Protesters target wrong Portsmouth hotel hosting Pakistan cricket team

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Protesters target wrong Portsmouth hotel hosting Pakistan cricket team

Daily Mail · 2 hours ago

Anti-immigration protesters in Portsmouth gathered outside a hotel believing it was housing asylum seekers, only to be told by staff that the occupants were actually Pakistan's under-19 cricket team on tour in England. The mix-up came just days after around 120 migrants were brought ashore near the city, an event that had already sparked a large demonstration and clashes with police, highlighting how heightened tensions over Channel crossings are spilling into unrelated incidents.

Up to 50 people gathered outside the four-star Marriott hotel in Cosham after a local resident wrongly claimed to have seen "four coachloads of migrants" arriving, days after roughly 500 protesters demonstrated at Eastney Landing and several police officers were injured. Hampshire councillor George Madgwick, of Reform UK, intervened, confirmed with hotel management and the touring party that the coach carried Pakistan's under-19 squad and support staff rather than asylum seekers, and the crowd dispersed peacefully within minutes. The England and Wales Cricket Board has since contacted its Pakistani counterpart over the players' welfare and is reviewing security for the remainder of the under-19s' tour, which coincides with the senior teams' third Test at Edgbaston.

  • Portsmouth protesters mistook Pakistan's under-19 cricket team for migrants.
  • A councillor confirmed the error and the crowd of 50 dispersed calmly.
  • Follows a larger, tenser protest days earlier over migrants landing nearby.

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Originally published by Daily Mail as “Bungling anti-immigration protestors left red-faced after demonstrating outside hotel where Pakistani cricket team were staying”.