Bristol Asylum Hotel Protest This Weekend: Another Ritual Dance While Veterans Live in Caravans.
Bristol prepares for another asylum hotel protest on Saturday as police create designated zones – but why are we repeating the same script while ex-service personnel are left on hold?
(image: BBC)
So let me get this straight. We’re doing this again. Same hotel, same choreography, same bloody actors – just a different Saturday. And Avon and Somerset Police? Oh, they’ve learned from last time. Last time they sent officers to the wrong hotel in Redcliffe. You know, the kind of mistake you’d expect from someone ordering a takeaway, not from people supposedly maintaining public order with millions of pounds of equipment and training.
Bristol Patriots Protest: Police Create Designated Zones After Previous Failures
But don’t worry – this time they’ve got a map. Colour-coded zones! Protest Area A, Exclusion Zone B, the “Please-Don’t-Make-Us-Look-Stupid-Again Zone C.” They’re treating central Bristol like a bloody board game. Roll the dice and hope for a six – except the dice are loaded, the board keeps changing, and nobody’s actually read the rules.
Bristol Live reports that the Bristol Patriots Facebook group has organised a protest outside the Redcliffe asylum hotel from 1 pm Saturday, whilst counter-protesters from Stand Up To Racism and Bristol Anti-Racist Action plan to arrive at 11:30 am. Chief Inspector Keith Smith promises “peaceful protest” within designated areas, with Section 60AA powers allowing police to demand removal of face coverings across Bristol city centre from Temple Meads to Cumberland Basin.
And here’s the thing that makes this whole circus so beautifully, painfully, boringly British: everyone’s being so damned polite about it. “Peaceful protest is a fundamental part of UK society” – yeah, as long as you protest in your designated box, at your designated time, and don’t disrupt anyone who might actually need disrupting. It’s like having a revolution but making sure you’ve filled out the proper forms first.
Why People Are Angry About Asylum Hotels: The Broken Immigration System.
Now, look – I get it. People are genuinely angry. Labour can’t control the borders, the Tories can’t control the borders, and we’ve got people literally boomeranging back from France after being deported. The system is broken. Comprehensively, embarrassingly, and expensively broken. And when people watch their communities struggle, their services stretched, their housing crisis worsen, and then see hotels full of people who – yes, let’s be honest – many arrived illegally or at least outside any traceable legal framework, that anger isn’t irrational. It’s predictable.
Homeless Veterans Crisis: While Asylum Seekers Get Hotels, Ex-Service Personnel Live in Horse Boxes.
And you want to know what makes that anger burn? Try this: Jim, a 37-year-old veteran, is living in a horse box. Actually, he’s upgraded now – he’s in a “very small caravan” with his partner and his dog. He’s got a master’s degree. He served his country. And on Remembrance Day – Remembrance bloody Day – he rings Op Fortitude, the government’s special helpline for homeless veterans. Twenty-six minutes on hold. No queue position. No acknowledgement. Then the line goes dead.
Eighteen hours later, someone calls back. And instead of help, Jim gets excuses and gatekeeping until the man on the other end just hangs up. “Lip service, gatekeeping and a waste of money” is how Jim describes it to LBC. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence proudly announces they’ve “housed over 1,000 veterans” and committed £12 million to homelessness services. Which sounds brilliant until you realise thousands more Jims are living in caravans and horse boxes, and the ones who do get “housed” – well, we don’t ask too many questions about what that actually means, do we?
Bristol Immigration Protests: Misdirected Anger and Political Theatre.
But here’s where it gets properly British in its absurdity: instead of directing that rage at the people who created this mess – the politicians, the Home Office mandarins, the MoD bureaucrats, the decades of policy failure – we’re having a punch-up outside a hotel in Redcliffe. Again. Because it’s easier to shout at people in a hotel than it is to storm Westminster and demand answers about why Jim’s living in a caravan whilst Op Fortitude puts him on hold for half an hour on Remembrance Day.
The “Bristol Patriots” – and can we talk about that name? “Patriots.” These people wouldn’t know patriotism if it came with a Union Jack instruction manual. They’re calling on “patriots across the UK” to come fight the “leftie capital” – but where were they when Jim was trying to get through to Op Fortitude? Where’s the march to the Ministry of Defence? Where’s the designated protest zone for “Why are our veterans living in horse boxes?”
Their demands? Stop “illegal male immigrants” (apparently female immigrants are fine?), protect “woman and children from all cultures” (singular woman – just the one), get Starmer out (he’s been in office five minutes), and say no to digital IDs. Nothing about veterans. Nothing about Jim. Nothing about the people who actually earned the right to be here by serving this country, who are now living in purgatory because they can’t get a reference or a credit rating.
Last Summer’s Violence: When Police Went to the Wrong Hotel.
But here’s where it gets good. Last time, these brave patriots managed to reach an unprotected hotel – police were at the wrong bloody location, remember? Government researchers later confirmed Avon and Somerset Police had been sent to the wrong hotel in Redcliffe, leaving the asylum accommodation temporarily unprotected. What happened? A group of counter-protesters linked arms and protected the building themselves. Let that sink in. Ordinary people had to form a human shield because the cops were playing hide-and-seek with the wrong hotel.
Counter-Protesters Arrive Early: The Same Script, Different Saturday.
So now we’ve got counter-protesters announcing they’ll be there at 11:30 am. Not 1 pm like the “patriots” – no, they’re getting there early like it’s a bloody jumble sale. And the cops are saying “Please, please stay in your designated area this time” – knowing full well that last month the counter-protesters just ignored their zone completely and set up wherever they wanted around the Cenotaph and College Green.
The police have special powers now. Section 60AA of the Criminal Justice Act – remove your face covering or get arrested. Which is interesting, because usually the far-right loves police powers. Until those powers might apply to them. Then suddenly it’s all about freedom and civil liberties.
The Cost of Protest Policing: Hundreds of Officers, Thousands of Pounds.
And Chief Inspector Keith Smith is out here saying they want to “limit disruption” – while planning for a protest that might shut down major roads including Redcliff Hill, requires hundreds of officers, costs tens of thousands of pounds, and terrorises nearly a thousand people – 56 per cent families, a quarter children – who, yes, shouldn’t be here in this shambolic way, but are here because successive governments have utterly failed to create a functioning asylum system.
Why This Keeps Happening: The Boring Script Everyone Follows.
You know what’s really boring about this? Not the anger – the anger is legitimate. What’s boring is how spectacularly misdirected it all is. Everyone knows their lines. The Patriots show up, wave their flags, and shout at people who have zero power to change anything. The counter-protesters show up earlier, protect the hotel, and feel righteous about defending the vulnerable. The police stand in the middle, create zones nobody respects, then react dynamically when everything goes to shit anyway. And Bristol Live writes the same article with the same quotes, and I write the same piece about the same performative theatre.
Meanwhile, inside that hotel? 972 people – many of whom, yes, shouldn’t have been able to get here illegally in the first place – just trying to exist whilst politicians argue about whose fault it is. And in a caravan somewhere rural? Jim, with his master’s degree and his military service, is living in “purgatory” because the same government that can house a thousand people in hotels on the day they arrive can’t answer a phone line for veterans without putting them on hold until the line goes dead.
Where Are the Politicians? The Real Architects of This Disaster.
And in Westminster? The actual architects of this disaster – Labour, Tories, the Home Office bureaucrats, the MoD mandarins who’ve presided over this farce for decades – they’re nowhere to be bloody found.
Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge MP calls Jim’s treatment on Remembrance Day “totally unacceptable” and accuses Labour of “prioritising putting our Northern Ireland Veterans back in the dock instead of actually delivering for homeless Veterans.” Strong words. But where was the Tory plan when they were in power? Where were the solutions during fourteen years of Conservative government?
The Truth Nobody Wants to Hear About Immigration and Veterans.
Because here’s the truth nobody wants to hear: you can’t have open enough borders that people can cross the Channel in dinghies, and claim you’re “taking back control.” You can’t deport people who then simply return because there’s no functioning agreement with France. You can’t house people in city-centre hotels with no security and act surprised when it creates tension. You can’t run an asylum system so broken that it takes years to process claims, leaving people in limbo, draining resources, and breeding resentment. And you absolutely cannot send veterans to live in horse boxes whilst claiming you’ve “renewed the contract with those who served.”
The system has failed. Completely. And the people at the bottom – the struggling British communities, the migrants stuck in hotels, and the veterans living in caravans – are paying the price whilst the people at the top are nowhere near Redcliffe on a Saturday afternoon. Or answering Op Fortitude helplines on Remembrance Day.
What Happens Next: Same Time Next Month?
So yeah, same time next month? Because until someone in power actually fixes this shitshow instead of just managing the protests it creates, we’ll be right back here. Different Saturday, same bloody script. And Jim will still be in his caravan, wondering why the country he served has hotel rooms for people who arrived yesterday but not for him.
Lights cigarette, stares at the designated smoking zone, wonders if there’s a protest zone for veterans, decides there probably isn’t.