Anti-migration ideology: alarming outcomes in the UK.

photo by Lina Kivaka on pexels.com

Over the last few years, the UK has seen a significant rise in anti-migrant movements and protests, the target being not only refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in general, but NGOs, volunteers, and experts operating in this sector as well. The latter are currently working in a tense environment, where they constantly fear possible attacks on their organisations and their persons.

Indeed, during the summer of 2024, several riots took place in the United Kingdom, during which hotels housing asylum seekers were attacked, despite hosting immigrants whose origin countries are well known for ongoing conflicts or systematic human rights violations. Moreover, organisations working to support refugees and asylum seekers received several threats, forcing them to take precautions such as the installation of safe rooms in their headquarters due to safety concerns.

It appears that social media platforms played a pivotal role in spreading the anti-migration narrative backing these riots: the posts linked to it were found on Telegram, Parler, Gettr, 4chan, and 8kun, platforms known for spreading far-right ideologies, but also on more mainstream social media like Facebook.

Another relevant aspect is the fact that information regarding the NGOs’ activities was shared online in far-right group chats, which led to constant harassment, with threatening messages and phone calls. For this reason, some organisations had to switch to online services only, removing their address and personal data from their website. Despite the charges pressed against more than 1000 people for the riots, among whom a smaller number were charged for their online activity as well, the climate in the UK is still very tense. 

As highlighted by Human Rights Watch, the new UK government, elected in 2024, “inherited a host of human rights challenges”, among which violations of refugee rights and legislation still represent an issue to this day.

The hostilities recently reached their peak at the end of August 2025, when several NGOs, lawyers, and volunteers working in the field of refugee protection reported numerous threats, including death and rape threats, coming from far-right groups. Moreover, personal details of these organisations’ staff have been shared online, increasing the level of abuse and offence the volunteers and workers are subjected to.

The NGOs emphasized the role of journalism and media outlets in inciting this kind of narrative and, therefore, its outcomes. The whole sector was already facing insufficient resources, but now the situation has become far more concerning, with organisations forced to work quietly for their own sake. 

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has already issued alarming findings on this matter back in August 2024: the Committee underlined how racist acts, xenophobic incidents, and violence against asylum seekers and ethnic minorities by “extremist far-right and white supremacist individuals and groups” were recurring within the UK and its politics itself. Despite the CERD's recommendation to implement effective measures to limit such episodes in 2024, the situation seemed to have worsened. 

Official Sources:

• The Guardian (2025), More than 150 lawyers and refugee NGOs report being ‘pressured into silence’ by far-right protesters. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/22/more-than-150-lawyers-and-refugee-ngos-report-being-pressured-into-silence-by-far-right-protesters

• The Guardian (2025), Refugee charities install safe rooms and relocate amid rise in far-right threats. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/21/refugee-charities-install-safe-rooms-and-relocate-amid-rise-in-far-right-threats

• The Guardian (2025), Reading the post-riot posts: how we traced far-right radicalisation across 51,000 Facebook messages. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/28/reading-the-post-riot-posts-how-we-traced-far-right-radicalisation-across-51000-facebook-messages

• The Guardian (2024), Rioters try to torch Rotherham asylum seeker hotel amid far-right violence. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/04/rioters-try-to-torch-rotherham-asylum-seeker-hotel-amid-far-right-violence

• Human Rights Watch (2024), https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/united-kingdom

• OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2024), https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/08/un-committee-elimination-racial-discrimination-publishes-findings-belarus

written by Alice Scotti