Violent Protest outside English asylum seekers hotel

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British police charged a 19-year-old man Sunday with violent disorder and assault in connection with a protest outside a hotel housing asylum-seekers in northwest England.

Police said an initially peaceful protest outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley, near Liverpool, turned violent Friday when some demonstrators threw projectiles including lit fireworks at police and attacked a police van with hammers before setting it aflame.

Jarad Skeete, 19, was arrested alongside 14 others at the protest. Skeete, who was accused of violent disorder and assaulting an emergency services worker, was remanded in custody and due to appear in court Monday.

Police said the incident left an officer and two members of the public with slight injuries.

Lawmaker Lisa Nandy, from the opposition Labour Party, criticized the government for creating a “toxic” mix of anti-migrant rhetoric and poor accommodation provisions for asylum-seekers awaiting decisions on their applications.

“When you lay onto that a government that talks about things like an ‘invasion’ in relation to immigration, you have a perfect storm, a really toxic mix that is being created," Nandy told the BBC.

Development minister Andrew Mitchell said Britain's Conservative government condemned the violence and was trying hard to “stop the excessive use of hotels” to house migrants.

British police charged a 19-year-old man Sunday with violent disorder and assault in connection with a protest outside a hotel housing asylum-seekers in northwest England.

Police said an initially peaceful protest outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley, near Liverpool, turned violent Friday when some demonstrators threw projectiles including lit fireworks at police and attacked a police van with hammers before setting it aflame.

Jarad Skeete, 19, was arrested alongside 14 others at the protest. Skeete, who was accused of violent disorder and assaulting an emergency services worker, was remanded in custody and due to appear in court Monday.

Police said the incident left an officer and two members of the public with slight injuries.

Lawmaker Lisa Nandy, from the opposition Labour Party, criticized the government for creating a “toxic” mix of anti-migrant rhetoric and poor accommodation provisions for asylum-seekers awaiting decisions on their applications.

“When you lay onto that a government that talks about things like an ‘invasion’ in relation to immigration, you have a perfect storm, a really toxic mix that is being created," Nandy told the BBC.

Development minister Andrew Mitchell said Britain's Conservative government condemned the violence and was trying hard to “stop the excessive use of hotels” to house migrants.

It wasn't the first time a migrant center was targeted for violence. In October, an attacker firebombed a processing center for new arrivals in the Channel port of Dover. Police said the man was motivated by far-right ideology. He killed himself after the attack.