It’s Sunday morning and in the East Sussex town of Crowborough a few dozen anti-migrant activists are waving union jacks outside a travel agent. Their sound system is blasting out a song about “lefty lemons”.
A few yards away, a similar number of protesters are supporting the asylum seekers being housed at a nearby military camp. Their signs read “Humanity has no borders” and “Civilisation fails when hatred prevails”; they’re playing classics about love and peace by Bob Marley, the Beatles and Aretha Franklin.
The arrival of more than 300 asylum seekers in Crowborough Training Camp in early 2026 has split this town of 22,000 people. Depending on who you speak to, the asylum seekers, who are all men, are either a marauding threat to women and girls, or the loveliest human beings you could wish to meet. There is one thing that unites Crowborough, however: everyone criticises the Home Office for its failure to consult them about its plans.
“It’s shocking to see Home Office incompetence up close,” says Rachel Millward, deputy leader of the Green party, and leader of Wealden district council, which covers Crowborough. “Failing to inform, never mind consult, local authorities and residents has created a communications vacuum, and a petri dish for an organised, well-funded far-right hate campaign.”
Holly Jeffery, 36, has come out to support the asylum seekers. She is wearing earrings shaped like lemon slices, saying she has decided to “lean into” the song about her and others she is standing alongside. The full chorus is: “Lefty lemons haven’t got a clue, standing on street corners with their fellow crew, always on the left, none of them are right.”
While the groups are within touching distance, they are separated by a path that leads to the Waitrose car park. A few police officers form a relaxed human buffer.
Since the first asylum seekers arrived, there has been a weekly anti-migrant march through the town, organised by groups including Crowborough Says No! and Crowborough Shield. The demonstrators are not all local, but many describe themselves as “concerned residents”. Today, they have decided to stage a static protest, occupying the spot where the pro-asylum seeker group usually holds a vigil.
The two groups look at each other. There is no overt hostility. One protester is dressed in black paramilitary gear, a mask covering most of his face, the initials on his uniform identifying him as a member of a “community safety” group called the British Security Project. That aside, a casual passerbymight interpret the scene as neighbours having a polite disagreement. Because the numbers are small, the music is blaring and the weather is mild, the atmosphere is relatively laid-back.
But since the Home Office dropped the bombshell late last year that asylum seekers were moving in, the mood in town has been increasingly dark.
The people of Crowborough never used to be divided in this way. The town is not one that politicians describe as “left behind”. It is relatively affluent, with low levels of unemployment; it celebrates its most famous former resident, the author Arthur Conan Doyle, and takes pride in nearby Ashdown Forest, where AA Milne set the Winnie-the-Pooh stories.
In 2022, the Guardian hailed Crowborough as one of the most welcoming towns in the UK to Ukrainian refugees. Today, however, some residents stress the fact that the Ukrainians came to the UK legally. It is also legal under international law to claim asylum, although in 2022 the government introduced the offence of “illegal arrival” to deter people from entering the country without authorisation – on small boats, for example. Some residents are also unhappy that the people on the military base are all men, most of them young.
According to Anna, who has lived in Crowborough since she was a child, and has come out today to support the camp’s residents, the town used to be “boring”. “Nothing ever happened here,” she says. “There was never any excitement.” But the arrival of the asylum seekers has changed all that. High-profile figures on the far right have visited and whipped up fear and hatred. When Ukip leader Nick Tenconi spoke at one of the protests, he started a chant of: “Send them home!” and declared: “It is time for patriotic rage and holy fury … No one asked for uncontrolled illegal migration.”
When Katie Hopkins came, she said she understood that “you are fed up of being treated as second-class citizens in your own country”. She added: “When people who have no right to be in this country get put at the front of the line, that is not OK.”
The town’s divisions have also featured in a Channel 4 documentary, England ’Til I Die, which centred on Liam Tomsett, a local utilities manager turned anti-immigration activist.
“Those who are hostile towards the asylum seekers predicted there would be a crime spree from the day they arrived,” says Anna, who, like most people interviewed for this piece, asked to use a pseudonym. “But it hasn’t happened. A lot of this is based on people’s fears rather than their actual experience.”
Signs prohibiting urinating, defecating and spitting have been fixed to the fence surrounding the military base, tapping into racist tropes about asylum seekers. The Home Office has confirmed that neither it nor Wealden district council erected them.
According to Sussex Police, there have been just three criminal charges related to Crowborough since the camp opened in January, one involving an asylum seeker who was inside it at the time of the alleged offence. The others involve two anti-migrant protesters, both with addresses outside the town.
But that scarcely seems to matter. “They haven’t done anything wrong so far – but should we have to wait for that to happen, because it’s going to?” one man holding a union jack asks. Others talk of migrants defecating in gardens and groping a girl, but are unable to provide details.
One woman complains about men from the camp buying alcohol in town, then drinking on the streets. “They’ve got no morals. What sort of people are they to sit down outside Lidl after buying alcohol? And we taxpayers are paying for it. While our children are struggling to make ends meet, they’re getting everything for free.”
“These idiots talking about love and peace with their unicorns and rainbows, a lot of them are mentally retarded,” adds another woman, repeating claims that asylum seekers “spit and poo in people’s gardens”. She goes on to praise Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo, a far-right agitator recently charged with offences connected to allegedly slashing a dinghy in the Channel.
Apart from Holly Jeffery and Caroline Coxon, 71, both supporting the asylum seekers, nobody on either side wants to be identified. A local organisation, Samas (Supporting Arriving Migrants and Asylum Seekers), has more than 200 volunteers who help the base’s residents with everything from English classes to clothes and growing plants and food. But most are afraid to show their faces at the weekly vigil, or even to announce their support, for fear of being abused as “migrant babysitters” or “boat shaggers”, or having their personal information circulated and used to harass them. Some far-right “auditors” have been filming volunteers as they go in and out of the camp, as well as recording their car number plates, sometimes streaming footage to their own YouTube channels.
“Some people are disguising themselves when they go into Crowborough town,” says Pam, who supports the asylum seekers. “I go out wearing a hat and sunglasses and change the colour of my hair every time I go to the hairdresser.”
“What have we become?” asks Don, a retired teacher. “I would love to go out there loud and proud, but the reality is you are putting your whole life and family on the line if you do that.”
He was giving out leaflets telling a more positive story about asylum seekers than the rapist invader narrative when he was told: “Don’t give me one. I want to see them all die in the Channel.” “I find this deeply disturbing,” Don says.
When he speaks about meeting the new arrivals recently at a social event, he starts crying.
“I found the asylum seekers to be incredible people, normal people. The fact that they got here at all is a miracle,” he says. “They have fled terrible things and they just want to get on with their lives here.”
Anna helps source clothing from local charity shops. “I’m never sure, when I pay for 14 T-shirts or something like that, if I can say to the person behind the counter: ‘I’m buying these for the asylum seekers,’ or if it’s better just to keep quiet,” she says.
Most of those protesting against the camp would not want to harm the asylum seekers or their supporters. But a dossier compiled by local residents and passed to the police claims that some have gone further than marches or vigils.
On Facebook and other platforms, people who are known to support the asylum seekers have been threatened with acid attacks, petrol bombs and rape. The dossier, which has been seen by the Guardian, also claims that several local businesses have been threatened by far-right agitators, along with a church where some asylum seekers worship. One man was punched in the throat after he held up a “Love Thy Neighbour” sign, while an elderly couple were falsely accused of supporting sex offenders. In yet another case, a 92-year-old church volunteer was reportedly woken at 3am for two nights in a row by a man standing outside her home, shining a torch through her window and shouting abuse.
Jeffery and Coxon say they thought long and hard about going public, given the hostile climate that pervades their home town. Both have been the subject of unflattering cartoons online.
“The far right discovered who I was and where I live,” says Coxon. “I was quite scared. I decided I could do one of two things. Either I could hide away or I could stand up and be counted. I’m proud of what we’re doing. I’m more determined than ever to speak up for what I believe in. I will not let them stamp on me.”
“I’ve been targeted on Facebook,” says Jeffery. “Seeing all the scaremongering and misinformation on social media, I thought: ‘Enough is enough. I can’t let this go unchallenged.’ Those who shout loudest aren’t necessarily in the majority.”
She is hopeful that Crowborough may yet be able to heal from the damage the Home Office decision has caused. But she isn’t holding her breath. “Crowborough is still a town divided,” she says.
The Home Office defends its decision to accommodate asylum seekers in Crowborough. A spokesperson said: “The government is working on a fairer distribution of asylum accommodation across the country, with over £1bn saved in costs since the election. This includes closing all asylum hotels and moving to alternative accommodation, including former military sites. These are designed to be self-contained, with 24-hour security and CCTV, to reduce the impact on local communities.”
Back at the protests, the anti-migrant group is first to drift away. The pro-asylum seeker group move into the space they have vacated and start singing and dancing to the Black Eyed Peas: “Whatever happened to the values of humanity? … Lack of understanding leading us away from unity … Where is the love? Where is the love?”
