Anti-immigration Protesters Mistakenly Target Pakistan U-19 Cricketers
A group of anti-immigration demonstrators in southern England descended on a hotel housing Pakistan’s Under-19 cricket team after mistakenly assuming the teenage players were newly arrived asylum seekers, British media reported on Wednesday.
The confrontation unfolded on Tuesday evening in Cosham, a northern suburb of Portsmouth, just two days after protesters had already disrupted the disembarkation of migrants near the port city and clashed with police in scenes widely condemned across the country.
This time, the anger was aimed at the wrong people.
Protesters Drawn by Online Rumours
According to reports, messages circulating online claimed a coach carrying “young Asian men” had been seen pulling up at a Marriott Hotel in Cosham. That was enough to bring around 30 protesters to the site, primed for another standoff over immigration.
They were not met by asylum seekers. They were met, unknowingly, by a group of teenage cricketers representing Pakistan at Under-19 level.
A councillor from Reform UK, the anti-immigration party, arrived at the scene as tensions simmered. After confirming that the men inside were members of Pakistan’s youth cricket squad, he helped to calm the situation and disperse the crowd, according to The Guardian.
The senior Pakistan men’s team, meanwhile, were hundreds of miles away, locked into the third Test against England at Edgbaston in Birmingham. The Under-19s had simply checked into a hotel and become the latest targets of a febrile national argument.
Police Step In as Crowd Gathers
Hampshire Police said officers were called once it became clear a group had started to gather outside the hotel on Tuesday evening.
“We were notified that a group of people were starting to congregate near the hotel,” a police spokesman said. Officers went to the scene and spoke with those assembled, who were “expressing concerns about a coach that had been seen in the area”.
The officers, the spokesman added, told the protesters that “their concerns were not correct”. The force did not explicitly confirm that the Pakistan U-19 squad had been the subject of the mistaken suspicion.
The crowd of around 30 dispersed shortly afterwards. No offences were identified, and no arrests were made.
‘Scapegoating’ Warning
For anti-racism campaigners, the episode was more than a simple case of mistaken identity. It was a warning sign.
Michael Bradley, a national organiser with Stand Up To Racism, condemned the incident as a stark illustration of how toxic the debate around refugees and migrants in Britain has become.
He said it showed “where the scapegoating of refugees and migrants can lead”.
“When a Pakistan U-19’s team is faced by protests because it ‘might’ in fact be a group of migrants, it means that effectively any group of black or Asian people coming into the city are being seen by the far right as a potential target,” Bradley said.
“It’s obvious where all this is going to end — racist attacks and more violence.”
Immigration, and specifically the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers on small boats from mainland Europe each year, has become one of the most divisive issues in British politics. Protests have multiplied. Some have turned ugly.
In Cosham, the evening ended without violence, without arrests, and with a crowd drifting away once the misunderstanding was laid bare. But the image lingers: a youth cricket team, fresh off a coach, unwittingly walking into the front line of Britain’s immigration wars.
