UK court ruling throws migrant hotel policy into disarray

Security Minister says closure of hotel could lead to protests across country

Protesters calling for the closure of The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex. AFP

A senior British minister has admitted that a key court ruling closing an asylum seekers' hotel will affect migrant accommodation across the country.

The Labour government’s policy on housing people in modest hotels has been thrown into disarray after the High Court in London ruled on Tuesday that one such premises in Epping, Essex, must close due to violent protests and allegations of sexual assault by an asylum seeker.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis was asked whether the ruling was a “major concern” for the UK Home Office, potentially affecting the government's ability to house asylum seekers across Britain.

“We're looking very carefully at the judgment that has been made, clearly we are considering the wider ramifications of it,” Mr Jarvis said. “In this specific case we’ll have to look at how those people can be accommodated in an alternative way.”

Seized inflatable dinghies used by migrants to cross the English Channel are stored in Dover. AFP

The Bell Hotel in Epping has become a focal point for anti-immigration demonstrations, with protesters waving St George’s and Union flags, after an Ethiopian asylum seeker was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl last month.

With police and counter-demonstrators involved, Epping Forest District Council took the hotel to court, claiming that housing asylum seekers at The Bell was a “clear breach of planning permission” because it had effectively become a hostel rather than a hotel.

The judge stated that while lawful protests cannot veto the Home Office's use of hotel accommodation, there was evidence of harm in Epping that had to be prevented and the alleged migrant offences had contributed to this risk.

The estimated 140 migrants, who mostly crossed the English Channel by boat, will have to leave the premises by September 12.

Police officers outside the Bell Hotel in Epping. PA

Hotel protests

The serious threat to the government, which has 32,000 asylum seekers in more than 200 hotels, is that other local authorities will take similar action to remove migrants.

Home Office lawyers warned that this could act as a catalyst for further violent protests, with several injunction applications already being made by local authorities.

Local councils will have to show evidence of potential harm at other migrant hotels if they wish to have them closed.

The right-wing Conservative and Reform parties have already indicated that local councils they control will go to court to shut asylum hotels. Nigel Farage, leader of the hard-right Reform party, has called for demonstrations to pressure local authorities to remove immigrants.

“Let’s hold peaceful protests outside the migrant hotels and put pressure on local councils to go to court to get the illegal immigrants out,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph. “Because now we know that together we can win.”

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the Home Office is reviewing the court ruling. Victor Besa /The National

Mr Jarvis argued that Labour had inherited “a massive asylum backlog” built up by the Conservatives’ failed Rwanda deportation policy which had neglected processing of migrants while focusing on its Stop the Boats campaign.

He claimed the government had increased asylum decision-making by 116 per cent, returning more than 35,000 people who had no right to be in Britain.

Despite improving diplomatic relations with France to prevent small boat crossings, the number of migrants crossing the English Channel passed 50,000 just after Labour's first year in office, a record for that timespan.