‘English nationalist’ content creators film themselves in asylum seekers’ house

The increasing use of houses of multiple occupancy as part of the government’s plans to phase out the use of hotels to house asylum seekers has given some activists a new target. Photograph: Dan Chung/The GuardianView image in fullscreenThe increasing use of houses of multiple occupancy as part of the government’s plans to phase out the use of hotels to house asylum seekers has given some activists a new target. Photograph: Dan Chung/The Guardian‘English nationalist’ content creators film themselves in asylum seekers’ houseVideo posted online shows men entering home through unlocked door and claiming to be looking for paperwork

A Home Office accommodation provider has launched an investigation after “English nationalist” content creators posing as contractors filmed themselves entering a property housing asylum seekers.

The video, titled “HMO Hunting in Leicestershire”, was posted to the Truthhurts101UK YouTube account, which describes itself as being run by an “English nationalist citizen journalist” and claims to cover “immigration, demographic change, policing and stories others overlook”. The footage was also posted to the associated TH101UK’s X account, where is has been viewed more than 300,000 times.

The video shows three men accessing the back entrance of a house in Leicestershire accommodating asylum seekers. The men enter via an unlocked back door and move through several rooms of the house, including the kitchen, where they examine the contents of the fridge. They repeatedly claim to be looking for “paperwork”, searching through a pile of letters near the front door and boxes discarded in the back garden. The man filming, who narrates the video, claims he is the first to “document” this property.

When the men filming encounter three men, who are believed to be asylum seekers living at the property, in the kitchen they tell them they are contractors sent to assess the property for repairs. They ask one man living at the property whether the property is run by Serco, a Home Office contractor used for asylum seeker accommodation, which the man confirms, and whether he has “paperwork”, which he says he does not.

When the man living at the property asks the man filming for his ID he briefly shows him a lanyard. It is unclear what information it shows.

In the footage, the man filming specifically names the street and the village where the house is located, and shows the exterior of the property and its surroundings, making it clearly identifiable.

A Serco spokesperson said: “We are aware of this post. We take issues of this nature extremely seriously and are investigating.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The safety and security of those housed in asylum accommodation, staff who work there and local communities are of the upmost importance to the government. We engage extensively with contractors, local authorities and the police and expect any instances of criminality to be taken seriously.”

A TH101UK spokesperson defended the footage, accused the asylum seekers of being “ticking timebombs” and questioned why the Guardian, which they described as “irrelevant” and a “rag”, was “scrutinising independent journalism”.

They added: “Don’t worry, I’ll keep asking the questions you should be.”

In recent years, there has been an increase of self-styled “auditors”, and far-right activists have attempted to gain access to hotels and other forms of accommodation housing asylum seekers, sometimes under the guise of wanting to carry out “inspections”. When challenged, often by private security outside hotels, some have attempted to confuse the issue by quoting supposed “common law” principles, which have been taken up by members of the far right as a legal recourse that supersedes statutory laws. However, the increasing use of houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs) as part of the government’s plans to phase out the use of hotels to house asylum seekers has given some of these activists a new target, with some obtaining addresses from publicly available documents and sharing details with one another in online groups.

TH101UK entered another asylum seeker property in Norfolk several months ago and posted footage online.

After the Guardian brought the footage to the attention of YouTube, a spokesperson confirmed that it breached its standards, and said that it had been removed from the platform.

A YouTube spokesperson said: “Harassment and cyberbullying are not allowed on YouTube and as part of this, we do not allow content that reveals someone’s personally identifiable information. Upon review, we have removed the flagged video for violating our harassment and cyberbullying policies.”

Louise Calvey, the executive director of Asylum Matters, expressed concern about the video. She said: “This is a premeditated invasion into someone’s home for clicks and attention. The people that court this are the very worst of us, they’re the ones the pose a threat – barging into people’s homes, filming in people’s private spaces. The audacity and sense of entitlement is breathtaking.

“Government must urgently take steps to improve protections, remove the details of shared accommodation sites of all descriptions from the public domain, support people accommodated as victims of crimes, and escalate quicker police responses.”