The smear merchants at The Times are obsessed with us this week; publishing multiple hit pieces and even sending their sister organisation, Times Radio, to ambush our activists on Thursday night as they protested in the pouring rain.
Imagine being assigned to sit and watch Kai Stephens’ videos, just to critique them and churn out paywalled online slop…
Date: On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 4:55 pm
Subject: Fw: Re: Official Party Statement – Bell Hotel Demonstration
From: Tom Ball, The Times
Hi Adam,
Could you please let me know asap if you’d like to respond to the below.
A month before the protests in Epping began, Kai Stephens, a Homeland member, published a video on YouTube entitled “how to shut down a migrant hotel” and a second calling on people in Epping to “fight back”, in which he said that the aim of the protests was to “cause as much financial damage as possible on the taxpayer”.
The videos provide instructions for “attacking migrant hotels”, advising activists first to set up a group on Facebook where protests can be organised, as the social media site is more popular with older people who are “generally more sympathetic to our views”.
Describing protest action as “the fun route” to having migrant hotels shut down, he then instructs viewers to arrange demonstrations to take place “week in, week out” so as to be a “nuisance to the council”.
“You need to have a string of protests to basically cause as much financial damage as possible on the taxpayer and as much police resources wasted as possible,” said Stephens.
Thanks,
Tom
Our Response:
Hi Tom,
Below are my comments and response.
What Kai is talking about in those videos; informal videos on his own personal channel, is what he rightly described as the “political route” and “community politics approach”: using persistent, peaceful protest by locals to achieve change. Where he casually uses the word “attack”, he is clearly referring to a political attack on the principle of migrant hotels, not any kind of physical action.
It is true that constraints on police budgets are a factor when an authority considers whether a hotel should be closed. The way you get migrant hotels shut down is by local people protesting week in, week out, and it’s already been done, with help from us, in Erskine. It occurred wholly organically in Llanelli, and we are now seeing it happen in Epping. But it must always be the locals who drive it.
We have been completely consistent: masses of people coming in from outside do not help. Protests must be peaceful and political in nature, not aggressive. See the attached leaflet we hand out at protests. It makes our position clear.
I live in Epping, and I am well within my rights to help local people organise regular protests with the goal of safeguarding women and children from harm, which I do. As the Homeland Party’s regional organiser for the Eastern Region, I have a duty to help politically.
This ridiculous narrative going around, that it’s anyone but the locals protesting, is wholly false. It is nothing but a weak, coordinated political attack designed to delegitimise good-hearted local people who are rightly standing up for their community. But it has no effect on us. We step over it.
It is the far-left group Stand Up to Racism, a front for the Socialist Workers Party, who are openly organising and travelling long distances to disrupt local people’s democratic right to protest. And it is activists posing as journalists who simply regurgitate their lies without question.
Why is it only us who get accused of “coordinating” or “hijacking”, when the far-left are doing it in plain sight?
And why is The Times the most venomous with its constant false narratives, use of slurs, and total lack of balance?
Kind Regards
Adam Clegg
Eastern Regional Organiser
