AT LEAST 20 far-right protests are planned outside hotels on Friday as fascists seek to repeat last summer’s race riots, anti-racist campaigners have warned.

Stand Up to Racism warned that members and former members of the nazi terror group Combat 18 and the neonazi party Homeland have been organising or attending many of the protests.

Counter-demonstrations are being staged across the country as Labour-run councils joined Tory and Reform authorities looking to block hotels from housing asylum-seekers.

Reform leader Nigel Farage called for the protests after the High Court ordered the closure of the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, following a series of anti-migrant demonstrations.

Stand Up to Racism co-convener Weyman Bennett said: “This is a dangerous moment. The Epping ruling and the so-called protests are a licence for racism and racist attacks. 

“Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick are competing for the racist vote, and in the process are openly encouraging fascists on the ground to employ violence to get hotels closed. This will cost lives. 

“They want a repeat of the violent riots last summer. We won’t let them and will oppose the far right and racists every time they take to the streets.” 

Migration statistics released today revealed that the overall number of people claiming asylum increased to around 111,000 in the year ending June.

This is an increase of 14 per cent compared with the year before and the highest level on record.  

Just under four in 10 of the people applying arrived on small boats, with a similar 37 per cent having previously entered the UK on study, work or visitor visas or other forms of leave. 

The Labour government oversaw a fall in the initial asylum decision backlog to around 91,000 at the end of June, compared to 110,000 in March. 

This is the first time the Home Office figure dropped below 100,000 in four years and is the lowest level since September 2021, when it stood at 83,733.

The Refugee Council praised Labour for “bringing the asylum system back from the brink of collapse.”

But hotel use remained stable over the period, at around 32,000, and around 20 protests have been announced by far-right groups from on Friday and over the weekend.

Rallies and counter-rallies were held in Epping after a then-resident at the Bell hotel was accused of trying to kiss a teenage girl — charges he denies and which he is due to stand trial for later this month.

Stand Up to Racism co-convener Sabby Dhalu said: “Britain takes a tiny minority of the world’s refugees, so this fixation with numbers is wrong and disproportionate to the scale of the problem internationally.

“The majority of refugees are in the Middle East, other parts of Asia and Africa. 

“Housing refugees in hotels is not ideal, however, allowing violent far-right, racist thugs to dictate asylum policy is a grotesque travesty.

“Three decades ago people seeking asylum had the right to work, earn their own money and organise their own living arrangements. This is the best solution for everyone.” 

A Momentum spokeswoman added: “The wave of racism in the UK has been driven by the use of racist and xenophobic rhetoric by politicians in all of the UK’s largest parties — including Keir Starmer.

“We call on the government to stop pandering to far-right rhetoric and uphold the UK’s commitment under international law to the right to claim asylum, and to provide safe and legal routes for refugees to arrive safely in Britain.”

Campaigners, including Rape Crisis and Refuge, have also warned that conversations about violence against women and girls are being “hijacked by an anti-migrant agenda.”

Institute for Public Policy Research associate director Marley Morris said:  “To end the use of asylum hotels for good, the Home Office will need to tackle the appeals backlog by improving the quality of initial decision-making and speeding up the appeals process. 

“In the long run, it should move to a decentralised model of accommodation with greater local oversight, in order to help manage some of the tensions with local councils, which have reached a height this week.” 

Counter-demonstrations will be held in Bournemouth, Cardiff, Chichester, Leeds, Leicester, Orpington and Portsmouth on Friday, and in Bristol, Cannock, Horley, Leicester, Liverpool, Long Eaton, Newcastle, and Wakefield on Saturday.