Rebel News contributor Emma Dunwell has been covering demonstrations against plans to house asylum seekers in the town of Epping, where a judge overturned an order from the High Court requiring the closure of a hotel set to house migrants.

In what Dunwell described as a “chaotic weekend,” she covered a protest in Canary Wharf, London's financial district. There, protesters had converged upon a shopping centre. When she arrived, a swarm of police were rushing into the mall, chasing the crowd out of the building.

Despite the peaceful demonstration, officers made some arrests as tensions simmered between police and the protesters.

Rumours swirled that a young child had been pepper sprayed in the process, while other independent journalists, like Jack Hadfield, had also been hit with pepper spray.

“They're all fine,” Dunwell clarified. “But they all got pepper sprayed either directly or indirectly.”

In Epping, the latest flashpoint for backlash against hotels for asylum seekers, a large crowd marched towards the proposed site. 

Go Ad Free

“Send them back!” chanted the crowd along the route to the hotel.

“We're all struggling in life,” one of the locals who joined the protest told Dunwell. “I'm about to lose my place at the moment, due to my landlords giving it up for immigrants.”

Suggesting he “didn't know what to do anymore,” he joined the protest to “see what happens.” The decision to overrule the Home Office injunction against the asylum hotel was “absolutely disgusting,” he said.

Another protester said it seemed as though the government “was working directly against the people of Epping.”

Orla Minihane, the Reform Party candidate for Epping, told the crowd the local council “let us down” and that the government had “betrayed” the people.

“We pay taxes so that we can have our human rights and liberties protected,” Minihane said through a megaphone. “We come before illegal migrants.”

British people “do not back down,” she said.