Anti-racism organisations in Manchester have expressed concern following the announcement of an upcoming far right protest organised by Britain First in the centre of the city, scheduled for later this month.

In an open letter addressed to Andy Burnham and Bev Craig, the Manchester branch of Stand up to Racism called for the anti-immigration group Britain First to be banned from marching in Manchester city centre on the 21st of February.

The letter demands the city’s leaders rethink the decision to allow the group to follow through with their March for Remigration, emphasising that Manchester is a city built on the contribution of migrants

They said: “Migrants make this city great. That should be the message projected from the heart of St Peter’s Square, outside Central Library”.

Stand up to Racism Manchester will be holding a counter protest in opposition to Britain First’s march on the same day, one that they say “should be the centrepiece of the day”. They are yet to receive a response from Burnham or Craig.

Several more anti-far right organisations have come together in a campaign dubbed ‘Resist Britain First’, which includes the Manchester Feminist Coalition, Anti-Fascist Action Manchester, Manchester Trans Liberation Assembly, and many more.

A spokesperson for Resist Britain First said: “Britain First’s ‘March for Remigration’ is a racist dogwhistle calling for a white supremacist ethnic cleansing of the United Kingdom by the forced expulsion of non-white people.”

“We call on people across the UK to come to Manchester to resist this racism on our streets and show that you do not support their bigotry.”

Britain First are led by Paul Golding and Ashlea Simon, the former an ex-member of the National Front, and the latter having made statements against ethnic minorities including “English people can’t be black.”

However, this is not the first instance this month in which both sides of the immigration debate will have clashed.

On the 1st of February, protestors from anti-immigration group STAND, restarted their harassment campaign of an asylum seeker hotel in South Manchester after a week’s hiatus, with an attendance that paled in comparison to their counter protestors.

Their counter part, predominantly from the Manchester branch of AFA (Anti-Fascist Action), gathered outside of Manchester South Hotel, with the aim to “defend against those that seek to divide us.”

Several of the members from STAND were arrested last September at a similar demonstration, with two of them held on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences.

On their social media account, STAND frequently uploads footage of themselves venturing into the counter protestors space and shouting vulgarities.

A spokesperson for AFA Manchester described the strategies used by the group to avoid further conflict with STAND: “We are there to defend the hotel and the wider community, and we aim to de-esclate and try to not create content for them by ignoring what they do when they are throwing insults, abuse and sometimes violence.”

They added: “That doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with though. Each week we come together to discuss the emotions of the demo – it is a lot to receive sustained abuse for 2 hours, and when we first started this, we were often there for 10 hours at a time.

“We are pleased that our non-engagement tactics have managed to bring down the time they are there, but obviously we would like them to stop coming into our community to harass people altogether.”

Over the past year, the number of protests and demonstrations outside asylum hotels has increased, which the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit puts down to misinformation and fear.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue has said there has been a similar surge in talk of an immigrant “invasion”, describing arrivals on small boats into a great heathen army.

Posts mentioning a migrant invasion of the UK received 275 million views in 2023, 600 million in 2024 and 1.4 billion in 2025 to date, much of this targeted at asylum seekers and irregular migration.

In spite of these criticisms, the ‘March for Remigration’ is still scheduled to go ahead on the February 21st, with counter protests planned for the same day.