Local councils are pursuing legal challenges to the use of hotels for asylum accommodation after a High Court ruling prompted by Epping Council. A Conservative council leader stated that responsibility for relocating asylum seekers would be for the government to resolve. Far-right groups have become active in protests at hotels, energised by incidents such as the arrest of an Ethiopian asylum seeker, and political figures have called for nationwide demonstrations. Home Office lawyers warned the ruling could spur further violent protests. Labour faces difficulty responding, and the government may need alternative accommodation for thousands of refugees sooner than planned.
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.
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.
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