The leader of Rotherham council said an attempt to set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers had ‘confirmed our worst fears’ about the nature of recent disorder across the country.

About 750 people gathered outside the Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, a suburb of Rotherham, yesterday before clashing with police.

South Yorkshire Police said bricks, fence posts and branches were hurled at officers, leaving 12 injured.

When some officers were diverted to a crowd gathering in Sheffield, violence escalated and the hotel’s windows were smashed.

Police described a ‘particularly sickening moment’ when a wheelie bin was pushed up against a hotel and set on fire, ‘with the clear intent to cause serious harm to all those inside’.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council leader Chris Read said: ‘The scenes in Manvers confirmed our worst fears about the nature of protests across the country.

‘Those who stood by and simply watched thugs tried to set fire to a building containing other human beings will reflect on what they have become and what they have associated themselves with.’

Home secretary Yvette Cooper called the attack on the hotel ‘utterly appalling’ and said police had the Government’s full support for the ‘strongest action’ against those responsible.

The attack came as disorder and riots organised by the far-right continued across the country over the weekend.

Rioters also gathered outside a Holiday Inn in Tamworth yesterday, where Staffordshire Police said petrol bombs and fireworks were set off and the hotel's windows were smashed, putting the lives of those inside at risk.

The hotel has been ‘used for asylum purposes for years’, Tamworth MP Sarah Edwards said in July.

Tamworth Borough Council leader Carol Dean and chief executive Stephen Gabriel said: ‘We will do everything in our power to support the authorities to ensure the perpetrators are brought to account for their actions.’

There has been rioting and disorder in towns and cities including London, Hull, Nottingham, Middlesbrough, Belfast and Leeds after the killing of three young girls at a dance class in Southport last Monday.

Demonstrators have gathered after false claims spread online that the suspect, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK by boat.