On a Friday night this month in Knowsley, near Liverpool, a crowd of people gathered outside a hotel housing asylum seekers. Witnesses said missiles were thrown, and later that night a police van was set on fire.
The Guardian reporter Diane Taylor tells Hannah Moore that for those inside the hotel who had fled their home countries, it was a terrifying ordeal. The crowd protesting outside was largely made up of locals, but in recent weeks the area has been targeted in a leaflet campaign by far-right groups including Patriotic Alternative.
As Joe Mulhall of Hope Not Hate explains, the far-right threat in Britain comes from a tiny minority of people. But social media are giving them an outsize influence – and mainstream politicians willing to echo their language are playing into their hands.
