Robert Jenrick has been severely criticised by Labour after the shadow justice secretary was pictured at an anti-asylum rally in Essex attended by a veteran far-right activist.
Jenrick posted photos on X showing himself visiting the protest outside the Bell hotel in Epping, where police have been attacked and police vehicles vandalised by groups of men taking part in the demonstration. The MP met protesters including a woman with a T-shirt bearing the message: “Send them home.”
Eddy Butler, a well-known figure in far-right circles who was a key strategist in the rise of the British National party (BNP), can be seen wearing sunglasses in the background of one of the photos Jenrick shared after the visit.
It is not clear whether Jenrick met Butler, but the photo was seized on by far-right figures eager to exploit the protest, which they have heavily promoted.
Butler boasted to friends about Jenrick’s appearance in a post on his Facebook account: “At the Bell Hotel, riding shotgun for Robert Jenrick, pretender to the Tory leadership.”
A Labour party spokesperson described Jenrick as “a disgrace” for attending a protest “organised by a far-right party”, which was also attended by someone with “a long history of involvement with neo-Nazi groups”.
“Jenrick once proudly boasted about ramping up the procurement of asylum hotels when he was immigration minister. It shows, at best, a staggering lack of judgment,” they said.
“Kemi Badenoch must show some leadership, explain what action she’s going to take against her shadow justice secretary, and demonstrate that she is strong enough to stand up against this challenge to her authority and to basic decency.”
Jenrick said in his post on X: “Great to be with peaceful, patriotic protesters in Epping today.
“People are right to be fed up of illegal migration. And the crime and billions being wasted because of it.”
Lewis Nielsen, a spokesperson for Stand Up to Racism, which has been organising counter-protests in Epping, said Jenrick was willing to go on protests attended by far-right activists.
“These aren’t ‘concerned parents or local residents’. Jenrick is fanning the flames of the far right by chasing Reform UK votes – and he’s giving confidence to known fascists.”
Butler, a former member of the National Front, has been a prominent figure in the British far right for decades, helping to guide the BNP during the 1990s and 2000s.
In 1992 he helped establish a BNP “stewards” group, made up of skinheads and hooligans, to act as “security” against antifascists. This group became the neo-Nazi terrorist group Combat 18, according to Hope Not Hate.