear the growing backlog, composed of ‘professional adjudicators’ instead of a tribunal judge and independent of government, with ‘statutory powers to prioritise cases from those in asylum accommodation and foreign national offenders’. (Guardian, 24 August 2025)
24 August: Refugee Action, along with refugee and asylum rights organisations across the UK, launch a petition calling for an end to the racist rhetoric from politicians and the media. (Left Foot Forward, 24 August 2025)
Along with 212 organisations, we’re calling on all party leaders in the UK to end the divisive politics, racist rhetoric and demonising language of the past. Thanks to @RefugeeTogether for rallying everyone. You can read the full letter here:https://t.co/aIj9qW94RO
— Detention Action (@DetentionAction) August 12, 2025
25 August: A Hope Not Hate investigation exposes posts criticising asylum seekers on a social media account belonging to a Reform councillor for Crook, Durham, Paul Bean, who works for the Home Office processing immigration and asylum claims. (Guardian, 25 August 2025)
28 August: A Refugee Council report proposes a one-off scheme granting limited leave to remain to asylum seekers already in the system from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Syria, saying it would allow the Home Office to end the use of hotels by March 2026, as the current plan to end hotel use in 2029 is too slow. (EIN, 28 August 2025)
30 August: Following media reports that asylum seekers used their small weekly allowance on gambling, the Home Office issues an extensive list of banned items, luxury goods and services that cannot be bought on the Aspen cards provided. (Guardian, 30 August 2025)
31 August: Following a dramatic drop in successful Afghan asylum applications and the Home Office declaring it cannot send people back to Afghanistan, thousands of Afghan asylum seekers, including 400 women and girls, are stuck in limbo, unable to work and dependent on subsistence from the Home Office. (Observer, 31 August 2025)
1 September: Yvette Cooper tells the Commons that until tighter rules are in place for family reunion for refugees, which she says are now outdated, reunion applications are suspended. In addition, single adults granted asylum are being given 28 days as opposed to 56 days to move out of hotels and find their own accommodation. (Guardian, 1 September 2025)
Borders and internal controls
20 August: The Greek coastguard, which has been implicated in dozens of illegal pushbacks to Turkish waters, completes a month-long training for Libyan coastguard officers to help curb irregular migration flows across the Mediterranean. (Ekathimerini, 20 August 2025)
24 August: The Libyan coastguard, which is funded and supported by Italy and the EU, fires hundreds of rounds at the Ocean Viking, a rescue ship which has just rescued dozens of people, including nine lone children, in international waters, causing severe damage to the ship but leaving survivors and crew unharmed. (Euractiv, 25 August 2025)
26 August: As the government launches a national crackdown on ‘illegal working’, FOI requests by Bristol Cable, who spoke to delivery drivers and Bristol Anti-Raids Network, reveal that the number of raids in Bristol has more than tripled in the past five years, with Wales and the West of England having the most ‘illegal working’ arrests outside London between July 2024 and January 2025. (Bristol Cable, 26 August 2025)
2 September: As the Conservatives and Reform UK pressure the government to declare a ‘national emergency’ on migration and ‘illegal’ immigration, the Home Office say they will write individually to 130,000 international students and their families to warn that if they overstay, they will be forced to leave. (Guardian, 2 September 2025)
2 September: 33-year-old Fernando Fontoura, who came to the UK aged 12 and has official documents showing he grew up in the UK, is arrested and detained during the government’s crackdown on ‘illegal working’. Although he is now bailed, he must report to the Home Office fortnightly and his national insurance number is revoked. (Guardian, 2 September 2025)
Reception and detention
19 August: Following weeks of protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, the High Court grants Epping Forest district council an interim injunction to stop housing asylum seekers in the hotel by 12 September, citing a breach of planning law by the owners, as Reform UK’s deputy leader says they will look at mounting similar cases over hotels in the 10 council areas they control. (Guardian, 19 August 2025; Guardian, 19 August 2025)
25 August: The Home Office plans a ‘big surge’ in asylum hotel closures in the new year, with at least five planned closures this year. (Guardian, 25 August 2025)
26 August: Six staff members at the Manston asylum centre speak to the Guardian about asylum seekers arriving exhausted and traumatised following increasingly dangerous crossings, as FOI data reveals a sevenfold increase in people taken to A&E. Staff also report that some colleagues are hostile and show very little concern. (Guardian, 26 August 2025)
26 August: Over 100 people who crossed the Channel in ‘small boats’ are detained to be returned to France under the ‘one in, one out’ policy. No-one who has applied to come through the safe route exchange has received any response from the Home Office. The government says it will launch a ‘communications campaign’ to warn people in the French camps that if they travel, they will be returned. (Guardian, 26 August 2025)
27 August: Home Office statistics collated by Medical Justice show that in 2024, force was used over 1,100 times across the immigration detention estate. (Medical Justice, 27 August 2025)
29 August: The Court of Appeal reverses the High Court ban on accommodating asylum seekers at the Bell Hotel, Epping pending a full hearing in October of the council’s legal challenge, acknowledging that the ban encourages more protests and more applications for bans by local authorities who don’t want asylum seekers. (Guardian, 29 August 2025)
29 August: Following an article in the Sun, a government minister says that a service highlighted in a recent HM Inspectorate of Prisons report as helping detainees manage stress at the Heathrow immigration removal centre is unnecessary and should be cancelled. (Guardian, 29 August 2025)
31 August: The High Court orders the release of a 25-year-old man from Nigeria who was sentenced to a term of imprisonment in Scotland from October 2024 to January 2025. The asylum seeker, who suffers from schizophrenia, unknowingly signed an agreement to withdraw his asylum application prior to his release when the home secretary ordered that he be detained in prison to prevent him from absconding. (Guardian, 31 August 2025)
Crimes of solidarity
20 August: A court in Latgale, Latvia, sentences Ieva Raubiško, project manager of the organisation I Want to Help Refugees, to 200 hours of community service for ‘aiding’ the irregular entry of five Syrian refugees into the country in 2023. (LSM, 20 August 2025)
EDUCATION
Although we do not cover student protests for Palestine, we do track university administrative measures that deny the right to protest and authorise the use of force, or silence pro-Palestinian voices and display anti-Palestinian bias.
20 August: After months of campaigning by rights groups, university leaders and over 100 MPs, the government tells nine of the 40 students from Gaza with full scholarships for British universities that it will facilitate their evacuation. The Home Office has refused to waive pre-flight biometric testing (unavailable in Gaza since October 2023) for the over 80 Gazan students who have confirmed university places. (Guardian, 20 August 2025)
CULTURE| MEDIA| SPORT
While we cannot cover all incidents of racist abuse on sportspersons or their responses, we provide a summary of the most important incidents. For more information follow Kick it Out.
See also racial harassment and violence section for more on Operation Raise the Colours
20 August: Paul Weller, former frontman of The Jam, files a discrimination claim against his ex-accountants Harris and Trotter after they cut ties with him over his statements accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, and vows to donate any damages to humanitarian relief efforts. (Sky News, 20 August 2025)
20 August: Nearly 800 current and former Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) players sign a petition urging it to drop Allianz as a sponsor after a UN report links the insurer to investments tied to Israel’s actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Allianz defends its partnership with the GAA, while the association says it will review the correspondence. (RTE, 20 August 2025)
21 August: As criticism of the broadcasting regulator’s failure to take action against GB News’ hateful language mounts, an Ofcom bulletin records that although it had received 96 complaints over an interview in which both presenter and interviewer joked about starving and shooting disabled benefit claimants, no action was taken. Ofcom also ruled the use of a transphobic slur ‘in line with audience expectations for this channel’. (Byline Times, 21 August 2025)
🔴Ofcom Refuses to Investigate GB News Over Call to Shoot Disabled Benefit Claimants
The watchdog also refused to investigate a complaint about a presenter’s use of an anti-trans slur, saying the comments were “in line with audience expectations for this channel”
bylinetimes.com/2025/08/21/o…
— Byline Times (@bylinetimes.bsky.social) 23 August 2025 at 13:57
24 August: Criticism grows of Operation Raise the Colours, which encourages people across the country to fly Union Jacks and the St George’s Cross and is supported by the right-wing media. Evidence accumulates of an upsurge of prejudice and racist incidents, with far-right agitators linked to the campaign. (Guardian, 20 August 2025; Hope Not Hate, 22 August 2025; Guardian, 24 August 2025; BBC News, 24 August 2025)
26 August: London-based streaming service Mubi faces growing backlash after accepting $100 million from Sequoia Capital, an investor with ties to Israeli defence tech, as signatories to a protest letter rise from 63 to 107, including screenwriter Paul Laverty and Israeli directors Ari Folman and Nadav Lapid. (Variety, 26 August 2025)
27 August: BBC Scotland host Gary Robertson apologises after SNP MP Stephen Gethins accuses him of echoing far-right rhetoric during a live interview on Good Morning Scotland. Robertson had asked whether protesters were right to say asylum seekers get advantages over the ‘indigenous population’, a phrase Gethins challenged. (The National, 27 August 2025)
28 August: Police arrest a 59-year-old man from Lancashire over racist and abusive messages sent to England defender Jess Carter during the Women’s Euros. (Sky News, 28 August 2025)
29 August: A BBC Proms concert by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) at the Royal Albert Hall is interrupted for more than 10 minutes by pro-Palestinian protesters holding signs and shouting accusations of complicity in genocide. The group Jewish Artists for Palestine claims responsibility, citing MSO’s past cancellation of pianist Jayson Gillham and its links to Israeli cultural institutions. (BBC News, 29 August 2025)
29 August: La Liga files a complaint to Spain’s National Police after alleged racist chants imitating monkey sounds target Vinicius Jr and Kylian Mbappe during Real Madrid’s 3-0 win over Real Oviedo on 24 August. (The Athletic, 29 August 2025)
2 September: Spanish football club Villarreal faces backlash after signing Israeli winger Manor Solomon, with criticism focusing on his past social media posts defending Israel’s actions in Gaza. Supporters accuse the club of ignoring controversial statements such as ‘they bomb themselves and then blame us’. (El Desmarque, 2 September 2025)
RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT
For details of court judgements on racially motivated and other hate crimes, see also POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
20 August: Around 200 organisations working to stop violence against women and girls write to the government criticising those who use ‘women and girls’ pain and trauma’ for political gain, such as MPs who freely share false statistics about the nationality of perpetrators. (Women for Refugee Women, 20 August 2025)
20 August: After the far Right, including Tommy Robinson, shares a video online (stolen from a family TikTok account) of a Black man playing with his white granddaughter, Olajuwon Ayeni says he was racially abused and labelled a paedophile, with his local MP having to write a character reference after he was suspended from his job. (Guardian, 20 August 2025)
21 August: Half of NGOs and charities supporting people seeking refugees report having received threatening messages and harassing phone calls since the summer 2024 riots, also reporting a ‘hostile environment’ of protest, and safety concerns, particularly in relation to anti-migrant protesters making video recordings of refugee organisations’ premises and sharing them online. (Guardian, 21 August 2025)
21 August: Examples of harassment reported by asylum seekers at the Bell Hotel in Epping include being called ‘scumbags’, having cans of soda thrown at them and having protesters coming up to the windows of their rooms and filming them. Children are reportedly traumatised by the protests. (Guardian, 21 August 2025)
21 August: In Belfast, escalating campaigns of racist intimidation, particularly in the loyalist Protestant-controlled east Belfast, involve vigilante squads seeking out dark-skinned males and challenging them to produce identity documents, with some interrogations filmed and uploaded on social media. (Guardian, 21 August 2025)
22 August: Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon says that he has been advised to consider his own home security. The refugee and migration sector make ‘personal safety at work’ part and parcel of their jobs as far-right influencers post pictures and names of chief executives. (Guardian, 22 August 2025)
24 August: A man is arrested on suspicious of a racially aggravated public order offence and conspiracy to commit criminal damage following multiple reports from the public about a video circulating online which appears to show racial abuse hurled at a woman wearing a headscarf and her young child, while someone paints the St George’s flag over shops. (LBC, 24 August 2025)
24 August: In Oslo, Norway, an 18-year-old resident of a youth welfare institution is arrested on suspicion of terrorism after Tamina Nibras Juhar, a social worker born in Ethiopia, is found dead at the centre. The prosecutor states that the suspect had ‘expressed hostile opinions toward Muslims’. Unconfirmed reports on social media also suggest the suspect planned to attack a mosque. (Arab News, 25 August 2025)
26 August: Northamptonshire Reform councillor Robert Bloom resigns following accusations that he racially harassed a neighbouring Black family, using the ‘n’ word and telling them he would set the English Defence League onto them and that there would be ‘black body bags’. (Northamptonshire Telegraph, 26 August 2025; UNISON East Midlands, 26 August 2025)
27 August: As part of the Shared Endeavour programme, London mayor Sadiq Khan announces a further £875,000 funding for 20 grassroots projects to tackle hate crime, intolerance and extremism, with a total investment of £16m aimed at delivering projects to around 50,000 Londoners. (Gov.UK, 27 August 2025)
27 August: Sam Burgess appears in court charged with burglary, trespass, and using threatening behaviour after allegedly entering the Brook Hotel in Bowthorpe, Norwich, which accommodates asylum seekers. He denies the charges. (BBC News, 27 August 2025)
27 August: In Paris, France, two brothers are charged with racially and religiously aggravated desecration of a monument after a memorial tree to a French Jewish murder victim is felled. (Le Monde, 27 August 2025)
28 August: Police Service Northern Ireland data reveals that racial violence has reached record levels, with 1,329 crimes with a racial motivation recorded in the 12 months to the end of June 2025, almost half of which took place in the Belfast City Council area. Figures include two cycles of street disorder in Belfast and Ballymena linked to anti-immigration protests. (BBC News, 28 August 2025)
29 August: The South Essex Islamic Centre in Vange, near Basildon, is vandalised with a St George’s Cross painted onto its walls, as well as the words ‘This is England’ and ‘Christ is King’. Police launch an investigation into racially aggravated criminal damage. (BBC News, 29 August 2025; Independent, 29 August 2025)
2 September: Prominent UK feminists, including politicians such as Zarah Sultana and Diane Abbott and performers such as Charlotte Church, sign a letter telling racist right-wingers not to fuel hate and division by exploiting violence against women. (Guardian, 2 September 2025)
This calendar is researched by IRR staff and compiled by Sophie Chauhan, with the assistance of Graeme Atkinson, Sam Berkson, Margaret McAdam and Louis Ordish. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association, Research Against Global Authoritarianism and Stopwatch, whose regular updates on asylum, migration, far Right, racial violence, employment and policing issues are an invaluable source of information. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.