Asked on the radio what should happen to asylum seekers accommodated in a Hertfordshire hotel, if a court were to rule that they must be moved out, the Conservative leader of Broxbourne Council, Corina Gander, said flatly: “That’s the government’s problem.” Ms Gander had indicated that she would seek to challenge the use of the hotel following Epping council’s successful legal precedent. Other local authorities will surely follow suit.
As Britain’s immigration debate turns ever more ugly, that is a problem for the nation as well as the government. Far-right groups were energetically involved in this summer’s protests outside the Essex hotel, which followed the arrest of an Ethiopian asylum seeker for alleged sexual offences. The high court ruling has handed them a major opportunity that they will certainly seize. Home Office lawyers were stating the obvious when warning that Mr Justice Eyre’s decision to grant the council’s shutdown request “ran the risk of acting as an impetus for further violent protests”.
Cue Nigel Farage. While posing as a benign patriot in the saloon bar, Reform UK’s leader continues to do his utmost to foment social discord in the hope of political gain. His call for nationwide demonstrations “to get the illegal immigrants out”, in the wake of the Epping ruling, underlines that the migrant debate in Britain is now more toxic than at any point since the 1970s. The repeated targeting of accommodation this summer and last has, thankfully, yet to result in a tragedy. But the kind of rhetoric now being deployed against young, male asylum seekers by senior politicians across the right is making one more likely.
Against such a dismal backdrop, Labour finds itself in a deeply invidious position. It is possible that a judicial review of the Epping case in the autumn may overturn Mr Justice Eyre’s ruling. Failing that, the government is likely to need alternative forms of accommodation for thousands of refugees far sooner than it intended, having already pledged to end the use of hotels by 2029.
Relying on private contractors to move more asylum seekers into flats and houses, in an already overheated rental sector, will create its own tensions. The memory of the notorious Manston holding centre – now the subject of an independent inquiry into allegations of overcrowding, abuse and misconduct – should act as a cautionary tale amid rightwing calls for “detention camps”.
As a first strategic step, Labour should activate coming break clauses with the three main private providers that governments have relied upon. The successful integration of asylum seekers into communities requires a level of public planning and local investment that has been woefully absent. Epping must be the catalyst for a new settlement with affected councils, involving a far more collaborative approach and a considerably more engaged state.
Most importantly, perhaps, ministers must begin to make an unabashed moral case for compassion towards vulnerable and exposed human beings. Mr Justice Eyre’s unanticipated decision, made on the grounds of preventing further disruptive demonstrations in Epping, will have the likely effect of amplifying protests elsewhere. Among a significant minority of the population, refugees are increasingly being treated as a pariah group, undeserving of empathy and assistance. That is not how the majority of Britons think. In testing times, Labour needs to speak more loudly on their behalf and trust its own better instincts.
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