A far-right extremist group has come under fire after hiding propaganda leaflets in food parcels handed out to homeless people on the streets of Manchester.
Activists from Patriotic Alternative have shared pictures of themselves on social media handing out sandwiches, fruit and snacks, along with anti-refugee flyers.
Leaflets given to rough sleepers in Manchester, Newcastle and Salford say: "Five star hotels for migrants whilst Brits are on the streets," the Mirror reports.
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They are similar to flyers pushed through letterboxes across Merseyside days before a riot outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Knowsley, Liverpool – where a police van was torched and 15 people were arrested in February.
Salford and Eccles MP Rebecca Long-Bailey said: "Racism and hatred offer no hope for tackling homelessness."
Newcastle Labour MP Chi Onwurah said: "It is cruel and hypocritical for a far-right group that seeks to divide us all, that scapegoats the poorest and wants to make us all poorer, to be giving out food parcels. Newcastle is a city of sanctuary and generous Geordies will never fall for the far-right’s lies."
There have been calls to ban Patriotic Alternative, formed out of splits in the British National Party and other far-right groups. It is led by Mark Collett – who once told supporters when he was in the BNP to read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf – and stages anti-migrant protests across the UK.
Patriotic Alternative has targeted towns that are experiencing tensions about housing asylum seekers, including Newquay in Cornwall, Rotherham in South Yorkshire and Llantwit Major in south Wales.
In February, Collett, 42, reportedly addressed 200 protesters in Skegness, Lincs. They shouted "We want our country back" and held a Patriotic Alternative banner that read: "Stop the invasion, we will not be replaced."
And in Cannock, Staffs, that month, activists used a bullhorn to shout: "They should be in detention centres." A researcher at anti-fascism body Hope Not Hate said Patriotic Alternative tries to hide its extremism under a veneer of community politics.
David Lawrence said: "Photographing its activists distributing packages exclusively to white homeless people is just another attempt to do that. Patriotic Alternative is a band of gutter racists attempting to stoke divisions across the UK.
"We recommend anyone receiving their leaflet puts it straight in the bin, where it belongs."
Patriotic Alternative deputy leader Laura Towler said they are not interested in "predictable, anti-white drivel."
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