British counter-terrorism police have reportedly reopened an inquiry into an apparent attempted firebombing of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s home last year.
According to a report from the BBC, the counter-terror police unit investigating the killing of former Conservative government minister and Reform UK spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe will also investigate an April 2025 incident at Nigel Farage’s home in South London, in which the Reform boss claimed a “lit incendiary device” was pushed through the letterbox of his front door.
A Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) London spokesman told the public broadcaster that it was investigating an “attempted burglary” at a property in connection with the Widdecombe murder investigation. It has also referred itself to a police watchdog over its handling of the initial incident at Farage’s home, which resulted in no arrests.
In a statement to The Telegraph, the senior national co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, Vicki Evans, said: “As part of the ongoing investigation led by Counter Terrorism Policing South East into the murder of Ann Widdecombe, officers have reopened an investigation into an incident reported to police last year.
“Given the nature of this matter and the significant public interest in the investigation into Ann Widdecombe’s death, it was of critical importance for us to provide this update.”
Meanwhile, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) confirmed that it has “decided to independently investigate the conduct of a Counter Terrorism Policing London staff member following a referral received earlier [on Friday]”.
“The conduct relates to an allegation the individual failed to identify and pursue a line of enquiry relating to an attempted burglary reported in April 2025.”
Man Arrested Over ‘I Am Going To Shoot You’ Death Threat Against Nigel Faragehttps://t.co/Gj55EPa35t
Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice accused authorities of having failed to take the threat against Mr Farage and part officials seriously.
“Only recently have the authorities woken up to the abuse and intimidation I and other Reform MPs have had, despite plenty of real examples that we have provided,” he toldThe Telegraph.
“I was perhaps very lucky with one particular incident I faced last year. For too long, the threats we have faced have not been taken seriously. The fact that the police have referred themselves to the IOPC speaks for itself. They recognise that they’ve messed up.”
The Boston and Skegness MP told the broadsheet that he was followed home from outside Parliament last year by an aggressive man, forcing him to use a panic button at his home and call the police.
Reform leader Nigel Farage has come under attack multipletimes while in public and has been the subject of frequent death threats made online, including by an illegal migrant from Afghanistan, Fayaz Khan, who vowed to come to England and shoot the Brexiteer.
However, the issue of security was forced to the fore last month following the death of former Brexit Party MEP and Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe. According to prosecutors, the longtime Farage ally was beaten to death by Joshua Kerry, 28, in her Devon home with a hammer, suffering 21 blows to the head. She was 78 years old.
Paywall in the forest. On a forest path in the Dutch nature reserve Noordhollands Duinreservaat, a digital entrance card is required at a debit card payment machine. Behind environmental arguments lie profit interests and a globalist agenda that is now praising people away from nature. Photo: PWN/Pixabay
Private foundations are blocking off forests with barriers, QR codes and payment machines – forcing citizens to pay for their freedom of movement.
At forest areas such as Pan van Persijn, physical barriers have been erected with a requirement to pay a fee at a machine at the gate. When De Hoge Veluwe National Park earlier this year raised the fee for walkers to 13.85 euros per adult and 6.95 euros per child (6–13 years), it sparked new protests.
Boil frog
The Netherlands has had symbolic fees since the 1930s. When the system was privatized and automated in the 1990s, many people raised the alarm, but most people didn’t care as the fees were the equivalent of a few Euros. Slowly but surely, the infrastructure developed while the fees remained low.
With the corona virus, which started The Great Reset in 2020, everything changed in one fell swoop. The cashless infrastructure with entrance and parking machines and various physical barriers, which had been installed over several decades, meant that the giant private organization Natuurmonumenten was able to block off nature in no time and raise fees by 25–50 percent. The protests were then drowned in the rage against draconian corona restrictions, lockdowns and forced vaccinations. This year, the issue has come into focus again.
Popular anger
In the regional newspaper De Gelderlander, residents expressed their dismay at the transformation of nature into a commercial luxury. One contributor bluntly stated that “this will become a park for the rich.”
It’s not just about ticket prices, but about a deeper conflict of principles about who nature belongs to. Ella de Hullu, chairwoman of the non-profit environmental and cultural heritage foundation Veluwse Bekenstichting, sharply criticized how the large organizations have taken control:
“They are claiming exclusive rights. If we accept this, it will create problems in other areas as well.”
This is a global technocratic transformation in line with the UN’s Agenda 2030, driven by networks such as the European Forest Institute (EFI) after what they call “validation of ecosystem services”. It emerges in their document that nature should no longer be considered a free resource for citizens, but be transformed into “financial entities for climate credits.”
Forest owners have also sounded the alarm in the local newspaper De Stentor that withdrawn government funding is forcing them to demand fees from walkers. Many accept traditional symbolic fees, but not to demand between 45 and 62 Euros from a family of two children for a forest walk of a few hours.
Dystopian plans
Critics within various freedom movements warn that the system is gradually dismantling freedom of movement, a fundamental human right. By phasing out cash and forcing citizens to use digital barriers, apps and QR codes, a system of control over the individual is being created – a development that is now accelerating at a rapid pace.
Research reports and scientific future analyses (so-called horizon scans) on modern forest management, including “A horizon scan of global issues on forests and livelihoods for 2026”, published on April 1 in the scientific journal Forest Policy and Economics, confirm this trend. The researchers explicitly warn that the integration of digital ID systems and AI-driven surveillance in nature leads to “exclusion through surveillance”.
The result is a faceless technocratic governance in which the individual is considered an environmental burden – who, in the name of the globalist agenda, must be monitored, registered and forced to pay for every step taken outside the cities, which in turn are to be divided, blocked off and tolled.
A 83-year-old Christian grandmother with cognitive problems was euthanized despite her stated opposition and against her family’s will through Canada’s euthanasia program in July.
According to her family’s horrifying account, great-grandmother Brigitte Stegemann had lived in an Ontario long-term care facility for the final two years of her life. She originally explicitly stated that, due to her Christian beliefs, she didn’t want to be euthanized. About five months before her death, she had been diagnosed with untreatable Stage IV stomach cancer.
While her granddaughter — named Brigette in her grandmother’s honor — who held legal power of attorney was away on vacation, the medical team convinced Stegemann to request euthanasia or “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID).
“The facility initiated the renewed MAiD discussions with a patient who had declined,” noted Kelsi Sheren in her Substack report, “The Last Ten Days of Brigette ‘GG’ Stegemann.”
Sheren listed the ways that staff at the facility quietly worked toward planning Stegemann’s demise without her family’s knowledge.
“The facility’s staff conducted the private meetings while the advocate was away. The facility’s manager completed the application. The facility’s personnel witnessed the signature,” wrote Sheren.
“At every load bearing point where the law imagines independence, the same institution appears initiator, facilitator, scribe, and witness while the one genuinely independent party, a Power of Attorney of twelve years, was kept, in the family’s phrase, in the dark despite their constant physical presence at the home.”
Our family attended the scheduled MAID meeting expecting to discuss the process with GG’s physician.
Before the physician arrived, an administrator and a registered nurse from the facility entered the room and advised us that the doctor was running behind schedule.
During this conversation, which took place entirely inside GG’s room in her immediate presence, Brigitte asked who had arranged the MAID meeting. No clear answer was ever given. Instead, the family was met with an immediate wall of defensiveness, specifically from the registered nurse. The nurse informed the family that staff had met privately with GG on two occasions during Brigitte’s 10-day vacation to discuss MAID.
Brigitte asked why those discussions had been initiated when GG had previously declined MAID due to her Christian beliefs. She asked point-blank whether these conversations were initiated by GG herself or by the facility staff.
The registered nurse became physically agitated and defensive, wagging her head back and forth as she spoke directly to Brigitte, stating, “I’m advocating for her.”
When Brigitte pushed further to find out exactly who brought up the conversation about MAID, the nurse snapped, “I don’t need to tell you anything.”
Brigitte countered that she had served as GG’s advocate for over a decade, held Power of Attorney, and visited consistently, noting that she had never once encountered this particular nurse during her frequent visits. As the interaction grew increasingly hostile, Brigitte finally stated, “I don’t understand where this attitude is coming from.”
The nurse snapped back, “Well, you have attitude.” At that point, Brigitte told the nurse she needed to leave the room and return only when she was composed. The nurse scoffed and stormed out.
“As family members preparing to discuss the impending death of our grandmother, we found this volatile, unprofessional behaviour from a staff member completely unacceptable, particularly because this aggressive argument was brought directly into GG’s room where she could see and hear the distress it was causing,” wrote the family.
GG’s family described the July 7 meeting with her doctor, referred to as “Dr. K”, as a “deeply alarming farce.” The purpose of the meeting was for Dr. K to determine whether the elderly grandmother possessed the capacity to make an informed decision regarding MAID. Brigitte repeatedly proved unable to answer simple questions about her family.
Despite clear, undeniable indicators of cognitive disorientation and the family’s direct objections, the assessment continued:
Dr. K then explained MAID to GG in specific terms, describing it, to the best of our recollection, as receiving medication, feeling peace, falling asleep, and explicitly promising GG that she “would not lose control of her bowels.”
Our family was deeply unsettled by this framing. For an elderly individual of GG’s demographic background and cognitive capacity, “medication” was a term conceptually linked entirely to healing, care, and relief.
Describing a lethal injection as merely receiving medication—while focusing intensely on her specific, everyday fears of physical indignity—exploited her vulnerability, making it impossible for her to truly grasp that she was consenting to the active termination of her life.
Before any further discussion took place, Dr. K instructed all family members to leave the room. Brigitte requested permission to remain, citing her role as long-time advocate and legal Power of Attorney. Her request was flatly denied, and the critical conversation between Dr. K and GG occurred entirely in private.
When Dr. K emerged from the room, she addressed the family and stated flatly, “I have deemed her capable of making her own decisions.” She then informed us that GG had consented to proceed and that the procedure was scheduled for Friday, July 10, 2026.
On July 8, granddaughter Brigitte received a phone call telling her that the euthanasia procedure was being moved up a full day to July 9, because the physician suddenly had an opening in her schedule.
When Brigitte showed up at the facility and objected to the move, she said that “the MAiD program was being forcefully rammed down the family’s throats, while the items of actual importance to GG were being brushed aside.”
When Brigitte then sat with her grandmother and asked if she was certain she wanted to go through with euthanasia, GG appeared confused and visibly distressed.
The elderly woman responded to her granddaughter with questions: “I’m going to die Friday? They’re going to kill me Friday?”
According to the family, GG “wept for an extended period, repeatedly stating that she had made a mistake. Brigitte comforted her and reassured her that if she had changed her mind, she had the absolute right to tell the medical team on Friday that she did not want to proceed.”
Because of the family’s strong opposition and immediate intervention, the facility backed down from moving the timeline, and the original date of Friday, July 10, at 11:00 a.m. was maintained.
On the morning of the planned procedure, GG’s family brought her out to the facility’s patio so she could enjoy the fresh air and a scoop of strawberry ice cream. But the moment was ruined as an administrator insisted on cutting the outdoor visit short so that an intravenous (IV) line could be inserted.
Shortly afterward, Dr. K arrived and attempted to speak with GG, who never provided a verbal response.
Our family had been strictly assured that GG would be asked for a final, explicit verbal confirmation on the day of the procedure to ensure she still wished to proceed.
When GG remained completely silent and gave no response, Brigitte felt a sudden wave of relief and a big smile came over her face, believing that the procedure would finally be halted because the strict requirement for final consent had not been met.
Tragically, we were left alarmed and horrified when the clinical team completely ignored her silence and carried the procedure forward regardless.
Dr. K reportedly encountered difficulty administering the medications via GG’s IV line, but soon the deed was done.
The room fell completely silent. Our family said our final goodbyes to the matriarch we had protected, loved, and fought for over so many years.
“What happened to Brigitte ‘GG’ Stegemann was a systemic failure driven by clinical arrogance, a total lack of transparency, and a blatant disregard for the safeguards meant to protect vulnerable patients,” declared her family.
“One of our greatest ethical concerns is that GG had explicitly declined MAID, stating it violated her Christian faith. Once a vulnerable patient explicitly declines this path, the facility should never have targeted her for re-evaluation behind closed doors while her primary advocate was away,” they said. “We are deeply alarmed by the absolute lack of transparency and independent oversight regarding the application process.”
“The events of GG’s final morning … have left a lasting trauma on our family.”
****
A pro-life group headed by a former LifeSiteNews staffer publishes a homecare planning guide to help seniors remain independent and safe.
On today’s show, NCF Senior Fellow Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, Amy Gallagher of Stand up to Woke, International Thatcher Reagan Society Fellow David Oldroyd-Bolt and barrister and commentator Steven Barrett discuss:
Kemi Badenoch accuses the Reform party of being “woke”
Reform’s bold new plans to stop the boats and imprison employers who employ illegal migrants
Jason Arday: Is this the tip of the D.E.I. iceberg?
A 16-year-old Italian of immigrant background has been arrested on suspicion of supporting ISIS and spreading jihadist propaganda, after investigators allegedly found a large collection of extremist material on his computer, including videos showing how to build an improvised explosive device.
The teenager was arrested by Milan police in Grosseto, where he was on vacation with his family. He is accused of participating in an association with the aim of international terrorism, as well as propaganda and incitement to commit crimes motivated by racial, ethnic and religious discrimination.
The investigation began following a report from Italy’s intelligence agency for internal security. The teenager had no criminal record, and his profile had never emerged in connection with radical circles. According to investigators, however, he regularly used an instant messaging platform to distribute jihadist and pro-ISIS propaganda.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini commented on the arrest on social media, writing sarcastically: “Another ‘Italian’ boy of foreign origin, well-educated and perfectly integrated. Ready to build bombs in the name of Islamic terrorism…”
Investigators found a substantial quantity of digital files on the devices of the young man concerning the Islamic State, translated into several languages. The material included propaganda videos and images depicting training sessions and executions.
Investigators also uncovered several conversations in which the teenager explicitly expressed his support for ISIS. In those exchanges, he allegedly stated that he had previously helped produce propaganda content for the terrorist organization.
Among the seized material were also videos sharing instructions for manufacturing an improvised explosive device using readily available materials, bearing the Islamic State’s logo.
The material led investigators to conclude that the teenager’s radicalization had reached an advanced stage. Of particular concern were traces of conversations with members of Daesh, which contributed to the decision to seek precautionary measures against him.
The arrest marks another terrorism case in Italy involving a young man of foreign origin, highlighting the dangers of unregulated mass immigration into Europe. Earlier this year, a 21-year-old man of Moroccan descent was apprehended by police for planning an Islamist terror attack in Northern Italy.
Ilona Szatmári Waldau, a Riksdag member for the Left Party, wrote an open letter to Ahmad al-Moghrabi, who is serving 18 life sentences in Israel.
A Swedish Left Party member of parliament has praised a local leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and sent a letter of support to the imprisoned terrorist, prompting an admission of error from both the politician and her party.
Ilona Szatmári Waldau, a Riksdag member for the Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) since 2018, wrote an open letter in December 2025 to Ahmad al-Moghrabi, who is serving 18 life sentences in Israel.
Al-Moghrabi was arrested in 2002, when he was a local commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah and a group listed as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US. He was convicted of organising suicide bombings during the Second Intifada.
They included an attack on March 2, 2002 on families gathered after a bar mitzvah celebration in the Beit Yisrael district of Jerusalem, which killed 11 people, among them two infants.
Another attack involved a 17-year-old Palestinian girl who had been sent with a bomb to blow herself up among the customers in a supermarket in Jerusalem on March 29, 2002. The day before the attack, al-Moghrabi recorded a farewell and confession video with the girl and is said to have personally handed over the bomb at her school.
In her letter, Szatmári Waldau wrote that his “courage and perseverance in the fight for freedom and dignity” inspired people far beyond Palestine, and declared: “Your fight is also our fight.”
The letter formed part of a wider campaign in which several Left Party MPs and MEPs sent messages of solidarity to Palestinian prisoners, coordinated with information from the Palestinian Association in Sweden.
After the matter was revealed by newspaper Expressen on August 3, 2026, Szatmári Waldau said the fact-checking had gone wrong.
She stated on Facebook that none of the prisoners selected for the campaign were supposed to have been involved in violence against civilians, removed the post, and insisted that she does not support terrorism or violence against civilians.
The party leadership described the mistake as unacceptable and said all related posts had been deleted. The Left Party has since ended its cooperation with the association that supplied the information and said it was reviewing its procedures for similar campaigns.
The episode has drawn sharp criticism from government ministers, who argued that it forms part of a recurring pattern of Left Party figures expressing solidarity with individuals convicted of terrorism.
Foreign minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said she was deeply provoked by the party’s explanations, telling Expressen that tributes to terrorism and anti-Semitism kept recurring within it.
Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar described the reports as very serious and said the party had not known the prisoner’s background when the letter was sent.
She also expressed her support for Szatmári Waldau, telling Aftonbladet that her colleague had meant to argue for a fair trial under the Geneva Conventions, and adding: “I feel very comfortable with her values.”
More than 100 young people attended a four-day pro-Palestinian “summer school” at a Youth Hostel Association centre in the Peak District, where participants were led in anti-Zionist chants and received lessons about militant figures.
The event, organised by Palestinian Youth Movement Britain during the final week of May, took place at the YHA Edale Activity Centre in Derbyshire. Video footage showed attendees reciting slogans in Arabic, including: “We will have victory over Zionism, we will return, young people rise up, our country is an Arab country.”
Discussions at the gathering centred on what organisers described as the “next phase of our national liberation struggle.”
Experts have described the event as a “radicalisation camp,” with Dr Daniel Allington of King’s College London demanding that police examine the material presented to young attendees.
Palestinian Youth Movement Britain presents itself as a grass-roots organisation that “organises Palestinian and Arab youth to struggle for Palestinian liberation.” In the aftermath of the 7 October massacre, the group posted a message on X that appeared to endorse the Hamas assault: “When people are occupied, resistance is justified.”
The organisation also distributed an eight-page instruction booklet to “solidarity groups” nationwide the previous year, directing them to flood Labour MPs with complaints about the party’s alleged “partnership in Israel’s genocide.”
The summer school marked the group’s first event of this nature. More recently, Palestinian Youth Movement Britain staged a “community football tournament for Palestine” in Kensington. A photograph shared by the organisation depicted five children facing away from the camera, with the only visible shirt numbers being seven and 10 — an apparent allusion to the October 7 atrocities.
Attendees received instruction on Ghassan Kanafani, who served as spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Kanafani was killed by Mossad in 1972 owing to his involvement in the Lod airport massacre, an assault on Tel Aviv’s airport that claimed 26 lives and wounded 80 others. The attack was executed by the Japanese Red Army under PFLP direction.
A slideshow used during the session featured a Kanafani quotation: “History is not produced by a magic wand, but is transformed by the masses who understand it and are determined to change it.”
The classroom itself had an Arabic banner declaring: “Our revolution is for victory.”
Participants also received a 12-page Palestinian Youth Movement publication titled “New York War Crimes,” in which contributors outlined “how they resist, how they struggle and how they fight against the Zionist enemy.”
Heidi Bachram, whose Jewish relatives were murdered and seized as hostages by Hamas during the 7 October attack, condemned the event in stark terms: “It is deeply chilling to see young people in the UK being programmed to hate and inspired by terrorists. Our family was murdered in Israel by those who act on this violent ideology. I fear where this will lead. We need urgent action to stop this vile brainwashing and shut these organisations down.”
Fiyaz Mughal, who founded Muslims Against Anti-Semitism, warned that phrases such as “victory over Zionism” carry “many meanings for Jews across the world, including the struggle for a Jewish homeland.”
He added: “This, in my opinion, is deeply problematic, divisive and confrontational. Communities in our country feel divided, and such language simply adds to it.”
Dr Allington called on law enforcement to scrutinise the camp’s content: “If the police don’t investigate this radicalisation camp, we have a right to know why. Youngsters appear to have been encouraged to take part in the chanting of racist and pro-terror slogans.”
The YHA moved to distance itself from the gathering, confirming that the stay had been arranged as a private group booking.
A spokesman stated: “YHA was not involved in organising, delivering or supervising the group’s programme or activities.”
The organisation said it had become aware of concerns about footage reportedly captured during the group’s time at the centre, stressing that the views or conduct of private hirers do not reflect the YHA’s own position.
“YHA is committed to providing welcoming, inclusive and respectful spaces for everyone,” the spokesman said. “We are actively investigating the circumstances surrounding this booking, including whether any of our terms and conditions or policies may have been breached. We will consider any appropriate action once that review has been completed.”
The hostel association maintained it had no prior knowledge of the programmes or activities the group intended to run during its stay.
GB News has contacted Palestinian Youth Movement Britain for comment.
Sánchez is sending ultimatums from his vacations in the Canary Islands?
The migrant fiasco turns into a border dispute.
The whole world saw the reality of Spanish migration chaos when about 60K North African invaders swam and overran the enclave of Ceuta a few days ago.
The Italian government of Giorgia Meloni went beyond strongly worded letters and imposed heavy border checks with Spain, despite the Schengen agreement.
So, Spain issued an ultimatum to Italy. It did not work.
BREAKING: The Spanish government says passport and nationality checks on Italian passengers will begin at midnight local time.
The move comes in response to Italy's restrictions on Spanish travellers after last week's migrant influx in Ceuta.https://t.co/WuTlXvYwFq
“’Italy does not accept ultimatums or impositions from abroad regarding national security and border control’, the Italian government said in a statement on Friday.
The Spanish government issued an ultimatum to Italy on Friday, demanding that it lift border controls imposed on travelers coming from Spain by Sunday, arguing that the measure is ‘unjust, contrary to the interests of the European Union and discriminatory towards the Spanish population’.”
🇮🇹🇪🇸 Italy just told Spain to SHOVE its ultimatum
After the Ceuta migrant crisis, Rome slapped temporary checks on arrivals from Spain.
Madrid demanded they come off by Sunday, August 9, and threatened "proportionate measures" if they don't.
“In a statement, the Spanish government argues that the decision taken by Rome on 1 August “is based on spurious arguments incompatible with the Schengen Borders Code and with the facts.”
Rome responded later on Friday, saying: ‘Under no circumstances do we intend to review our decision to suspend the application of the Schengen Agreement for third-country nationals coming from Spain, at least until 15 August’ – when another mass migrant crossing into Ceuta is rumored to be planned.”
We’ve been covering the story of the brutal killing of Elizabeth Jane-Ross here at Front Page Magazine. Ross had been volunteering for a charity working with Muslim migrants in Greece. She was murdered, her body stuffed into a suitcase and left abandoned in a building. The alleged perpetrator was an Afghan migrant who had been running his own ‘charity’.
And he had even been a poster boy for Afghan migrants.
The Red Cross had produced a movie: ‘Game of life: the story of Sharif’ which “tells the story of 15 year-old Sharif, who fled Afghanistan for one of Greece’s island camps. The video draws attention to the people behind the statistics.”
Mysteriously, the video was taken down by the International Red Cross, but fortunately its obscene sympathy-mongering for a killer and an invasion of killers is still available elsewhere.
We flick past them on our television screens, but each migrant has a story worthy of a Hollywood movie. This is just one story out of more than a million who journey to Europe by sea.
This is the story of Sharif. Sharif comes from East Afghanistan. “I love my country a lot. I remember being with my family.”
Sharif’s mother moved them to Kabul to escape the fighting. “At the start of the year, my mother had a pain in her knee. She went to the hospital with my sisters and brothers. She was coming back to the house when a car came. It was a suicide bomb. They all died.” Sharif was all alone and aged only 15. Some of Sharif’s friends wanted to leave the country, so he joined them. They found a smuggler who could help. “The smugglers call it a game. If you want to go to another country, they’ll say, ‘No problem. We’ll put you in a game.’”
After we crossed the border, everyone was so happy because finally we made it. We thought we would die.” Sharif arrived in Istanbul, but he was unable to find any work. He tried to travel to Greece, but the police arrested him and put him in jail for 3 days. “When I got out, I found smugglers who created another game for me to go to Greece. Finally, I made it.” Sharif has now been at a camp in Lesbos for 6 months.
“Living in the camp is so hard. Sometimes when I think about living here, I get so crazy. I try to find somewhere calm and then I cry a lot. I have an aunt in the United Kingdom and she told me I can take full responsibility of you if someone helps you to get to the UK. But if I can’t get there, I don’t know what will happen to me. I want to have a life, to have a future, to be in a safe country.”
Fleeing war and persecution is no game. Yet every day, thousands more are forced to gamble with their lives. Meet the people behind the statistics, share their stories.
Yes, meet the actual people. And the horrifying consequences they inflict on us.
We have no idea how much if any of this sob story is true. What we do know is that when we believe them and allow them in, they kill us. And people like Elizabeth Jane Ross die.
This is their game. To try and get in. Then rob us, rape us and kill us.
Indeed, each migrant has a story worthy of a Hollywood movie. But Hollywood would never dare make it.
Tensions reach a breaking point in Thetford as local residents confront the police over what they describe as a “two-tier” justice system. Screengrab youtube
Police have made several arrests over three nights of disorder in a small Norfolk town over what locals say is the sudden and unannounced imposition of illegal migrant males on the community by the government.
Thetford, a small town of some 25,000 near the Suffolk border in south Norfolk saw its third night of unrest and what some called an overly heavy-handed police response on Thursday over the emergence of so-called ‘HMOs’ — homes of multiple occupancy — regular family houses divided into small sub-units and used by the government to disperse boat migrants around the country. The apparently sudden and unheralded arrival of migrants placed in these HMOs on Tuesday came in a town already on alert over arbitrary migrant plantations given present government plans to turn a military base just a mile away into a massive dormitory to house 3,750 migrant arrivals in former Royal Air Force barracks.
Norfolk Police launch a dramatic operation…to disperse a group of men for throwing eggs at a migrant HMO pic.twitter.com/SRwtr60jxD
The protests began on Tuesday after a group of five men, believed by locals to be “illegal migrants” were moved into a property in the town that morning. There was no warning that the group were to be placed in the property beyond neighbours being told by the landlord that the property was to be let.
News of the alleged arrival of the migrant males triggered a protest just hours later, and by Tuesday night three properties were damaged, with windows smashed, fences broken, and at least one attempt to break into a building by a group of around 100 people.
Police eventually escorted a group of five males, with hooded tops drawn tight over their faces and reported by the local newspaper to be “asylum seekers”, out of the property and away from the protestors, and into a waiting van to be driven away.
There was a “largely peaceful” anti-immigration protest outside Thetford police station the following day on Wednesday, but there was again an attempt to raid what locals understand to be a migrant HMO leading to scuffles with police. Officers issued dispersal orders ten times as rocks and eggs were thrown. Two officers were sent to hospital after one was struck by a rock, and another was bitten hard enough to break the skin.
Locals turned out again on Thursday and egged a HMO, and were met by riot police, backed by extra legal powers to require protesters to uncover their faces or face arrest.
🇬🇧 Two men have been arrested following two nights of protests in Thetford, Norfolk, over the housing of asylum seekers in local HMOs.
Police escorted multiple groups of asylum seekers away from properties in the area.
Five people have been arrested over the course of the week on charges including “suspicion of racial hatred”, and public order offences. The chief of Norfolk police has promised further arrests relating to the injuries to officers and has promised the force will push for “firm, robust” prison sentences for those convicted, citing the example of the Southport riots where heavy sentences were passed down to some involved.
State broadcaster the BBC notes some locals have reflected that the police response to protests in the town have been “heavy handed” and complained that in one instance, a woman on a mobility scooter was pepper-sprayed. The chief constable Paul Sanford defended the force, asserting that the response had been proportionate and the lady in the wheelchair shouldn’t have been at the protest if she didn’t want to risk getting caught up in it. He told the BBC:
I absolutely refute that [we were excessive], we have people who are exercising their right to protest, and of course we will support that. There are people who live in Thetford who are concerned, understandably concerned about some of the things that are happening in their town.
However across three consecutive nights a group of people have crossed the line over what’s acceptable and we have been appropriately policing those behaviours. I’ve seen the reports of heavy-handedness, we’ve been firm, we’ve been firm with people who have broken the lawn. And if people wander into an active protest and ignore calls from the police to stand back, then there is a high likelihood they might get caught up in what occurs.
The top cop reflected that if officers hadn’t turned out, then protesters may have been able to storm alleged migrant HMOs and this could have threatened both the safety of the occupants “and indeed the protesters themselves”.
Local Reform UK councillor Scott Hussey has been a witness to the protests and challenged the police’s account of there having been major disorder justifying the deployment of riot officers. He accused the government of “opening a number of these HMOs across Thetford” and told the broadcaster: “There were some skirmishes, it was a spirited protest but I didn’t see any violence… We fully support their right to protest. I’d encourage people to protest peacefully and most of what I saw yesterday was peaceful.”
The councillor also toldThe Daily Telegraph — which reports that the three properties targeted in Thetford on Tuesday had all been bought by the same landlord this year — of one of the homes involved: “It’s a smallish three-bed terraced house which I understand was converted around two months ago into a [house in multiple occupation] for six people. It’s on a housing estate popular with young families, right around the corner from a primary school.”
Hussey’s Reform Party colleague Colin Sutton, a former murderer-catching Met Detective Chief Inspector who is now Norfolk’s elected Police and Crime Commissioner, said that while violence is wrong he sympathised with protesters when the government was rushing to plant migrants in local communities without consultation. He told the Newsnight programme on Thursday night: “I don’t know what people in the government actually expect.
“If you put these illegal immigrants into houses in the middle of housing estates, close to schools, next door to people, into communities who have absolutely no say in it, then I think it’s a pretty reasonable expectation that the people there will not be happy about it and will want to make a fuss. The fact is we’re getting about a thousand-a-week of these people coming in on small boats and we’re running out of places to put them.”
The protests in Thetford are just the latest in a series of incidents of public disquiet over government-forced plantations of new arrivals into communities in recent years, although it is somewhat unusual in that it brakes the norm of protests generally following high-profile migrant crimes being committed locally, rather than the mere arrival of incomers. One one such case, rioters clashed with police in Belfast earlier this summer after what was described as an attempted “beheading” in the city.
