Protesters in the United Kingdom marched outside hotels being used to house migrants on Saturday as immigration becomes the dominant political issue in Britain.

Large crowds gathered in Scotland chanting slogans and holding signs reading "STOP THE BOATS".

There were similar scenes in Skegness, England where protesters marched through the town.

British police said they arrested five people on Saturday after masked men tried to force their way into a hotel used by asylum-seekers, a day after the government won a court ruling on the use of another hotel to house migrants.

Two groups of anti-asylum protesters marched to the Crowne Plaza Hotel near Heathrow Airport before some demonstrators tried to break in, London's Metropolitan Police force said.

Two police officers suffered minor injuries, it said.

The demonstrations come after the British government on Friday won a court ruling that means asylum seekers will not have to be evicted from an Epping hotel where a resident was charged with sexual assault, a decision that could ignite more protests and criticism from opponents.

The UK is facing a record number of asylum claims and arrivals by migrants in small boats across the English Channel, including more than 28,000 this year.

Last week, London's High Court granted an injunction to stop asylum seekers being housed in the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, about 30 kilometres northeast of the capital, which had become a focal point of sometimes violent demonstrations after an Ethiopian asylum seeker living there was charged with sexual offences.

But on Friday, the Court of Appeal upheld the government's appeal against that ruling, which had been made on planning grounds, and lifted the temporary injunction which would have led to the asylum seekers being evicted. (Reuters)