Hotels, hostels, and history: Migrants under attack in britain.
The current wave of white crowds attacking migrants living in hotels in Britain is hardly a new phenomenon.
The movement of people is as old as humanity. Countries are fundamentally invented shared myths; borders, immigration controls and passports are just a blip in history. For most of human existence, movement was free if you could afford it - although money to move was another problem. People flee war, starvation, and seek better economic prospects in other countries. This is especially true of people coming to the UK, where its rulers have historically looted the world's wealth, resulting in improved living conditions relative to the rest of the world. And these same elites continue to sponsor global war, genocide and invasion, increasing the need for people to flee their homes.
The sad reality is that some working-class people who have very little can be mobilised to hate refugees who often arrive in our country with nothing. A long history of xenophobic violence, frequently 'justified' by economic grievances or claims of immigrant criminality, goes back centuries.
A brief tour through some UK history shows how the right-wing uprisings of 2024-5 revive old lies, bigotry and myths to target refugees.
Racism belongs in the Middle Ages.
During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, rebellious crowds targeted powerful lords, archbishops and scheming lawyers. However, a section of the London mob also attacked and killed Flemish workers living in the city, particularly weavers who were accused of competing with 'native' workers. Just as today, the ruling class was eager to hire 'cheap foreign labour' but failed or refused to protect these same workers from local resentment.
Throughout English history, suspicion towards Jews and anti-Semitic pogroms have also been a frequent occurrence. From the crusade against Jews following King Richard I's coronation, to 'blood libel' which claimed that Jews engaged in the ritual sacrifice of Christians. Successive Kings borrowed money from Jewish moneylenders, but also deliberately exposed Jewish communities to crowd violence. This hostility culminated in the expulsion of all Jews from England, which lasted from 1290 until 1655.
In 1517, the annual Mayday celebrations, which were often boisterous, devolved into another mass attack on 'foreigners', led by agitator John Lincoln, a broker whose role can be compared to that of modern figures like Farage, also a former banker. Houses of Venetian, French, Italian, Flemish and German merchants were burned. The authorities were then accused of showing preference to 'foreigners' and over-harshly punishing the rioters—the 'Two Tier Justice' slogan of its time?
From the 18th century, many Irish migrants moved to London. Frequently destitute and starving, due primarily to the Anglo-Norman conquest and British settlers occupying Ireland's productive land, the Irish migrants were then attacked for working for cheaper wages, especially in the building trades. In Spitalfields in July 1736, this sparked anti-Irish riots, culminating in the murder of a teenager.
1919 Riots
The current attacks on migrant hotels have close echoes of the 1919 race riots and 1949 lodging house riots. From January to August 1919, seven British ports experienced ongoing public disorder, where white crowds targeted Black seamen, their families, Black-owned properties, and Black people generally.
Some newspapers whipped up racial tensions, emphasising racist stereotypes, and focusing on Black men's relationships with white women.
In 1919, Liverpool's Black population was approximately 5,000, predominantly working-class and unemployed. Black Liverpudlians were sacked from mills and sugar refineries when white people refused to work alongside them. In May 1919, white gangs, hundreds strong, attacked Black people in the streets, as well as businesses and homes; hostels for Black sailors were attacked and houses burned. The riots peaked with the murder of Black seaman Charles Wotten, who was chased into the river by a white mob and drowned. Nobody was charged. Instead, forty Black men were arrested and several jailed for 'riotous assembly'—i.e. defending themselves.
At the same time, Cardiff's Black population had grown to about 3,000 by April 1919, including many unemployed seamen. In June 1919, a large hostile white crowd, including many demobilised soldiers, attacked Black men and their white wives, then marched on Bute Town's Black community. This wave of violence against Cardiff's Yemeni and Somali sailors continued for several days. The racists didn't get everything their own way, though. As one report stated, ‘Some of them were badly cut up; negroes started carrying guns and razors to defend themselves… Tiger Bay had the toughest negroes there were in Britain.’
The same month, an Arab-run shop in Cable Street, East London, was attacked by 3,000 people, after tales spread that ‘white girls had been seen to enter the house’. In Salford, Black people were also attacked, but when they fought back, the police arrested them. In Glasgow, the British Seafarers Union and the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union held anti-immigrant labour meetings, blaming foreigners for undercutting white employment. By the end of the 1919 riots, five people had been killed, many more injured, and at least 250 people arrested.
One official response to the riots was state-sanctioned race discrimination. Police developed a system of observation and monitoring of Black people, including British subjects—especially sailors, who had to register with the police, prove their nationality, and procure registration cards to secure work.
Repatriation schemes were established to 'encourage' Black residents to 'return' to Africa or the Caribbean. Many schemes were less than voluntary: not everyone wanted to leave Britain. Cardiff's Black population firmly asserted their rights as British subjects, demanding fair treatment and the right to remain in the city. Some had been born in Cardiff, while others had white partners and mixed-race children. This was frowned upon by many in authority, particularly given that the eugenics movement was at its height. But the fact that many Black residents had white partners made forcing them out more difficult.
Post-WW2
After World War II, with Britain facing a massive labour shortage, schemes were established to attract European voluntary workers, ex-prisoners of war, and Polish ex-servicemen. With few opportunities available in the colonial islands, West Indians came to Britain to find employment. The Ministry of Labour established the National Service Hostels Corporation to provide hostel accommodation near workplaces for these migrant workers.
July 1949 saw two nights of racist rioting in Deptford, Southeast London. Crowds of white men attempted to storm Carrington House, a London County Council lodging house where around forty African and Caribbean men were staying. Those under attack barricaded themselves inside and defended themselves. When police intervened, some of the residents were arrested along with their assailants.
The hostel residents had been excluded from local pubs due to colour bars, and it was claimed that one motive for the violence was that some of the residents had ‘befriended white girls’. The justification for violence was a supposed defence of women and children from sexual threat—a very similar sentiment to contemporary anti-refugee rhetoric. Actual local women had different ideas. One woman living opposite Carrington House said of the Black hostel residents: 'They're persecuted. You'll find plenty of sympathisers for them round here’.
Also in 1949, there was trouble in Oldbury, West Midlands. 65 Jamaicans living in a Ministry of Labour hostel were attacked by Poles armed with sticks, stones and razors after fighting began after a dance. Polish residents alleged that ‘Jamaicans take young girls into the hostel’.
The hostel reduced the number of Jamaicans allowed to stay, but many refused to leave as they'd lose their jobs if they did.
Today's attacks on immigrants mirror historical events focused on a perceived sexual threat to white women. However, white mobs rarely gang up to challenge the pervasive assault on young women by white men.
Fascist Voices
Agitation by fascists and right-wing media in the 2024-5 attacks also echoes decades of far-right involvement in racist mobilisations.
There was an increase in Jewish migration into London's East End in the late 19th century, as Russian Jews fled pogroms and murders allowed by the Tsar, sparking campaigns for strict immigration laws in the UK. Jews were seen by racist Londoners as being of an inferior race and were accused of bringing Russian persecution upon themselves.
In 1901, Major Evans-Gordon, MP for Stepney, formed the racist and anti-immigrant British Brothers' League, as politicians in Bethnal Green, Hoxton and Haggerston—hotbeds of organised racism—exploited anti-immigrant attitudes. Shamefully, East End trade unions also called for bans on migrants. This pressure contributed to the passage of the first Aliens Act in 1905, which restricted immigration.
In the 1930s, Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists tried to launch anti-Jewish pogroms in the East End, backed by millionaire-backed media establishments like the Daily Mail. The Mail is still at it today, though now joined by other rabid outlets like GB News.
However, a powerful tradition of working-class resistance has emerged in response to fascism. Mosley's marches in the 1930s were largely defeated by mass working-class resistance at Cable Street, Bermondsey, and elsewhere.
In the 1950s, Notting Hill and St Ann's in Nottingham saw more white riots against West Indian migrants, involving Mosleyites and Teddy Boys inspired by neo-Nazi Colin Jordan. As before, the white attackers' biggest complaint was that Black men were forming relationships with white women. A spate of racist attacks ended in murders like those of Kelso Cochrane.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, racist attacks were stirred up against Black and Asian communities across the UK by far-right groups like the National Front, the British Movement, and the British National Party. But, as in 1919, 1949, and 1958, those targeted got together to fight back, organising against racists with collective action.
The current demonstrations at hostels have seen the appearance of known right-wing racist agitators like veterans of the British National Party and stalwarts of the English Defence League.
Racism, the Rich and the Establishment
Since the Southport murders and the racist rioting that followed, fear and rumour have been spread to incite distrust. Any crimes that occur are blamed on Muslims, migrants, or asylum seekers—regardless of the truth—creating a whirlwind of disinformation.
This situation echoes the persecution of Jews and Roma in earlier centuries, where lies, stereotyping, and prejudice formed the background, and any incident or rumour can provide a spark for violence. As then, xenophobes position themselves as spokespeople, provoking communities already seeking outlets for grievance, disillusion, and resentment.
The high percentage of men with domestic violence convictions compared to the average population who were arrested during the 2024 race riots, and the preponderance of paedophiles and sexual abusers in far-right groups, should put to bed the lie that these people are in any way concerned about defending women and girls.
Misogyny and violence does exist among migrant men, no doubt. But this problem also exists among white British men, socialised as both groups are by male-dominated cultures to treat women with contempt.
Blaming refugees serves as a distraction from the ongoing exploitation by those who really hold power: the rich. Yet, no mobs are gathering to storm the mansions of the wealthy or the hotels in Mayfair, which is precisely what we should be rallying for.
Who gets jailed after race riots? Not the well-to-do MPs or grifters like Tommy Robinson who sun themselves in Dubai or Spain while their followers do time. Suppose we let rich agitators like Farage dominate working-class thinking? In that case, wages will be driven down, housing will become more expensive, and healthcare will be privatised. Reform are bosses and landlords first and foremost. They drive the causes of resentment, then distract people from the problems they create by blaming foreigners.
We have to both challenge organised fascists physically on the street and combat racist ideas where they appear around us in ways linked to our own class interests. We should neither pander to racists, nor ally with the authorities. The government's anti-racism is a joke, especially when it simultaneously fuels anger by cutting disability benefits and wages, sabotaging social housing, and threatening healthcare cuts.
The Labour Party claims to be tougher than the Tories on immigration. This plays into the hands of parties like Reform, as it merely cedes ground to the right and exacerbates divisions within the working class. Struggles against racism and fascism, and for a greater share of resources for everyone, are all interconnected.
Stand against fascist and racist ideas, against deportations and scapegoating, as well as expanding the fight against Labour's drive to increase austerity. And yes, let's organise ourselves and attack—but let's attack the system of the rich and powerful, not other working class people.
Alex Hodson writes for Past Tense, a London-based radical history project, publishing books, pamphlets, posters, maps, and running walks, talks and other events.
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