The Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has described the government’s new police unit to monitor social media for anti-migrant hotel protestors as “sinister.”

Farage has called the Home Office’s new National Internet Intelligence Investigations team as “dangerous and must be fought.”

Farage is warning this “is the beginning of the state controlling free speech” and other political members have also hit out at the government’s plans as they are “trying to mute” the public.

This comes as there has been a series of protest at migrant hotels and Sir Keir Starmer warned last week the UK is at risk of another summer of anti-migration riots if the “social fabric” is not prepared.

Farage issued a warning that Britain is almost at boiling point and close to “civil disobedience on a vast scale.”

The Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner also warned that immigration is have a “profound impact on society” last week.

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The Home Office wants to avoid riots as was seen last year and the new police unit will aim to “maximise social media intelligence.

A Home Office spokesperson told the Express, “These claims are completely untrue. This new capability is not about monitoring what people say on their social media feeds, it is about equipping our police forces to respond more rapidly to the needs of the communities they serve, and enabling them to react in an agile way to real-time information about incidents and emergencies affecting those communities.

“As part of the Government’s Plan for Change, we are restoring visible, neighbourhood policing, focused on the public’s priorities, including halving knife crime and violence against women, clamping down on theft and anti-social behaviour, and ensuring that people can feel safe in their own high streets.”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told The Telegraph, “Two-tier Keir can’t police the streets, so he’s trying to police opinions instead.

“They’re setting up a central team to monitor what you post, what you share, what you think, because deep down they know the public don’t buy what they’re selling.

“Labour have stopped pretending to fix Britain and started trying to mute it.

“This is a Prime Minister who’s happy to turn Britain into a surveillance state, but won’t deport foreign criminals, won’t patrol high streets, won’t fund frontline policing.

“Labour are scared of the public, Labour don’t trust the public, Labour don’t even know the public.