Guest post by Ono Okeregha, director of Immigration Advice Service
Okeregha: The danger has not gone away
In August 2024, mobs rioted throughout much of the UK, fueled by far-right vitriol and alcohol. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has confirmed that 1,280 people have been arrested for this involvement, and almost 800 have been charged so far.
These riots were terrifying for everyone, but particularly for the 39 British law firms and advice organisations named as targets for rioting. This included my company, Immigration Advice Service, (IAS) based in Oldham.
Regulated by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), we help immigrants, asylum seekers, companies seeking to hire foreign workers and foreign companies wishing to start operations in the UK with a host of legal needs.
The new threat we face
On 29 July, a terrible mass stabbing occurred in Southport, West Lancashire. Three children at a Taylor Swift dance class were murdered. The attacker was British-born. However, misinformation spread across social media inflamed Islamophobic, racist and anti-immigrant sentiments held by Britain’s far-right.
Riots began in Southport, a community still in mourning, and spread into arson, racist attacks and looting across the UK. It became the most extensive social unrest in England since 2011. It took robust sentencing from the judiciary to halt the unrest, including a nine-year sentence given for arson with intent to endanger life.
The August riots brought a unique threat to many immigration service providers. Our staff and clients were now at risk of being attacked by right-wing mobs. This threat is so difficult because it is unprecedented. The terrible scenes on television now had the possibility of coming to our doorstep with us being actually named. It makes us feel very vulnerable.
The threat has been most horrifying for the asylum seekers that we help. The rioting began after misinformation was spread that the Southport attacker was an asylum seeker. This led to much of the rioters’ anger being directed at people who had fled warzones, often barely escaping with their lives.
Particularly terrifying were attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers, during which flaming wheelie bins were pushed into the building. Hotel staff and asylum seekers alike had to barricade themselves into secure rooms, fearing for their lives.
Our staff and premises were also at risk of being attacked, being targeted as supporters of immigration. We had to take new action to protect ourselves, with workers having to stay away. Many of their LinkedIn profiles had been shared across social media by far-right hooligans and marked for attack.
Meanwhile, our premises had to be modified so that people coming in from out of town to riot would not identify it as a target. For example, any signs identifying the building’s purpose were taken down.
How the Oldham community helped
August could have been a terrible month for the company. Direct attacks on our premises could even have put us out of business. On the evening of 7 August, we anxiously watched CCTV footage from outside the building, waiting for the mob that could cause irreparable damage.
Our blood ran cold when we saw a group of around 150 people approaching. As they got closer, we realised this wasn’t a group of balaclava-clad racists. Rather, this was a group of local community members that had organised a counter-protest in solidarity with IAS.
They wanted to show that they would not accept violence against a business that works to help some of the most vulnerable people in the country. Meanwhile, the rioters never materialised.
We deeply thank all of the local people that came out to show their support. We will always be grateful to the incredibly supportive local community. It is impossible for us to ever fully repay them.
How IAS will continue to protect itself
The danger has not gone away yet for us or our clients, even though harsh sentences against rioters have been effective in quelling the violence.
We must continue working to make sure our staff and clients stay safe in a sector that has become a flashpoint for anti-immigration rioting. Anyone could turn up and wreck our business operations and cause harm, so everyone involved in the sector has had to adopt constant vigilance.
The main step has been for OISC to remove the names and addresses of law firms like IAS from the public domain. While this has protected the premises of such businesses, it has now brought challenges. We must work harder to reach out to prospective clients now that they will be mostly unable to find the company independently.
Staff have also had to adapt. Previously, we had been able to publicise and talk about the fantastic work we do to help visa applicants and asylum seekers. Now, we have to be much more discrete about our day-to-day activities.
But protected by our local community, IAS has been able to continue providing immigration, visa and asylum services across the country from our headquarters in Oldham.
This must explain why the OISC register has been unavailable to check on line since the summer. However, there is little point asking clients to always check that providers are authorised when there is in fact now no way of doing so. It’s open season now for unregulated advisors to set up shop as they will; OISC has repeatedly shown itself totally ineffective in policing this.