Anti-racist demonstrators and anti-asylum seeker protesters faced off across Highfield Lane again last night in hostile scenes that have become all too familiar to local residents (17/6/26).
Anti-asylum seeker demonstrations and counter-demonstrations coordinated by Southampton Stand Up To Racism became a weekly feature of the Portswood street from summer 2025 onwards, with crowds gathering outside Highfield House Hotel, which houses asylum seekers placed there by the Home Office as they await the outcome of their asylum applications.
As weeks went by, the number of anti-asylum seeker protesters dwindled and the protests were called to a halt early this year.
However, they returned last week with a ‘flash protest’ in the wake of the Southampton riots that followed the verdict in the trial of the murderer of student Henry Nowak and the news of the knife attack on Stephen Ogilvie in Belfast.
Southampton Stand Up To Racism scrambled to gather counter-demonstrators for last week’s demonstration and massed around half the number on their side of the street to anti-asylum protesters.
In contrast, last night’s demonstration saw an increase in counter-demonstrators with around 60 gathered, and a decrease in anti-asylum seekers protests, with up to 40 protesting, including children.
The two groups contrasted in their approach. The counter-demonstrators marched in a group but without chants or songs from Waitrose in Portswood’s high street, to line the street opposite the hotel, holding signs and quietly chatting amongst themselves throughout the evening.
Alongside the printed placards which were distributed amongst the crowd as they mustered before the march and collected in at the end were handmade signs, bearing slogans such as ‘our community’ written over a red loveheart, ‘Stop the lies! Stop the fear! Refugees welcome here,’ ‘seeking asylum is not illegal,’ ‘fight ignorance not immigrants,’ and ‘be kind and look up class war you silly willies!’.
Meanwhile, the anti-asylum seeker protesters took a noisier approach, largely singing anti-transgender songs, and shouting to the counter protesters about Palestine, despite the lack of Palestinian flags or slogans amongst them. Some also chanted what could be interpreted as a celebration of people drowning in the English Channel – ‘flip the boats and feed the fish,’ a slogan that also recently appeared on a Southampton Patriots social media post.
Despite the chant, behind them a banner reminded those present that ‘white lives matter #all lives matter’. Further banners announced ‘stop the boats’ and ‘no religion should supersede the law of the land there is only one law’ alongside Southampton Patriots flags, Union Jacks, St Georges Cross and a large electronic sign featuring a colourful range of messages including ‘you are vermin’.
The gulf between the two groups felt far wider than the two lanes of Highfield Lane, with the anti-asylum seeker protesters shouting directly at those across the street from them, chanting slurs about left wing people and shouting ‘traitors’ as the group across from them stuck to their policy of not responding and quietly dispersed after around an hour, at 7pm.
Both groups will be on the streets of Portswood again on Saturday, with a UKIP vigil and march and community unity counter demonstration set to take place.
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