Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that Labour must take decisive action on the migrant crisis or risk losing voters to Reform UK, after the government won a significant court challenge over asylum hotels.
Lord Falconer, who served under former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, backed the government’s decision to fight an injunction that would have seen asylum seekers moved out of the protest-hit Bell Hotel in Epping. He said people were demanding action to close asylum hotels.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’ve obviously got to move forward in relation to closing the hotels and also stopping the crossings.
“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.”
His intervention comes after Court of Appeal judges revoked a ban on housing asylum seekers at the hotel, which has been plagued by unrest. They said the move would have “obvious consequences” for the government’s duty to house asylum seekers and could “incentivise” other councils to seek similar legal action if allowed.
Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) had successfully sought an injunction against the use of the hotel for migrants after a series of violent protests at the site, sparked by the arrest of a resident over alleged sexual offences.
If the Epping injunction had not been overturned on Friday, 138 asylum seekers would no longer have been able to be housed there beyond 12 September.
The ruling in favour of the Home Office and the Bell’s owners, Somani Hotels, triggered criticism from opposition parties and renewed pledges of regular protests from campaigners.
A group calling themselves the Great British National Protest said they would demonstrate outside the hotel every Saturday “for the foreseeable future”, including outside the Home Office in Westminster.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage responded: “Illegal migrants have more rights than British people under Starmer.”
Reform UK has consistently led in opinion polls since the spring, with the latest BMG poll for the i newspaper putting them on 35 per cent, 15 points ahead of Labour.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused Labour of “using the courts against the British public”, while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch urged Conservative councils to pursue similar injunctions, with several already preparing legal action.
Meanwhile, Epping Forest District Council said it was “ruling nothing out”, including taking its 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.
Shane Yerrell, Tory councillor for EFDC, said the government should “hang their heads in shame”. But council leader Chris Whitbread called for calm, warning: “There’s been peaceful protests and there’s been non-peaceful protests outside the hotel. You saw that as part of our case, but I just call for residents to be calm.” He added that he was “really concerned for the future of the town”.
Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle MP said that ministers had sought to appeal the injunction so that hotels could be “exited in a controlled and orderly way”.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper argued at the Court of Appeal that the Epping hotel injunction should not stand because it would disrupt her statutory duty to house vulnerable asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute.
In written arguments, the Home Office said that “the relevant public interests in play are not equal”, seeking to contrast the disruption in Epping with the wider impact on the government’s need to house asylum seekers.
In their judgment, Lord Justice Bean, Lady Justice Nicola Davies and Lord Justice Cobb said this comparison “about a hierarchy of rights” was “unattractive”.
However, they agreed that the High Court judge had failed to consider “the significant practical challenge of relocating a large number of asylum seekers in a short space of time”.
Somani Hotels Ltd, which owns The Bell Hotel, said it had been “caught in the middle of a much wider debate on the treatment of asylum seekers” and asked that “all associated with The Bell Hotel are left alone to continue to support the government’s asylum plans as best they can”.
Seeking to lift the ban, Home Office lawyers said that maintaining the injunction would risk more disorder. They also argued that “the available asylum estate is subject to incredibly high levels of demand”, and that the loss of 152 bed spaces if the Epping hotel was closed would lead to “considerable difficulties”.
The latest Home Office data shows there were 32,059 asylum seekers in UK hotels at the end of June.
This was up from 29,585 at the same point a year earlier, when the Conservatives were still in power, but down slightly on the 32,345 figure at the end of March.
The appeal by the hotel owners and the Home Office comes in the same week as a resident at the hotel, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, has been on trial accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl last month.
Kebatu, who denies the charges, told Colchester Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday that he did not attempt to kiss the girl because he is “not a wild animal”.
Another man who was living at the site, Syrian national Mohammed Sharwarq, has separately been charged with seven offences.
Police have arrested 25 people in relation to disorder at protests at the Epping hotel, with 16 charged with criminal offences.
