Declan Clune, Southampton Socialist Party and secretary of Southampton and South West Hampshire Trades Union Council
On Sunday 17 August 2025, Southampton had another visit from the extreme right-wing leader of UKIP, Nick Tenconi.
As before, Tenconi brought a mixture of fascist, racist and anti-refugee activists to bring alarm, harassment and distress to vulnerable asylum seekers housed inside the Highfield House Hotel in our city.
Socialist Party members, some active within Southampton Trades Council, were part of the mobilisation and attendance at the counterprotest held outside the hotel.
With police assistance, the Tenconi supporters were allowed to march through the diverse community of Portswood, attack a local Mosque, and hold a racist rally on the private grounds of the hotel. Police stood by while the rally assembled under the windows of rooms with asylum seekers inside. The rally then involved racist chants from the group outside of ‘send them back’, ‘stop the boats’ and accusing all asylum seekers of being sexual and violent criminals.
This was a point of huge anger among counter-protesters, some remonstrated loudly with police officers. Police inaction and refusal to respond to complaints made was a clear demonstration to everyone that we cannot trust the police to keep our communities safe. One of the Police commanders on the day even caused injury to a woman on the counter-demonstration by pushing her to the ground.
Socialist Party members brought the demand for jobs, homes and full funding of our public services, not racism. We also called for more active involvement from the trade unions in the fight against racism and the far right.
We were the majority on the day, but we know this battle isn’t going away. We know that our demands need to carry on throughout the movement to have a chance of winning. And that is why we encouraged everyone there to join us at the National Shop Stewards Network Rally and Lobby of the TUC in Brighton on Sunday 7 September.
