Shabana Mahmood manufacturers Danny ‘Tommo’ Thomas ‘a far-right and outright racist’
Shabana Mahmood has branded the anti-asylum activist who is behind the masked anti-migrant group Patriot Platform as ‘a far-right and outright racist’
The Home Secretary said Danny “Tommo” Thomas will feel “the full force of the law” if his balaclava-clad followers commit crimes near asylum sites such as Piddington.(Image: Getty Images)
Shabana Mahmood has branded the anti-asylum activist who is behind the masked anti-migrant group Patriot Platform as “a far-right and outright racist”.
The Home Secretary said Danny “Tommo” Thomas will feel “the full force of the law” if his balaclava-clad followers commit crimes near asylum sites such as Piddington.
Residents in the Oxfordshire village earlier this week voted overwhelmingly to become an independent state in a symbolic “referendum”. They staged the protest vote after ministers announced plans to house 1,256 male asylum seekers at a nearby former military base.
Thomas has said thousands of his followers could surround the area “for days” to try to stop migrants being brought to the site.
Ms Mahmood sought to reassure the around 300 people living in Piddington that the plans would not “put pressure” on local resources because they would be given “self-contained facilities”. She said she wanted to differentiate between those who have genuine concerns and those who were “hijacking” the situation.
“I understand the anxiety of local people when they’re about to see a change to their community. But it is important to distinguish that anxiety, where reasonable people can have a conversation, and the far right and outright racists like Danny Thomas walking into town, hijacking an issue and then using that to divide our communities,” she told The Guardian.
“Their behaviour is completely unacceptable. And where they break the law, they will face the full force of the law.”
The Mirror last weekend revealed that Thomas, whose protestors brought chaos to both Dover and Portsmouth this month, has suggested he wants followers to camp outside asylum centres for days to stop officials transporting migrants. Under Thomas’ plans, the protesters would operate 24/7 blockades, with members from around the UK maintaining the barricade in shifts.
Thomas revealed the plot in an interview with fellow rabble rouser Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. The convicted attempted kidnapper said: “I predict in the next six months, the Patriot Platform, with one message through a secure app, will be able to bring five to 10,000 people to a location within a matter of hours.”
He said one target could be Piddington, Oxfordshire, saying: “A prime example, Piddington, where the migrants are about to to go in. How powerful would it be if 5,000 men, when they know the MO, because we’ve proven who we are, what how our conduct is, that we surround that camp, we take tents, we sit there for days and we don’t let them get in till they can’t bring them in.”
On Wednesday, 285 people in Piddington backed “independence” from the UK, with a turnout of nearly 92%. Just 26 residents voted against the motion, with one spoiled ballot recorded.
Asked how she would respond to residents after the vote, Ms Mahmood said: “I want to reassure the residents of Piddington that actually our experience from other large sites where we already have, asylum seekers accommodated, whether that’s in Wethersfield or Crowborough, is that putting all facilities on to one site is actually the best way to manage pressures for local communities.
“Our experience of other large sites where we are housing asylum seekers is that we’re able to put on that site more of the facilities that asylum seekers need. It’s a relatively self-contained facility, and the knock-on pressure to those local areas, I don’t think we’re going to see.”
She also said there is “misinformation” online about the plans, adding: “I do understand the anxiety that people feel, when they’re about to see a change in their community or they are reading misinformation on the internet, or when they’re just concerned that a village is about to have a facility nearby that maybe they think may pose them some challenges.”
The Cabinet minister also said that concerns also existed in inner-city areas, such as her community in Birmingham, where there are large numbers of HMOs (houses of multiple occupation).
In response to the Piddington vote, Andy Burnham on Wednesday said ending use of asylum hotels requires difficult decisions as he defended plans to house migrants in a former military base instead.
Labour has vowed to end the use of asylum hotels and tackle the backlog. The number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels has halved in a year, official stats showed last month. Some 16,021 were accommodated in hotels at the end of June – down from 32,041 a year earlier.
Thomas was contacted for comment.
