The Epping Protesters Have Had Enough of Being Ignored and Lied To

Last night’s violence around the Bell Hotel in Epping Forest saw Metropolitan and British Transport police deployed alongside Essex constabulary. According to social media posts and police statements the hotel was damaged and officers were attacked. Social media posts seem to show a protester being run over by a police van driving at speed.

Today, police and politicians have condemned the violence, with the local MP, Neil Hudson, tweeting: “This is completely unacceptable… these violent scenes are no us, not Epping, not what we stand for.” The message from the police is similar, with their statement drawing a distinction between peaceful protesters and “others intent on offending”.. The message is clear. Violent protest is illegal and un-British.

But this violence has not appeared by chance. The most recent trigger was the arrest on July 8th of Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, a 38 year-old man who’d arrived in the country from Ethiopia via a small boat on June 29th, claimed asylum, and then been housed at the Bell Hotel. On July 10th, Kebatu was remanded in custody while awaiting his trial, likely to be in August. This wasn’t enough for locals though, who gathered outside the hotel last Sunday in order to protest. Meanwhile, two security staff responsible for protecting the hotel were seriously assaulted by a group of men. Of course, the police are treating this incident as racially aggravated.

Many locals want this hotel closed. Councillor Chris Whitbread, Leader of Epping Forest District Council, even issued a statement saying:

Let me be absolutely clear. Epping Forest District Council has consistently and repeatedly opposed the use of the Bell Hotel to accommodate asylum seekers. From the outset, we warned the Home Office that this site is entirely inappropriate.

Placing vulnerable individuals from a wide range of cultural backgrounds into an unsupervised setting, in the centre of a small town, without the proper infrastructure, support or services, is both reckless and unacceptable. It puts pressure on local services, causes understandable concern for residents, and is unfair on those placed in the hotel.

The Home Office must now face the reality of the situation. The Bell Hotel must be closed without delay. Our warnings have been ignored for too long.

So the local council has opposed this hotel being used to house asylum seekers “from the outset”. They want the hotel closed. This is not unreasonable. No one wants hundreds of strange single men, statistically far more likely to commit sexual offences, living alongside them and their families. The local school is less than 500 yards from the hotel. The fact that these men live at our expense makes it even more galling.

The majority of protesters were angry, but entirely peaceful, something which even Essex police recognised in their statements. Many parents attended, worried for the safety of their children. They mostly seem to be local people who have just had enough. As one mother said:

Every child’s right is to walk to school and not fear that they are going to be sexually assaulted or raped. We do not live in a Third World country. This is the United Kingdom the last time I looked.

It’s hard to argue with her words (and worth listening to all of them), and I’m sure they will have stirred the hearts of those hearing them. But words alone are not enough.

Should all the protesters have remained peaceful? Why didn’t they follow the proper processes? A letter to their MP or a Parliamentary petition perhaps. Perhaps they knew those options would make no difference. The British regime has ignored decades of elections where people voted against mass migration. This week we learned it gagged the press and Parliament in order to hide the migration of tens of thousands of Afghans at great cost. Politicians and civil servants from across the parties have consistently demonstrated that they place the safety of foreign men above that of British men, women and children.

So what are the people of Epping supposed to do? Democracy is a machine for keeping the peace and ensuring that power is handed-on peacefully. We vote because we trust that the system, however imperfectly, will reflect our will. But if people come to realise that their votes are ignored, that they are lied to and betrayed, what then?

It is no surprise that people turn to violence in such circumstances, and we are likely to see more such violence if the state doesn’t change course. This is made even more likely by the examples of the Harehills riot last year and the protests after the Manchester Airport attacks. In both cases concerted force caused the police and the state to back down. Similarly, last summer we saw a police officer persuading a group of Muslim men to leave their weapons in the mosque and go home.

We live in an anarcho-tyranny where the regime punishes those who are weak and compliant, while backing-down in the face of concerted opposition and force. People watch. They see who gets punished and who doesn’t. And they learn.

So what, really, did the regime – politicians and the police – expect? When everything else is exhausted, people will turn to violence, because violence is the only way of being heard. If the state doesn’t change course, and fast, we will see many Eppings.

David Shipley has sold fork lift trucks, worked in corporate finance, produced a film and served a prison sentence for committing fraud. He now campaigns for prison reform and works as a prison inspector. You can find his website here.