Calendar of Racism and Resistance (5 – 20 August 2025)

Calendar of Racism and Resistance (5 – 20 August 2025)

August 21 2025 News

Written by: IRR News Team


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.

8 August: Rupert Lowe, independent MP for Great Yarmouth, donates £1,000 to a charity after mistaking the four-person crew of an ocean rowing boat raising money for the charity for ‘illegal migrants’, posting images of them on social media and reporting them to the authorities. (Guardian, 8 August 2025)

8 August: Bournemouth MP Jessica Toale warns against self-appointed unregulated vigilante groups patrolling the seaside resort following the formation of Safeguard Force. Other sources identify the group as targeting migrants. (Bournemouth Echo, 8 August 2025; Daily Express, 8 August 2025)

8 August: After the Reform UK leader of Nuneaton council accuses the police of covering up the claim that two men arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old girl are Afghan asylum seekers, Warwickshire’s chief constable publishes his response, saying he had contacted the Home Office to establish their asylum status and ‘did not and will not cover up such criminality’. (Guardian, 8 August 2025)

10 August: The Runnymede Trust and JCWI criticise government proposals to allow police to reveal the ethnicity and migration status of crime suspects. These proposals will embolden the far Right by linking migration to crime, ‘undermine what’s left of justice in this country’ and send a chilling message that some people are inherently more ‘suspect’. (Guardian, 10 August 2025)

11 August: According to an analysis by Nesrine Malik, in the past week alone the prime minister has posted 14 times on X about illegal immigration, a ‘wildly disproportionate emphasis’ considering this cohort makes up a minuscule percentage of overall immigration to the UK. (Guardian, 11 August 2025)

11 August: On a visit to Epping following far-right anti-migrant protests, opposition leader Kemi Badenoch asks: ‘Is it possible for us to set up camps and police that, rather than bringing all of this hassle into communities?’ (National, 11 August 2025) 

11 August: Following weeks of protests outside asylum hotels across the country, a letter coordinated by Together with Refugees and signed by over 200 refugee organisations, charities and trade unions, calls on political leaders to stop whipping up the racist rhetoric, demonising language and misinformation that underpins protests. (Guardian, 11 August 2025)


11 August: In Ireland, following racist attacks on the Indian community, the minister of state for migration calls on the incoming Garda commissioner to provide clarity as to the level of resources deployed to combat racist crimes and develop a more proactive response. The government is working with social media companies to clamp down on hate speech. (RTE, 11 August 2025)

11 August: The home secretary tells the BBC that Palestine Action ‘is not a non-violent organisation’, claiming that court restrictions mean that people ‘don’t know the full nature’ of its activities. (BBC News, 11 August 2025; Guardian, 12 August 2025)

11 August: Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, accuses government ministers of making false and defamatory allegations about the banned group, and of contradicting a report of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, a government body within MI5, which, though secret, was disclosed in court. (Guardian, 12 August 2025)

13 August: The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing adopt official guidance allowing them to disclose the ethnicity and migration status of suspects charged in high-profile and sensitive investigations when there is a ‘policing purpose’ for doing so. (Guardian, 13 August 2025)

13 August: Reform UK launches a ‘Women for Reform’ campaign, focusing on the safety and security of women and girls. Hope Not Hate point out that Reform is ‘a misogynist magnet’, with Nigel Farage describing Andrew Tate ‘as an important voice for young men’. (Facebook [Hope Not Hate], 13 August 2025)

Yesterday, Reform UK launched their ‘Women for Reform’ campaign, claiming they care about the safety and security of women and girls. The truth? Nigel Farage’s party has a serious problem with misogyny. 🧵

[image or embed]

— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate.org.uk) 12 August 2025 at 17:00

14 August: The grandfather of Bebe King, one of three children killed in the knife attack in Southport in 2024, urges ministers to reconsider their demand for new police guidelines, saying they were following in the footsteps of Nigel Farage and Reform. He criticises the far Right for their ‘despicable’ acts and for trying to make political gain out of the family’s tragedy. (Guardian, 14 August 2025)

14 August: Turning Point UK boasts that Conservative MP Suella Braverman has made history by being the first MP to attend an anti-migrant protest in her Waterlooville, Hampshire, constituency. (Facebook [Turning Point UK}, 15 August 2025)

15 August: The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) writes to the government and the head of the Metropolitan police expressing concern at a potentially ‘heavy-handed’ approach to protests about Gaza and calling for clearer guidance for officers on their human rights obligations while enforcing the law. (Guardian, 15 August 2025)

15 August: Five human rights organisations, including the Quakers, call on the attorney general to suspend charges or trials of those arrested for supporting Palestine Action, pending a judicial review and ‘in the public interest’. The total number of people arrested under the Terrorism Act now stands at more than 700. Most have been bailed but at least ten have been charged. (Guardian, 15 August 2025)

16 August: A media investigation into the social media posts of Jack Anderton, who ran Farage’s TikTok account before advising Reform UK mayoral candidates in Hull and East Yorkshire, reveals that he suggested that Britain would be better off if it had stayed neutral in WWII instead of fighting Nazi Germany and that Britain’s international standing would be enhanced if Britain could ‘regain’ former colonies such as Australia, Canada and South Africa. (Guardian, 16 August 2025) 

17 August: Patrick Harley, Conservative leader of Dudley Council in the West Midlands, initiates a legal challenge to keep the Home Office from housing asylum seekers in hotels in the area. Dudley Council currently houses one asylum seeker. (BBC News, 17 August 2025)

18 August: A Labour party spokesperson criticises shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick for attending an anti-asylum rally in Epping, where former BNP strategist Eddy Butler was present and where police vans were vandalised by groups of men taking part in the demonstration. Eddy Butler, who can be seen in a photograph behind Jenrick, boasted on Facebook about ‘riding shotgun for Robert Jenrick’. (Guardian, 18 August 2025)

19 August: Epping Forest council wins an interim injunction in the High Court, which orders the Bell Hotel to stop housing asylum seekers and remove those housed there, in what campaigners describe as a ‘terrible concession to racism’. (Morning Star, 19 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.

6 August: Polish president Karol Nawrocki takes office, vowing to block abortion reform, restrict support for Ukrainian refugees and oppose deeper EU integration, and setting up a clash with prime minister Donald Tusk. Backed by Trump and the Law and Justice party, he promises to use his veto power to push a nationalist agenda. (RFI, 6 August 2025)

 7 August: Following raids in Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia, Bavarian police arrest three suspected Reichsbürger members accused of plotting to overthrow Germany’s constitutional order. Authorities, who seized weapons and data, say that the far-right group held weapons training to prepare an armed assault on the Bundestag. (DW, 7 August 2025) 

8 August: Police commanders at a national level place 3,000 riot police on standby under the control of the National Police Coordination Centre to deal with anti-migration and counter protests in England and Wales, predicting protests at around 20 hotels. (Guardian, 8 August 2025)

8 August: Anti-refugee protests are held outside the Serco-run asylum accommodation-linked Cresta Court Hotel, Altrincham, Greater Manchester; the Britannia Hotel, Canary Wharf; Bell Hotel, Epping; Brook Hotel, Norwich; Britannia Hotel, Bournemouth; and the Mercure Bristol Brigstow Hotel. Protests are also held in North London (Islington), Southampton, Aldershot and Portsmouth, where the Home Office announces that plans to house asylum seekers in Waterlooville have been scrapped. All are met with counter-protests. (ITV, 9 August 2025; LBC 9 August 2025; Norwich Evening News , 8 August 2025; Sky News, 8 August 2025; Portsmouth News, 9 August 2025; Bournemouth Echo, 9 August 2025; Guardian, 8 August 2025; Bristol Post, 9 August 2025; Morning Star, 10 August 2025)

8 August: Lawmakers from Slovakia’s ruling party face backlash after meeting far-right influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan, who are both under investigation for rape and human trafficking. (Intelli News, 8 August 2025)

9 August: In Nuneaton, Warwickshire, a Nuneaton Says No ‘remigration protest’ takes place outside council offices, organised on Facebook by the far-right Homeland Party following the arrest of two Afghan men, reportedly asylum seekers, on allegations of kidnapping and rape of a 12-year old girl. Heavily outnumbered counter-protesters are accused of ‘protecting paedophiles’. (Guardian, 9 August 2025)

9 August: In Liverpool, a far-right protest is held outside the Richard Apart-Hotel after reports that the Home Office plans to use it to accommodate male asylum seekers. Anti-refugee protests also take place in Bournemouth, Birmingham and Bristol. It emerges that one of three men arrested following a protest last week outside a hotel in Hoylake, Wirral, has been charged with support for a proscribed organisation. (Liverpool Echo, 9 August 2025; Morning Star, 10 August 2025)

10 August: In Scotland, small far-right mobilisations against refugees in Aberdeen, Perth and Peterhead are outnumbered by trade union-backed counter-protesters.(Morning Star, 10 August 2025)

15 August: Anti-immigrant protesters, shouting ‘send them back’ gather outside the Britannia Hotel in Stockport, Greater Manchester. A smaller counter protest is held. Protests and counter-protests are also held at the Britannia Seacroft Hotel in Leeds. (Socialist Worker, 16 August 2025)

15 August: Dutch authorities arrest a 24-year-old suspected far-right terrorist in Badhoevedorp, near Amsterdam, as he allegedly prepares an attack. Police find firearms, ammunition and evidence of illegal weapons production at his squatted home, and he admits ties to far-right and white nationalist groups including the Geuzenbond. (NL Times, 15 August 2025)

16 August: In Scotland, ‘Save Our Future & Our Kids Future’ organises a protest against ‘uncontrolled immigration’ outside the former Cladhan Hotel, Falkirk, where asylum seekers are accommodated and a former resident was recently jailed for the 2023 rape of a 15-year-old girl. The group claims to be local with no far-right affiliations. Britain First and Great British National Protest support the protest. A counter-protest backed by the local trades’ council takes place. (Falkirk Herald, 16 August 2025, The National, 16 August 2025)

16 August: In Cannock, Staffordshire, the third anti-immigration protest in recent weeks takes place outside the Roman Hotel. Protests also take place outside the Cedar Court Hotel, Wakefield, West Yorkshire; and in Maidstone, attended by five Reform UK councillors and Nick Tenconi of UKIP); while a far-right protest planned at the Britannia Country House Hotel, Didsbury, intended to go on to the mosque, is called off after Stand Up to Racism organises a counter-protest. (Express & Star, 16 August 2025; Socialist Worker, 16 August 2025; SUTR, 16 August 2025)

17 August: Anti-immigrant protests take place outside the Brook Hotel in Norwich; the Britannia Hotel, Canary Wharf; a hotel accommodating asylum seekers in Dudley, West Midlands and at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex – the latter organised on Facebook by Callum Barker of the neo-Nazi group Homeland, with other neo-Nazis present, according to Stand Up to Racism. (Daily Express, 18 August 2025; (Norwich Evening News, 17 August 2025; BBC News, 17 August 2025)

18 August: Far-right groups stage a protest outside Glamorgan council offices in Barry, South Wales against Afghan refugees being housed at a hotel near Rhoose, outside Cardiff, and are outnumbered by anti-racist counter-protesters. (Morning Star, 18 August 2025)

19 August: Far Right Watch Wales says neo-nazis are campaigning for Reform UK while the party fails to intervene to stop them or dissociate from them. (Morning Star, 19 August 2025)

POLICING| PRISONS| CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

8 August: Since the proscription of Palestine Action, at least 200 people – including priests, vicars, retired magistrates, teachers and a former government lawyer – have been arrested. Lawyers for Laura Murton, threatened by armed police with arrest at a demonstration in Canterbury, launch a legal action for unlawful conduct against Kent police. (Guardian, 8 August 2025; Guardian 8 August 2025; Middle East Eye, 7 August 2025)

9 August: In the highest recorded number of arrests in relation to a single operation for at least a decade, police in London, reinforced by officers from other forces, arrest more than 450 people for showing support for Palestine Action. Defend Our Juries reports that most are given street bail. The home secretary thanks the police. Amnesty calls the mass arrests ‘deeply concerning’, ‘disproportionate to the point of absurdity’ and a threat to ‘freedom of expression’. The Institute of Race Relations says that criminalisation and the silencing of pro-Palestinian narratives is not the answer to public anger over genocide. (Guardian, 9 August 2025)


9 August: Police apologise after a man wearing a ‘Plasticine Action’ T-shirt, in the same colours as the Palestine Action logo, is arrested at the pro-Palestine rally in Westminster. (Morning Star, 19 August 2025)

10 August: Met police data shows that over half of those arrested in London under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act on 9 August for displaying placards or signs were aged 60 or above. All those arrested were released and none charged. Authorities report that since the proscription of Palestine Action, ten people have been charged. (Guardian, 10 August 2025)

11 August: The total number of people sentenced for the summer 2024 violence in Rotherham following protest outside a hotel accommodating asylum seekers rises to 104. A judge, sentencing four men for their part in the riot, says ‘the venom of racism and racially motivated violence suffuses the events from first to last’. (Independent, 11 August 2025)

12 August: The number of people arrested over the weekend of 9-10 August under the Terrorism Act (in relation to the proscription of Palestine Action) rises to 532. (Guardian, 12 August 2025)

13 August: The Public Interest Law Centre and ELSC call on the Solicitors Regulation Authority to investigate UK Lawyers for Israel, already under investigation by the Charity Commission, saying it acts as an unregulated law firm. The group has issued Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPS) against eight pro-Palestine civil society groups including music and film groups. (Declassified UK, 13 August 2025)

15 August: A jury finds Labour councillor Ricky Jones not guilty of encouraging violent disorder at an anti-fascist rally in Walthamstow during last August’s far-right riots. Lawyers argued that his comments about cutting the throats of Nazis were in the context of National Front stickers found on trains with razor blades hidden behind them. Shadow communities secretary James Cleverly is amongst right-wing figures describing the verdict as perverse. (Guardian, 15 August 2025)

15 August: Philip Hoban, founder member of online group Predator Exposure UK, is found guilty of racially aggravated threatening behaviour, along with James Gettings. At a far-right demonstration in Leeds on 3 August, Hoban made racist gestures at counter-protesters while imitating Muslims at prayer. (BBC News, 15 August 2025)

18 August: In Portugal, the Public Prosecutor’s Office charges two Olhão PSP officers in connection with the March 2024 beating of a Moroccan man who suffered severe head injuries. 37-year-old Aita Ait Aissa died in hospital 19 days after he was allegedly handcuffed and transported, alongside another Moroccan man, to a secluded area, and brutally beaten. (Portugal Resident, 18 August 2025)

ASYLUM | MIGRATION| BORDERS| CITIZENSHIP

Asylum and migrant rights

7 August: Lawyers say Palestinians applying for humanitarian visas to Belgium from Gaza are being told they cannot apply online and must travel to Jerusalem or Cairo to apply, despite court rulings that online applications should be accepted. (Politico, 7 August 2025)

16 August: A cyber-attack on Inflite The Jet Centre Ltd, a Ministry of Defence contractor, exposes the personal data of up to 3,700 people, including refugees who flew into London Stansted airport between January and March 2024 as part of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy. (Guardian, 16 August 2025)

18 August: New rules on family reunion come into force in Belgium, raising the minimum income threshold and the minimum age for spouses while introducing a two-year wait for those on temporary protection visas. Access to asylum procedures is also tightened. (Belga, 18 August 2025; Brussels Times, 14 August 2025)

18 August: Following contact with Desmond Jaddoo, a Windrush campaigner, the Home Office admits that 72-year-old George Lee is a victim of the Windrush scandal. Lee came from Jamaica to London as an 8-year-old to join his mother in 1961, but was unable to return to the UK after travelling to Poland in 1998 to teach English. He is now back in the UK but is refused back payment of his state pension. (Guardian, 18 August 2025) 

Borders and internal controls

6 August: The first small-boat migrants are detained under the UK-European Applicant Transfer Scheme – the ‘One in, one out’ agreement with France, in force from today until June 2026, whereby those arriving can be returned to France in exchange for the same number who have registered an interest online rather than attempting the journey. (EIN, 7 August 2025; UK Human Rights Blog, 11 August 2025)

7 August: The Court of Justice of the EU orders Frontex to appear to answer a complaint by a Sudanese asylum seeker in hiding in Libya, who says Frontex reveals the coordinates of all migrant boats to the Libyan coastguard, assisting interceptions and returns to Libya, which put migrants at risk of detention and torture. (El Diario, 7 August 2025)

9 August: Immigration and enforcement teams are to receive a further £5 million in funding to conduct raids and checks on ‘illegal’ work. In the week of 20 to 27 July, officers stopped and questioned 1,780 delivery riders and arrested 280 people. (Eastern Eye, 9 August 2025)

11 August: The Independent Monitoring Authority for Citizens’ Rights Agreements expresses ‘serious concerns’, saying that EU citizens awaiting a decision on their pre-Brexit residency status should not be removed from the UK if they make a short return visit abroad. (Guardian, 11 August 2025)

12 August: A woman believed to be in her thirties dies trying to board a boat off a beach near Dunkirk, France, in the dark early hours. At least 20 people have died trying to cross the Channel this year, leading Dunkirk mayor Patrice Vergriete to condemn the ‘absurd, ineffective and terribly cruel management of the migration crisis’ and to call for safe routes to the UK. (The I paper, 12 August 2025)

13 August: At least 26 people die, with ten more missing, as two boats sink off the Italian island of Lampedusa, on the dangerous central Mediterranean route from north Africa which has claimed the lives of 370 people this year, with 300 more missing. (Arab News, 13 August 2025; InfoMigrants, 18 August 2025)

17 August: A man found dead in a camp at Loon-Plage, France, is believed to have committed suicide. The charity Utopia 56 underlines how difficult conditions are for those waiting to cross to the UK. The death follows that of a Sudanese man of about 22 whose body was found in a canal near Grande-Synthe camp, Dunkirk, and who witnesses say fell into the water as he was trying to wash. (InfoMigrants, 18 August 2025)

Reception and detention

18 August: As thousands of Ukrainian refugees face homelessness, an FOI request from Ukrainian Refugee Help reveals that 150 councils have underspent £327 million of a £1 billion budget, most of which most was spent on paying staff and partner organisations, with just £22 million spent on temporary accommodation for Ukrainians and £15 million towards accessing private rented accommodation. (Guardian, 18 August 2025)

Deportations

9 August: Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood announces plans to deport any foreign national immediately following conviction and incarceration, instead of 30 percent of the way through their sentence, and will bar them from re-entering the UK. (Guardian, 9 August 2025)

12 August: Deportations from Austria to Syria are halted by an interim order of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which asks the government to reconsider the risks in the light of the apparent disappearance of a man deported there in July. (InfoMigrants, 13 August 2025)

14 August: The ECtHR orders Greece not to deport eight Sudanese men who arrived in Crete from Libya until domestic courts have heard their appeals, in a case challenging the government’s 14 July law suspending asylum procedures for those arriving irregularly from north Africa. (Ekathimerini, 19 August 2025)

18 August: The German interior and foreign ministers are being sued in a criminal court for their failure to provide assistance to Afghans accepted for settlement but still in Pakistan, who are now being deported back to Afghanistan. (EU Observer, 18 August 2025)

Crimes of solidarity

8 August: Italian authorities detain the reconnaissance plane Seabird 1 used by German search and rescue NGO Sea-Watch, alleging that the crew failed to notify authorities of an emergency situation at sea. This marks the first time the plane has been grounded in what the charity calls ‘a new escalation’ in the ‘fight against civilian human rights observation’. (Reuters, 8 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.

7 August: 52 leading scholars from around the world sign an open letter denouncing the government ban on Palestine Action as an ‘attack on fundamental freedoms’ and expressing concern about the impact on universities. (Middle East Eye, 7 August 2025)

8 August: SOAS Palestine Society president Haya Adam is expelled, and accuses the university of using her in order to ‘intimidate the rest of the student body’ after a disciplinary panel finds her guilty of ‘unacceptable behaviour’ and harassment of a student union official on Instagram. (Middle East Eye, 8 August 2025)

9 August: A research consortium in the Netherlands, with ties to Indonesia and Suriname, launches a three-year study of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences’ (KNAW) operations in the former Dutch colonies, aiming to ‘make a substantive contribution to the current scholarly debate on colonial legacies and their contemporary impact’. (THE, 9 August 2025) 

13 August: The Northern Ireland Education Authority criticises a social media post linking a number of named schools to a false claim that children are writing Valentine’s cards to adult refugees. The principals write to parents to assure them the claims are false. After GB News and the Daily Mail pick up the story, Schools of Sanctuary issues a statement on false and inflammatory online claims which ‘dangerously misrepresent school activities’, is taking legal advice and reporting threats to the police. (BBC News, 13 August 2025; City of Sanctuary, X, 12 August 2025; Chronicle Live, 15 August 2025)

 

14 August: Former Conservative education secretary Sir Gavin Williamson writes to the Charity Commission demanding an investigation into Schools of Sanctuary, claiming that they are engaged in political activity and encouraging pupils to write heart-shaped messages to migrants. The Charity Commission says it is assessing a complaint into ‘alleged political activity’. (Telegraph, 14 August 2025)

HOUSING| POVERTY| WELFARE

14 August: Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundations finds that migrant low income households where at least one person has no recourse to public funds (NRPF) suffer significant hardship compared to other low-income families, providing further evidence of the poor living standards faced by NRPF households. (EIN, 14 August 2025)

EMPLOYMENT/ EXPLOITATION/ INDUSTRIAL ACTION

5 August: The RMT calls on the London mayor to intervene and launches action on behalf of up to 70 workers at risk of losing their jobs on London Underground, being deported or forced to leave the country due to the government’s change to visa sponsorship rules, which have moved their role to a different category. (RMT News, 5 August 2025)

7 August: An Open Democracy investigation finds that migrants denied work after Home Office modifications to visa schemes are turning to exploitative delivery apps to earn cash. Meanwhile, the government’s focus on ‘illegal work’ and its crackdown on modified e-bikes meaning that police who stop riders for bike checks are also checking immigration status. (Open Democracy, 7 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.

5 August: Half of all respondents to a YouGov poll testing attitudes to immigration believe that there are more migrants living in the UK illegally than legally. Analysts argue that these ‘wide off the mark’ perceptions are an ‘extraordinary development’, as people’s immigration demands shift from ‘controlling our borders’ to demanding that zero migrants be allowed to enter and ‘large numbers’ leave. (YouGov, 5 August 2025; Guardian, 5 August 2025; Guardian 11 August 2025)

6 August: Amnesty International says X fuelled racist riots in the UK after the 2024 Southport murders by amplifying false claims about Muslims and migrants. Its analysis finds X’s algorithms prioritise divisive, hateful content, with posts by far-right influencers like Andrew Tate and Tommy Robinson reaching millions. A year on, Amnesty warns that weakened safeguards still leave the public at risk of violence and abuse. (Amnesty, 6 August 2025)

8 August: In Spain, Madrid city council bans the Kúpula se Mueve cultural diversity festival, citing public disorder and noise, though organisers call it an ideological attack and discrimination. The move follows bans on other Muslim celebrations in Spain. Organisers insist the festival, which highlights African and Latin culture, meets all requirements and has previously run without incident. (Guardian, 8 August 2025)

8 August: The Royal Albert Hall apologises after 81-year-old Roger Cauthery was briefly barred from a BBC Proms concert for wearing a Palestine flag pin. Chief executive James Ainscough admits it was a mistake by contractors and offers a refund and an invitation to return. Cauthery says he will donate the refund to Medical Aid for Palestinians. (Guardian, 8 August 2025)

12 August: Spain’s central government orders the town of Jumilla to scrap its ban on religious gatherings in sports centres, calling it discriminatory against Muslims. The ban, pushed by Vox and backed by the conservative PP, blocks local Muslims from celebrating Eid and sparks condemnation from religious groups, ministers, and rights advocates. Officials warn that it reflects the growing influence of the far Right, which fuels unrest and anti-immigrant sentiment across Spain. (Guardian, 12 August 2025)

13 August: The BBC apologises and edits a Thought for the Day segment after theologian Krish Kandiah describes Robert Jenrick’s comments on asylum seekers as ‘xenophobia’. Jenrick defends his remarks about fearing migrants as neighbours, while critics including Lord Dubs argue his language fuels hostility toward refugees. (Guardian, 13 August 2025)

16 August: The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, citing the shadow home secretary, criticise Judge Fiona Beach for a ruling (subsequently overturned) permitting a migrant convicted of a drugs offence to stay in the UK. Her previous directorship of Asylum Aid and representation of migrants for Bail for Immigration Detainees is described by Jenrick, who has called for her to be investigated by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, as ‘the latest example of an immigration judge with open border views’. (Sun, 16 August 2025; Telegraph, 16 August 2025)

16 August: Police arrest a 47-year-old man after Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo reports racial abuse during Friday’s Premier League match at Liverpool. Merseyside police vow to seek football banning orders, while Liverpool FC condemns racism. A second arrest for racist abuse is made during Bradford City’s game against Luton Town the next day. (Guardian, 16 August 2025)

16 August: The Runnymede Trust, Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Human Rights Watch and others urge the Met to scrap live facial recognition at Notting Hill carnival, warning it unfairly targets the African-Caribbean community. They argue the technology is racially biased, while the Met insists it will be used only to identify serious offenders. (Guardian, 16 August 2025)

16 August: Irish novelist Sally Rooney publicly declares her support for Palestine Action, criticizes the UK for arresting peaceful protesters while leaving loyalist paramilitary murals untouched, and condemns Israel’s actions in Gaza. Legal experts warn that she could face arrest under the Terrorism Act for supporting a banned organisation. (Irish Times, 16 August 2025; Guardian, 18 August 2025)

18 August: The German Football Association opens investigations after two German Cup games are halted over alleged racist abuse. Schalke’s Christopher Antwi-Adjei reports slurs from Lokomotiv Leipzig fans, while another incident occurs during Kaiserslautern’s match against Eintracht Stahnsdorf. (DW, 18 August 2025)

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

For details of court judgements on racially motivated and other hate crimes, see also POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.

 7 August: Racist attacks against children are increasing, warns the Association of Indian Communists after a 6-year-old girl in Waterford, Ireland, is punched, racially abused and told to ‘go back to India’. (Morning Star, 7 August 2025)

12 August: Gwent police investigate a racially aggravated incident after children visiting a Scout camp in Newbridge, Caerphilly, are filmed and subjected to offensive comments on social media, where claims (subsequently deleted) are made that the teenagers are illegal immigrants being housed by the Scouts. (BBC News, 12 August 2025)

13 August: Police in Belfast investigate two incidents of ‘vigilante activity’ in relation to a protest outside a property in East Belfast and an assault on a migrant in Oxford Street, South Belfast. MLA Deirdre Hargey says, ‘These so-called vigilante groups do not represent our society; they simply want to control communities through violence’. (Belfast Media, 13 August 2025)

18 August: Two elderly Sikh taxi drivers are left ‘traumatised’ as a police investigation is launched into a racially aggravated assault by three teenagers outside Wolverhampton railway station, during which one driver and a colleague who tried to intervene were repeatedly punched. Police make three arrests after footage is circulated online. (Birmingham Mail, 18 August 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. 

 

 

 

The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

The majority of the IRR’s work is free to access. Please consider supporting our research and analysis by making a donation.

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