Bungling anti-immigrant protesters confuse Pakistan cricket team for migrants in Portsmouth hotel

Anti-immigrant protestors staged another demonstration in Portsmouth on Tuesday –after mistaking a Pakistani cricket team for asylum seekers.

A crowd of up to 50 people gathered outside the four-star Marriott hotel, wrongly believing that “four coach loads” of migrants were being taken there just days after asylum seekers were taken ashore in the Hampshire city.

Hundreds of far-right activists descended on Portsmouth on Sunday night, clashing with police and blocking roads in an attempt to stop the newly arrived migrants from being driven away.

Councillor George Madgwick, who was at the hotel, said residents had been on “high alert” since.

The leader of the Reform UK group on Hampshire County Council had been called to the scene and spoke to the hotel manager, who explained the guests were in fact the Pakistan Under-19 cricket team.

“Apparently, when the coach arrived earlier that day, it happened to be the same coach brand, model, and colour that picked up the migrants on Sunday, so I think that's where the confusion came in,” he told The Independent.

He then explained the error to a man who had organised the protest and was livestreaming it to social media.

“They were just like, ‘Okay, we're really sorry, we got it wrong’ and I said, ‘Well, yeah, if you can just leave now, that'd be great’.”

Cllr Madgwick said there had also been drones circling the hotel, but he wasn’t sure where they had come from.

The protestors gathered after disinformation about the team spread online earlier that day, with one local writing on X: “Four coachloads of migrants being loaded into the Marriott Hotel near Port Solent.”

The England and Wales Cricket Board is in contact with the Pakistan Cricket Board and has reviewed the security for the U19s, it said.

Following the demonstration on Sunday, police have since been spotted camped outside an RNLI station where migrants were brought ashore after a hate campaign erupted against the life-saving charity, branded by some as “traitors” and a “collection service”.

Two police vehicles were positioned outside the RNLI’s Eastney base on Tuesday after reports emerged that the charity is being targeted for its involvement in the rescue of 120 migrants brought to Portsmouth.

RNLI said some of their volunteers have been on the receiving end of physical and online abuse with chief executive Peter Sparkes slamming those who “hide behind a balaclava or a keyboard,” whose “action is wholly unacceptable”.

Chief constable of Hampshire Police Alexis Boon said protesters caused “some serious problems” and a small number of officers were treated for injuries. He said police “will go after” individuals after they have been identified.

Mr Boon added: “Violence and damage have no part in peaceful protests and my officers did not deserve to be assaulted. They worked incredibly hard and courageously and did not deserve what happened.”