These Six Media Lies Are Stoking the Anti-Migrant Protests

A year on from 2024’s summer race riots, the UK is in the grip of anti-migrant fever once more. The recent spate of protests against hotels housing asylum seekers has seen less violence than the riots – but it nonetheless reveals a widespread anger. 

The hotel protests are drawing people who see asylum seekers as freeloaders here to take handouts and do crime, rather than desperate people hoping for a better life. But the truth is that these people are being lied to by dishonest politicians, rent-a-gob pundits, dodgy AI and YouTube grifters. Here are just a few recent examples.

Migrants get discounted boat rides and massages.

“​​A host of generous perks are being offered to small boat arrivals,” screamed the Sun this week, detailing “dozens of farcical asylum deals uncovered in a Sun investigation”.

Most shockingly of all, the Sun claimed that at the lakes at Rother Valley Country Park in south Yorkshire, migrants get “a 30% discount, slashing the cost of a 90-minute double-handed dinghy or sailing boat rental from £20.70 to £14.80”.

It’s a story perfectly pitched to wind people up – first they come here on small boats, then they mess around on small boats at the taxpayer’s expense.

“You could not make it up,” fumed shadow home secretary Chris Philp. Except this is the Sun, and it absolutely could make it up.

It’s true that asylum seekers in the Rotherham council area are entitled to the Rothercard – a discount card aimed at helping all residents on low incomes with bills. But that doesn’t mean they’re actually able to use all of the discounts.

The Sun’s headline was “Small boat migrants given taxpayer-funded days out,” but beyond that, it didn’t say that asylum seekers are actually getting cheap boat rides – presumably because they’re not. Even with the discount, the boat ride is £12.70. Asylum seekers living in catered temporary accommodation are given £9.95 per week to live on, and aren’t allowed to work.

While someone on universal credit might be able to stretch to a boat ride, an asylum seeker probably couldn’t afford the bus fare to get to the park in the first place. Rotherham Borough Council told the newspaper: “We would not generally expect asylum seekers to be accessing sports facilities like Rother Valley Country Park.”

The article also claims that in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, asylum seekers get discounted massages. The paper noted that migrants get £15 off an initial physiotherapy assessment, then a “further £5 saving for each treatment and one-hour massage”.

The Sun neglects to mention that that’s £5 off a massage that costs £60. So someone who lives in dispersal accommodation who gets £49.18 a week for all food and other costs could definitely not afford it. And even if asylum seekers were able to enjoy discounts on activities that are good for our mental health, is that really such a bad thing?

There’s ‘two-tier policing’ at hotel protests.

Amid protests to hit Epping in Essex, police were escorting a group of anti-racists, protesting to protect migrants. One officer shouted a command to his colleagues to look out for any danger from nearby anti-migrant protesters: “If you see any flashes, left or right, you deal.”

This moment was captured by Wesley Winter, one of the gaggle of rightwing YouTubers who attach themselves to these events. Mishearing the officer, he addressed his audience, saying: “Bloody hell, the officer literally just said, ‘If you see any fascists – left and right’. So you kind of see what side the police are taking at the minute guys – not neutral at all.”

To anyone actually listening, the cop clearly said “flashes” not “fascists”. Essex police posted on X, saying: “The officer actually says: ‘If you see any FLASHES, left or right, you deal’. Officers often talk about being alert to ‘flashes/flashpoints’ at protests!”

As far-right and neo-Nazi X/Twitter users piled in to accuse the police of lying, Grok – X’s rightwing AI chatbot – stirred the pot. “The video audio distinctly says ‘fascists’, as evidenced by the transcription and immediate protester reactions,” it claimed, adding that the “flashpoint claim appears as damage control amid bias concerns,” and that the police needed to provide “better evidence” – even though everyone could hear the recording for themselves.

However, when another clip of the same audio was posted by another X user, Grok apologised, saying: “Upon review, the audio at 00:06 clearly says “flashes,” as in flashpoints, matching Essex police’s statement. My earlier take was based on a misheard version and reactions. Good catch – truth prevails!” The truth did prevail – eventually – but not before some more fuel was added to the fire of discontent. Thanks a lot, Elon.

Migrants are living it up in hotels.

Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday, and the image of migrants coming over here and then treated to a stay in a hotel at the taxpayer’s expense while British people struggle is a powerful one.

Warehousing migrants in hotels is a hangover of Tory mismanagement of the asylum system and a policy that pleases nobody. But it’s not true that migrants in hotels are effectively on holiday.

Migrants staying in former hotels are subject to overcrowding, assault and sexual harassment from staff, and a lack of freedom. Even if they’re placed in a reasonably well-run facility, they sometimes languish there for months or years at a time, with no choice but to rely on the meals provided and £9.95 a week to live on.

In a recent iteration of this story, Talk TV played footage from inside the Copthorne hotel in West Sussex, claiming to reveal the “life of luxury inside migrant hotels” which included the fact that they have access to working phones and receive hot meals. Talk TV’s international editor Isabel Oakeshott, who lives in Dubai for tax reasons, claimed that the revelations have “huge public policy implications” – without saying what those are.

There’s a migrant crime wave.

In July, the Mail on Sunday published an investigation which claimed to reveal the scale of a “migrant crime wave” which had “until now been unknown”. It said that at least 312 asylum seekers have been charged with an “astonishing” 708 alleged criminal offences in just three years.

312 people is a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of people who have passed through asylum accommodation in the three years reported by the Mail. The paper ever so briefly mentioned that its “crime wave” figures included “those who have been acquitted” – so, those who are innocent – and “those involved in ongoing court cases” – in other words, those yet to be found guilty of any crime.

Despite these dubious figures, the article sparked an anti-migrant protest in east London.

90% of small boat migrants are ‘fighting-age men’.

In a recent article for the Mail on Sunday, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick repeated the claim that “nearly 90%” of migrants attempting small boat crossings are men. This is a common claim. In June, Reform’s Zia Yusuf said that “north of” 90% of asylum seekers are “adult men” – otherwise commonly referred to by Reform politicians as men of “fighting age”.

The 90% claim is a bogus simplification. In 2022, figures showed that 90% of crossings were done by male asylum seekers – although that included male children. “90% of migrants are men and little boys” doesn’t have the same alarmist ring to it, which is presumably why politicians exaggerate. In the whole of 2024, 76% of crossings were by adult males – a majority, yes, but not 90%.

Unhelpfully, rather than tackle this misinformation head on, Labour treasury minister Darren Jones claimed on a recent Question Time that “the majority of people in these boats are children, babies and women,” which is also wrong.

The truth is that most – but not all – of the people who feel able to take the risky journey across the channel on small boats are men. Women often follow as part of family resettlement schemes, which means the gender split balances out over time. Far from an army of soldiers infiltrating the country, these are people, like any others, looking to build their lives. But politicians and pundits don’t tend to mention that, because they want voters to blame immigrants for their misfortune instead of them.

Anti-racists are ‘far-left agitators’.

The same attention-seeking rightwing pundits who will glibly declare that they don’t care if migrants drown in the channel are determined to paint anti-racist protesters as a dark and sinister force.

Maybe the pundits have a point here. How this GB News reporter bravely managed to continue her work after being viciously brushed on the head by a flag, I’ll never know. Watch for yourself.

This is the moment @SophieReaper of @GBNEWS claims she was assaulted. pic.twitter.com/ZuYMbPOAnk

— Dr Mariana Claire Marinovic (@DrMarianaClaire) August 8, 2025

Stand Up To Racism claim that they’re fighting against “fascism”.

However, only side has attacked a reporter today. The far-left agitators (who generally aren’t local) assaulted Sophie Reaper and aggressively mobbed her.

They’re everything they claim the other side are. pic.twitter.com/Ix5zPFUpKe

— Chris Rose (@ArchRose90) August 8, 2025