‘Saltdean can't cope’: Protests against asylum-seekers in an English seaside suburb

During 2002–3, the British Government, responding to popular moral panic about asylum-seekers, sought drastically to reduce the numbers trying to enter the country. Long-term policy aimed to process all asylum applications overseas, but meantime this had to be undertaken in dispersed “induction centres” in Britain itself. Proposals to create such centres invariably met with opposition from local residents. The article documents one such protest, in a suburb along the South Coast of England, demonstrates the “localist” and “cosmopolitan” discourses employed by anti- and pro-asylum-seeker groups, and considers the extent to which the former overlapped with that of the extreme right British National Party. By examining how those opposed to the centre framed their opposition and how they sought to distance themselves from charges of racism, the study explores the significance of such protests for our understanding of xenophobia in contemporary middle-class Britain and asks how their denials of racism might be interpreted.