Brexit: ‘Racist Abuse’ Reported On Streets Of UK Since EU Referendum

A number of racist abuse incidents have been reported since the result of Thursday’s historic EU referendum was announced.

Claims of people being verbally and physically assaulted have been shared across social media.

Leaflets that read “No more Polish vermin” were posted through doors in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

Meanwhile, protesters in Newcastle thought to be aligned to the far-right English Defence League held up a banner saying “Stop immigration, start repatriation”.

And on Twitter a user claimed he witnessed a man shout: “F**king foreigner, go back to your country” in Hackney, London.

A number of incidents are said to have involved immigrants being told: “We voted leave – why haven’t you left?” including a Muslim woman being told to “Get out” in Birmingham.

The abuse has been recorded on Facebook and on Twitter with the hashtag #PostRefRacism.

Sarah Childs, who has been documenting the abuse on a Facebook page called Worrying Signs, told The Independent: “We have a lot of people asking us to just move on from the referendum result, but the people affected by these incidents can’t move on while this is happening.”

Baroness Warsi, who switched from Leave to Remain after accusing the former of a running a “divisive and xenophobic" campaign, called the abuse “disturbing”.

“I’ve spent most of the weekend talking to organisations, individuals and activists who work in the area of race hate crime, who monitor hate crime, and they have shown some really disturbing early results from people being stopped in the street and saying look, we voted Leave, it’s time for you to leave.”

"And they are saying this to individuals and families who have been here for three, four, five generations. The atmosphere on the street is not good.”

Labour MP Jess Phillips said she will be “putting in a parliamentary question to find out all incidents of racial hatred in the UK this weekend compared with last week.”