Ministers brace for fresh protests and legal battles after asylum hotel ruling
Keir Starmer has been warned by a Labour grandee that voters will continue to shift to Reform UK unless decisive action is taken to address the migrants crisis.
The government won a Court of Appeal challenge against an an injunction which would have seen asylum seekers moved out of the Bell Hotel, Epping, but ministers are braced for further legal battles and ongoing protests over the use of hotels around the country.
Former lord chancellor Lord Falconer said the government was right to take the Epping case to the Court of Appeal but said people wanted action to close asylum hotels.
He rejected suggestions that the UK may have to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to be able to efficiently remove people with no right to be in the country.
Lord Falconer, who served under former prime minister Tony Blair, told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “We’ve obviously got to move forward in relation to closing the hotels and also stopping the crossings.”
If the Epping injunction had not been overturned on Friday, some 138 asylum seekers would no longer have been able to be housed there beyond September 12.
The case could have had wider ramifications, as more than 200 hotels are being used to house asylum seekers around the country.
Lord Falconer said: “The government always has the burden of doing what’s possible and the Government is doing the right thing in relation to it, but there’s a lot more to do, and if we don’t, as a government, do it, then you’ll see those opinion polls raised yet further for Reform, because they don’t have the burden of having to be practical.
“But the country wants some action in relation to it.”
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has consistently led in opinion polls since the spring, with the latest BMG poll for The i putting them on 35 per cent, 15 points ahead of Labour.
Lord Falconer said he did not “buy the idea of leaving the ECHR”, saying it would be damaging because it would mean “deporting people back into danger”.
“It does not mean that you can do nothing. You’ve got to think of ways of deterring people from coming here, the obligation that we’ve got is not to deport into danger. That doesn’t mean that you can’t, for example, deport to third countries.”
Starmer’s struggles with small boat crossings
The UK and France are trialling a scheme that will see migrants arriving on small boats sent back to France in exchange for an asylum seeker being sent from the continent on a legal route.
Starmer said: “I am clear: we will not reward illegal entry. If you cross the Channel unlawfully, you will be detained and sent back.”
The court victory by the Home Office and the Bell’s owners Somani Hotels triggered criticism from the Government’s political opponents, while protesters said they would now hold regular demonstrations against the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.
A group calling themselves the Great British National Protest said they would hold demonstrations on Saturday and for every “foreseeable” Saturday, including outside the Home Office in Westminster.
Epping Forest District Council said they were “ruling nothing out”, including taking their bid for a temporary injunction to the Supreme Court.
At least 13 other councils are considering pressing ahead with legal action over the use of asylum hotels in their areas, according to The Times.
Among them are several Labour-run authorities, the newspaper said.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch urged Tory councils to pursue such legal action.
“Local communities should not pay the price for Labour’s total failure on illegal immigration.
“Keir Starmer has shown that he puts the rights of illegal immigrants above the rights of British people who just want to feel safe in their towns and communities,” Badenoch said.
Farage claimed the Government had “used ECHR against the people of Epping”.
Home Office lawyers had argued that the Government’s duties towards asylum seekers under the ECHR were “fundamentally different” from the local council’s planning responsibilities.
Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle said the government was committed to closing all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament.
But she added that it appealed against the High Court ruling so that hotel use can be ended in a “controlled and orderly way”.
Three men were arrested after protests took place outside the Bell Hotel on Friday.
Essex Police said one was arrested on suspicion of violent disorder, a second on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, and a third man on suspicion of drink-driving after a car was driven on the wrong side of the road towards a police cordon.