From the Independent:
Police say claims that officers “bussed” counter-demonstrators to a protest outside a hotel housing asylum seekers, are “categorically wrong”.
Essex Police have denied the claims circulating on social media; claims of which Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said that the force’s chief constable should resign for.
… a force spokesperson said: “There are claims on social media that Essex Police officers ‘bussed’ protesters to the protest outside the Bell Hotel on Thursday July 17.
“This is categorically wrong.
“Officers did provide a foot cordon around protesters on their way to the protest, where they and others were allowed to exercise their right to protest.
“Later, some people who were clearly at risk of being hurt were also escorted by vehicle away from the area for their safety.
“To reiterate, we categorically did not drive any counter-protesters to the site on any occasion.”
Farage’s claim was based on a short clip from a video that he said was “proof” of counter-protestors “arriving at the station and literally, by Essex Police, being bussed to the Bell Hotel”. However, it didn’t take much effort to establish from background details that the video of counter-protestors getting into police vans had been filmed at a location some distance from the station (1). A longer version of the video cited by Farage (easily found on social media) also includes its narrator asking “why don’t they just go home if they are local?”, which obviously implies a context of people leaving the area rather than heading for the hotel. It is not clear whether Reform deliberately left this out or whether they simply relied on one of their preferred information sources, such as Dan Wootton.
Farage has now more or less conceded the mistake, although he goes no further than to say that “If I was slightly out on accuracy I apologise”. But he also now pretends that there is no difference between a “foot cordon” and “bussing”, although it’s not clear what course of action he would have preferred. Maybe his view is that police ought to have kettled counter-protestors at Epping Station, making a mockery of his “free speech” credentials; or maybe he thinks they ought have just allowed two groups of angry rival protestors to roam around Epping (2).
Some of the counter-protestors were masked, from which Farage concludes with typical confidence that they were “Anifa”. He also appears to believe that their presence explains why the protest at the hotel turned violent, although he has also conceded the presence of some “far-right thugs”. I did see one short video of an unmasked counter-protestor fighting with a protestor on a road near the hotel (apparently from an earlier protest a few days before), but it was probably no good for Farage’s purposes due to the person filming it abusing the counter-protestor as a “fucking faggot” and a “poof” (3).
Last year, Farage famously amplified false claims that the Southport killer had been known to the security services, which was a guarded reformulation of the internet rumour that he had been on an “MI6 watchlist” and which in turn gave credence to claims that he was an asylum seeker. Farage later reformulated what he had said as “known to the authorities”.
UPDATE: A follow-up story about a protest in Aldershot, from the Daily Mail:
A second police force has come under fire after a video emerged showing officers escorting pro-migrant activists to a protest outside an asylum seeker hotel.
…The latest clip of officers ‘bussing’ counter-protesters saw one activist brandishing a placard supporting the campaign Stand Up to Racism – which is partly funded by trade unions and led by suspended Labour MP, Diane Abbott.
Those scare-quotes appear to be an attempt to suggest that the word “bussing” can have a metaphorical meaning of “escorting”. Such a usage is strained beyond reason, and is obviously an attempt to obfuscate rather than report.
Notes
1. The video was filmed at the top of St John’s Road in Epping, at a junction where Coronation Hill meets Lower Swaines.
2. Populist ideologue Matt Goodwin speculates that the police escorted the counter-protestors to the site because “parts of the British state are deliberately stoking conflict as a way of delegitimising public protest over mass migration and broken borders”. In reply, Sunder Katwala cites a 1999 precedent on freedom of expression, summarised by Sunder as that the police “must facilitate & can not disallow either protest or counterprotest by antagonistic groups, until participants on one or both sides stir up or intimidate”.
3. The counter-protestor was stocky and bald, meaning it was unclear at first which side he was on.
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