Migrants Returned To Peckham Hotel After Protesters Disrupt Removal

The Home Office has postponed the transfer of asylum seekers from a London hotel to the Bibby Stockholm barge after protesters slashed a coach’s wheels and disrupted their removal on Thursday.

Immigration officers were forced to abandon attempts to transfer the migrants from the Best Western Hotel in Peckham, south London, after dozens of people wearing Covid face masks surrounded the vehicle, placed electric bikes under its front and rear wheels and punctured its tyres.

More than 100 Metropolitan police officers were deployed to remove the protesters, some being dragged away to be held in vans.

A total of 45 people were arrested after officers were assaulted whilst trying to stop the protesters from obstructing the coach, police said.

The Home Office denounced the “intimidatory and aggressive” behaviour of the protesters. The slashed tyres meant the coach was unable to continue its journey, forcing the migrants to return to the hotel.

Other asylum seekers who were due to be picked up on the way by the coach were taken to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, after the Home Office organised alternative transport.

The Home Office is, however, understood to be intent to transfer the migrants to the barge as part of ministers’ pledge to reduce the £6 million a day cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels.