Protesters outside Portsmouth hotel confuse Pakistan U-19 cricket team for asylum-seekers

Anti-immigration protesters gathered outside a Portsmouth hotel were forced to cancel their demonstration after discovering the Pakistan Under-19 cricket team rather than a group of asylum seekers were staying there.

Portsmouth had been the site of a large protest on Sunday following the arrival of a large dinghy containing an estimated 140 asylum seekers at the city’s Eastney harbour. A black-clad vigilante group attempted to block the streets around the port to stop the arrivals from leaving the area.

A spokesperson for the prime minister, Andy Burnham, condemned the demonstrators’ “intimidating and thuggish behaviour”, while Burnham pledged to stop the “politics of poison seeping into our streets”. That protest ended in the early hours of Monday morning after police obtained a dispersal order and threatened arrests.

With tensions still high the following day, the presence of a coach and a number of young Asian men at the city’s Marriott Hotel was circulated online and brought protestors back to the streets, leading to George Madgwick, leader of the Reform UK group on Hampshire County Council, being called to the scene. In a now-deleted Facebook post, he wrote that after arriving he spoke to the hotel manager, who explained the situation.

“The hotel explained it was a Pakistani cricket team staying. The team coach came to speak to me personally and I saw proof,” Madgwick wrote. “I then went to speak to the crowd gathering of 40-50 people and confirmed with them and assured them that it was a cricket team. Immediately the crowd respectfully accepted that. Within five minutes they were gone.

“I’m glad I could do my bit to help the situation and stop tensions rising. But the government need to understand why things like this happen. It’s not because the protestors and crowds are bad people. Local residents jut want to protect the city they love in the best way they know how.”

A spokesperson for Stand Up to Racism told the Portsmouth News: “Allowing racists to mobilise like this every time they become suspicious of any group of non-white people is extremely dangerous. It is racism in action and it has to stop.”

Since the incident the England & Wales Cricket Board has contacted the Pakistan Cricket Board to check on the wellbeing of those involved, and are reviewing security arrangements for the remainder of the Under-19s’ tour.

The team played England Under-19s in a four-day Test last week, losing by 10 runs, and are playing a one-day game against the same opponents on Wednesday at Arundel, around 25 miles from Portsmouth. A final game, also an ODI, is scheduled to be played in Guildford on Saturday. Pakistan’s senior men’s team is also in the country, playing the third and final Test against England at Edgbaston.