The Co-Option of Women’s Safety in Anti-Immigration Protests
By Farah Benis for Centre for Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls (CPVAWG)
Recent anti-immigration protests in Epping, Manchester and beyond have invoked the language of women’s safety to justify intimidation and violence. This framing is not only hypocritical - given the criminal histories of many involved - but actively undermines real efforts to reduce violence against women and girls (VAWG). Government and media must act to ensure that women’s safety is not instrumentalised to advance extremist agendas.
In July 2025, the Essex town of Epping became the latest flashpoint in a cycle of anti-immigration protests spreading across the United Kingdom. Demonstrations outside the Bell Hotel, where asylum seekers were being housed, quickly escalated into violent disorder. Police officers were assaulted, vehicles damaged, and hotel staff intimidated. Similar confrontations have since been staged in Manchester, Heathrow, and across other towns and cities, giving the impression of a broad grassroots uprising.
On the surface, these protests appear to be spontaneous expressions of public concern. In reality, they sit within a wider ecosystem. Far-right street groups such as Britain First provide the spectacle; figures such as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, amplify events online through livestreams and mobilisation calls; and Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, benefits from disproportionate media coverage that elevates the same narratives onto the national stage. Together, these elements create the impression of a mainstream uprising, even when the numbers on the ground are small.
The protests have been consistently framed as acts of protection: safeguarding women, defending children, and restoring order to communities. Yet closer scrutiny tells a very different story. Many of those leading or participating in these demonstrations have extensive criminal records, including convictions for human trafficking, burglary, child sexual abuse, and violence against women.
HOPE not hate recently reported that Lee Twamley, photographed at the front of Britain First’s “March for Remigration” in Manchester, previously served 20 months in prison for attempting to smuggle eleven Vietnamese migrants across the Channel. At the same event, Twamley was filmed slapping a woman in Piccadilly Gardens - minutes after speakers invoked the supposed threat migrants pose to women.
This is not an isolated example. The far right has repeatedly co-opted the language of safeguarding to legitimise violence, while Reform’s amplified platform and Robinson’s online reach have given these narratives undue legitimacy. Left unchecked, this ecosystem risks eroding public trust in genuine safeguarding efforts and diverting attention from the infrastructure investment that would actually reduce VAWG.
Britain First creates the spectacle. Robinson spreads it. Reform supplies the legitimacy. Women’s safety becomes a prop for all three.
On 13 July 2025, demonstrations outside the Bell Hotel escalated from chants into violent disorder. Bottles, stones, and flares were thrown at police officers; protesters breached the hotel perimeter, damaging property and assaulting staff. Essex Police reported multiple injuries, including eight officers and a hotel worker, and made at least sixteen arrests for violent disorder, criminal damage, and assaulting emergency workers.
The unrest did not subside. Further protests were staged on 21 July and again on 30 August, each ending in renewed clashes and arrests. By late summer, Essex Police were issuing dispersal orders and face-covering bans in an effort to contain the disruption.
Epping proved to be only the beginning. In Manchester on 2 August, Britain First’s “March for Remigration” drew activists under banners about “protecting women and children.” HOPE not hate documented the presence of convicted trafficker Lee Twamley at the front of the march, which ended with further violence, including Twamley striking a woman in Piccadilly Gardens. At Heathrow, masked men attempted to storm the Crowne Plaza which was housing asylum seekers, leading to five arrests. Similar confrontations followed in Liverpool, Leeds, Cardiff, and Southampton, often mobilised through coordinated online call-outs.
Figures like Tommy Robinson played a central role in magnifying these events. By livestreaming confrontations, urging supporters to attend, and framing disorder as evidence of state failure, Robinson transformed small local protests into national spectacles viewed by hundreds of thousands online. His reach gave groups like Britain First visibility well beyond their numbers.
At the same time, Reform UK’s narratives on immigration and community safety echoed the chants heard on the streets. Nigel Farage’s near-constant media presence ensured that the themes raised outside hotels in Essex or Manchester were also aired in living rooms across the country. Britain First produced the imagery, Robinson carried it through social media, and Reform’s broadcast exposure legitimised it as part of mainstream debate.
What began in Epping has spiralled into a travelling theatre of intimidation - small in size, but designed to look like a national uprising.
Though modest in size, these protests were never designed for numbers alone. They were designed for amplification. Each flare thrown and each clash with police became material for livestreams, news bulletins, and political soundbites - a cycle that magnified local disorder into the illusion of a national crisis.
From banners to speeches, the protests have leaned heavily on one message: that they are there to protect women. Placards, chants and social media posts present the demonstrations as safeguarding actions, defending women and children from supposed threats posed by migrants. But the evidence tells another story entirely.
After the Southport unrest in 2024, police data revealed that around two in five of those arrested already had domestic abuse allegations against them. This is not the profile of protectors. It is a stark contradiction: individuals presenting themselves as guardians of women were statistically more likely to be perpetrators of violence against women in their own lives.
The same contradiction was on display in Manchester this summer. At Britain First’s “March for Remigration”, activist Lee Twamley - already jailed for attempting to smuggle eleven Vietnamese migrants across the Channel - was filmed striking a woman in Piccadilly Gardens while speakers invoked the supposed threat migrants pose to women. Twamley now leads a flag-raising campaign in Manchester under the banner of “protecting women and children,” an extraordinary claim for a convicted trafficker caught on camera attacking a woman.
Twamley is not an outlier. Paul Golding, Britain First’s leader, has convictions for religiously aggravated harassment and refusing to provide police with mobile PIN codes under the Terrorism Act. He has also admitted on tape to violently assaulting women, including his then-deputy Jayda Fransen, who herself has multiple convictions for religiously aggravated harassment and has served time for hate speech campaigns. Warren Gilchrest, another activist, has been convicted of sexual offences against children under 13, and later jailed again for racist violence. Even beyond the leadership, the pattern persists: Jamie Golding, Paul’s brother, confessed to 171 burglaries across London and Kent, yet now aligns with a movement railing against “lawlessness.”
The men shouting loudest about women’s safety are too often those with histories of domestic abuse, trafficking, and sexual violence.
This narrative has been consistently echoed by Tommy Robinson in his broadcasts, where claims about migrants and sexual violence are pushed out to vast online audiences. Nigel Farage and Reform UK have also repeatedly raised women’s safety in the context of immigration during high-profile interviews and television appearances. These interventions do not exist in isolation from the street movements; they reinforce one another. The same slogans shouted outside hotels in Essex or Manchester are repeated in Robinson’s livestreams and on prime-time television.
This is not incidental. It is central to the way these movements operate. By co-opting the language of safeguarding, far-right groups attempt to cloak racialised hate in legitimacy. In doing so, they not only fail to protect women - they actively erode public trust in what real protection requires: investment, infrastructure, and accountability. For more on what this looks like in practice, read our analysis: Halving VAWG Requires Infrastructure-Scale Investment, Not Carceral Growth.
Law and order stops at the water’s edge of their own criminal records.
In parallel, Nigel Farage’s own alliances raise eyebrows. He has praised Andrew Tate - who faces multiple criminal investigations, including rape and human trafficking - as an “important voice for men”. He’s also been photographed with MMA fighter Conor McGregor, who lost a civil rape case in Ireland that included damages awarded to the accuser. These associations - broadcast widely - lend political legitimacy to toxic, misogynistic voices.
When Farage deploys such figures in his media orbit, what Britain First produces on the streets is reframed as a legitimate concern. Their criminal histories fade into the background, replaced by a façade of protection, while the imagery of marches and hotel confrontations is recycled as evidence of a supposed national crisis.
That same imagery also serves a financial purpose: flag-raising campaigns, marches, and viral protest footage double as fundraising and recruitment tools. “Churchill’s Lions”, associated with Lee Twamley, explicitly raise money to drape Union Jacks across Manchester’s shopping streets in the name of protecting women and children. In practice, this is not safeguarding but a symbolic takeover of public space, embedding far-right imagery into everyday life under the guise of protection.
In recent years, Britain First has rebranded its strategy around public mobilisation and street theatre. Under the banner of the “March for Remigration” - a euphemism for mass deportation - the group has staged a series of marches in towns and cities across the UK. These events bring together not only its core activists, but also individuals from allied organisations such as Patriotic Alternative and the Homeland Party, along with unaffiliated sympathisers drawn in by social media call-outs.
From ballots to banners, Britain First has learned that fear travels faster on the street than it does in the polling booth.
The turn to spectacle also allows Britain First to mainstream its presence. By staging flag displays, hotel confrontations, and protests under the guise of “protecting women,” the group seeks to draw in wider public sympathy while disguising its extremist roots. This tactical rebrand does not erase the criminal histories of its leaders or the movement’s ongoing links to racist violence.
The ability of these protests to shape national debate has depended less on their size than on how they are amplified. Although the numbers on the ground in Epping or Manchester were often small, the coverage they attracted - both online and in broadcast media - made them appear far larger and more representative than they were.
The rise in anti-immigration protests has not taken place in a vacuum. Media coverage and political amplification have been central to shaping how these events are perceived.
In recent months, the Liberal Democrats lodged formal complaints with Ofcom and raised concerns with the BBC about what they described as the “undue prominence” given to Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Despite having a small parliamentary presence, Reform has enjoyed a disproportionately large share of broadcast airtime, particularly on programmes such as Question Time. This imbalance shifts public perception, presenting fringe voices as if they were representative of mainstream sentiment.
Internal reporting has further revealed that the BBC has adopted strategies to “win back” Reform-leaning audiences. This editorial positioning risks skewing coverage by granting outsized visibility to those advancing anti-immigrant narratives, while marginalising more evidence-based debate.
At the same time, far-right protests themselves generate media attention out of proportion to their scale. Although the numbers on the ground in Epping or Manchester were often modest, violent imagery - masked men, hotel confrontations, flares thrown at police - made for compelling footage. Outlets that repeated protest slogans about “protecting women” without context gave these groups precisely what they sought: mainstream oxygen.
When broadcasters repeat slogans louder than facts, they amplify fear and legitimise extremism.
The effect is two fold. First, fringe actors gain an outsized platform to spread their message. Second, public debate is diverted from the real drivers of community safety - investment in housing, social services, and safeguarding - towards manufactured crises. By treating extremist slogans as legitimate political talking points, media outlets risk laundering racism and misogyny into the mainstream.
The consequences of these protests and their amplification are felt far beyond the hotel car parks where they begin. They reshape how communities see themselves, how institutions respond, and how democracy functions.
One risk is the normalisation of vigilantism. When men in masks confront hotels or attempt to storm accommodation, and the images are broadcast repeatedly, intimidation starts to look like an acceptable form of community action. The line between lawful protest and unlawful harassment blurs, and each unchallenged incident shifts expectations of what is permissible in public life.
There is also a corrosion of safeguarding itself. When individuals with histories of domestic abuse, trafficking, or sexual violence are positioned as defenders of women, the concept of protection is emptied of meaning. Survivors already face disbelief and dismissal; the spectacle of abusers cast as guardians only deepens mistrust in safeguarding systems.
At a broader level, these dynamics cause a distortion of policy bandwidth. Protests framed around immigration and women’s safety dominate headlines, while the infrastructure that would actually reduce VAWG - housing stability, independent advocacy, accessible healthcare - struggles for attention. Political will is diverted towards reactive measures, leaving structural solutions underfunded and overlooked.
The most concerning risk, however, is the mainstreaming of extremist narratives through political pandering. The current Labour government has too often echoed far-right talking points rather than challenging them. Keir Starmer’s framing of immigration as a “problem to be fixed” and the Home Office’s rhetoric around “protecting communities” mirror the very narratives exploited on Britain First banners. Each time mainstream parties adopt the language of the far right, they legitimise it - granting extremists the validation they seek and eroding the space for evidence-based policymaking.
Each time mainstream government echoes far-right slogans, it invites them from the margins, and onto centre stage.
Policy Imperatives
The government, media, and civil society all have a role to play in ensuring that women’s safety is not instrumentalised as a cover for racism and disorder. Addressing this requires both immediate responses to organised protest activity and long-term investment in genuine safeguarding infrastructure.
For Government
Break with far-right framing. The Labour government must stop echoing narratives that equate immigration with threats to the British public. Safeguarding policy should be grounded in evidence, not electoral calculation. This means recognising that most asylum seekers are not perpetrators but often survivors of violence themselves, and ensuring that VAWG policy is not collapsed into border control debates.
Target organised disorder. Apply consistent enforcement against groups orchestrating harassment and violence around asylum accommodation. This requires stronger injunctions, better coordination between local police and national counter-extremism units, and resources to ensure community safety teams can respond quickly. Enforcement must be even-handed, protecting the right to lawful protest while drawing a clear line against intimidation and violence.
Invest in safety infrastructure. Redirect resources towards housing, specialist VAWG services, survivor advocacy, and community health. Funding cycles must be multi-year and protected from austerity cuts. Local authorities in areas targeted by protests should receive ring-fenced support to expand safeguarding capacity, rather than being left to absorb costs from already strained budgets.
Strengthen communication. Provide communities with transparent information about asylum processes and safeguarding measures, countering misinformation before it escalates into disorder. This could include regular local briefings, myth-busting campaigns, and designated contact points within councils so residents can raise concerns without being drawn into extremist narratives.
For Media
Apply proportionality tests. Coverage of political parties and protest movements should reflect their democratic weight, not their capacity for spectacle. Reform UK should not receive equivalent airtime to the main parties when it holds a fraction of the seats.
Interrogate safeguarding claims. When groups invoke women’s safety, editors should contextualise with evidence, including the criminal records of those involved and research on the real drivers of VAWG. Repeating slogans without scrutiny allows propaganda to masquerade as fact.
Expand transparency. Ofcom currently publishes complaint tallies and broad performance reviews, but does not provide detailed breakdowns of airtime by political party or the outcomes of individual complaints. Extending this disclosure would strengthen accountability and help guard against disproportionate platforming of extremist narratives.
For Civil Society
Expose hypocrisy. Continue documenting the criminal histories of those presenting themselves as protectors, making visible the gap between rhetoric and reality. Publishing case studies of this hypocrisy can help communities resist being misled.
Amplify survivor-led solutions. Centre the voices of survivors and practitioners who know what actually reduces VAWG: stable housing, accessible healthcare, independent advocacy, and long-term support services. Elevating these solutions shifts the debate back to evidence.
Strengthen coalitions. Build alliances between women’s rights groups, anti-racism organisations, migrant support services, and local communities. By working together, these groups can share intelligence, resist scapegoating, and push back against the mainstreaming of extremist narratives.
Government and media must stop allowing women’s safety to be instrumentalised as a cover for racism and disorder.
The protests in Epping, Manchester and beyond have revealed a troubling pattern: the instrumentalisation of women’s safety as a political weapon. Far-right groups with long records of criminality - including trafficking, burglary, domestic abuse and sexual offences - cloak themselves in the language of protection while engaging in acts of violence and intimidation.
This hypocrisy is compounded by disproportionate media amplification and the political visibility afforded to Reform UK. When fringe movements dominate airtime, their narratives take on a weight they do not deserve. The theatre on the streets becomes the backdrop for national debate, shaping perceptions far beyond the small numbers actually present.
Most concerning of all is the failure of mainstream politics to resist this drift. The current Labour government has too often repeated far-right rhetoric rather than confronting it. In doing so, it risks legitimising extremist slogans and embedding them in policy discourse.
Government must break with this cycle. Women’s safety cannot be reduced to a prop in immigration debates or a soundbite in political interviews. It requires sustained, infrastructure-scale investment in housing, healthcare, advocacy and accountability. Anything less leaves women less safe, not more.
Safeguarding is not served by fear and spectacle - it is built through infrastructure, investment and accountability.
For further analysis on what this investment looks like in practice, see our report: Halving VAWG Requires Infrastructure-Scale Investment, Not Carceral Growth.
