Footage showing at least six Home Office immigration officers being hounded off the streets of Peckham has emerged on the internet.
The short video shows two officers getting into a brief physical altercation with one man, pushing him back into the crowd. Then another in the crowd is heard shouting “I’ll f*** you up! I’ll f*** him up next time”.
The officers, including a female officer, look nervous before getting into two vans and pulling away, to the delight of the mob.
The footage is believed to have been shot on Saturday afternoon. The video emerged first on Facebook on Saturday evening, and then on YouTube on Sunday.
According to the socialist revolutionary website Rabble, the officers had been entering shops in Peckham Market to verify immigration details before being rounded on by the crowd.
Rabble reported: “we know that these raids happen frequently in Peckham and in other black and migrant areas. And this is not the first time that they have been resisted and chased off.”
Similar YouTube videos dating from 2013 and 2014 show scenes in Southall, London and the West End. In both cases, opposition to the Enforcement Agency was organised by socialist activists.
In a West End restaurant, the officers are shown asking to see people’s passports and asking questions such as “when did you get your British passport?” Pro-immigration activists with British accents can then be heard telling locals “You don’t have to answer any questions” and “Everybody is free to leave whenever they want. You can just get up and walk out.” The officers are then hounded down the streets by a mob chanting “Off our streets, racist scum.”
In Southall, the Southall Black Sisters Against Enforcement shout “UK BA [Border Agency] Go Away” and “Our streets, out rights” down megaphones held inches from officers’ faces. The two officers politely inform members of the crowd that they can meet to discuss concerns.
Activism against immigration officers is encouraged by the Anti-Raids Network, which posted this weekend’s video to their site, along with the commentary: “The video of the incident offers a rare glimpse of the beautiful moment when often-silenced voices on the ‘debate’ on immigration come together in a message loud and clear for those in power: enough of your populist racist bullshit, enough of your demagoguery, enough of your divide-and-rule tactics — we live and work side by side one another, and we will fight for each other.”
Elsewhere, activists writing for the website vow to “show maximum solidarity with our ‘illegal’ brothers and sisters,” by actively opposing the deportation of illegal immigrants, who they claim are being “socially cleansed”:
“We have a vision. A city – a country, a world – with zero tolerance for attacks and harassment by cops, home office ‘enforcers’, or private security. Where if the uniformed bullies turn up to smash someone’s door in, barge their way into a workplace, or stop people in the street, they get surrounded by neighbours and passers-by who know the score and won’t take their bullshit.
“We’ve seen this happen, we’ve been part of this happening, and it’s a beautiful thing. The moments where we say: ‘No’, these are our streets, here we fight for each other. This is what we want to help grow and spread: a culture where we stand up for ourselves and for each other, a culture of defiance and solidarity. As the government ‘socially cleanses’ vast swathes of this country, let’s make this our response.”
The Home Office has been contacted regarding last Saturday’s events in Peckham.
UPDATE: The Home Office has confirmed the incident, which in fact took place on May 13th. On that date, Home Office Immigration Enforcement officers visited two businesses in Rye Lane, Peckham.
At K&K Butchers, three men of Pakistani origin were found to working in breach of their conditions of stay in the UK and arrested. They have been released and ordered to report regularly to the Home Office while their cases are progressed. No arrests were made at the second business.
During the altercation between officers and members of the public, no arrests were made and no injuries were sustained.
A Home Office spokesperson told Breitbart London: “These arrests send a clear message to those who believe they can abuse the UK’s immigration laws. Anyone who is found to be here illegally will face removal from the country.
“We would urge anyone with detailed and specific information about suspected immigration abuse to get in touch.”
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