The pro-refugee charity Care 4 Calais, which countered the demonstration, described protesters as being members of the "far-right," a term all too quickly adopted in the initial reporting across Britain's mainstream media. Many conservative commentators, however, took issue with the claim, insisting it was all too easy for protesters to be demonized by the British media, and suggesting the majority of attendees to the protest were concerned local residents from a constituency that happens to be one of the safest seats of the left-wing Labour party in the country.
Some attendees took to the airwaves to slam the media's initial reporting of the incident. One caller to a British radio station insisted he and many others are "just parents worrying about their children," revealing his child's school has had to put up netting to deter asylum seekers who leer at students on the playground. "We vote Labour every year, we are not far-right," he told listeners.
Knowsley was the latest protest against migrant hotels in Britain, but it wasn't the first and it won't be the last. A planned protest in Cornwall next weekend has already been tarred with the "far-right" brush, despite leaders of the planned peaceful protest claiming no political parties have been involved in the organization of the event. The description of the protest also claims it is for local people concerned about security and the impact the continued use of hotels in the area for asylum seekers will have on the upcoming tourist season. In typical fashion, local leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties both slammed the protest organizers, calling the event one for the "racist and bigoted." What a vote winner...
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