A former Labour justice secretary has warned that Reform UK will continue to rise in opinion polls unless the government moves faster to close hotels housing people seeking asylum.
On Friday, the government won a court of appeal challenge against an injunction by Epping Forest district council that would have resulted in 130 asylum seekers being moved out of the Bell hotel. In recent weeks the hotel has become the focus of repeated protests, some of which have been orchestrated by far-right extremists and have turned violent.
Despite the technical victory for the Home Office, as other local councils could have brought legal challenges against the use of hotels if the appeal had not been successful, ministers are braced for further legal battles.
Charlie Falconer, who served as lord chancellor and justice secretary under Tony Blair, said the government was right to take the Epping case to the court of appeal but that people wanted 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.”
Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, has consistently led in opinion polls since the spring, with the latest BMG poll for the i newspaper putting the party on 35%, 15 points ahead of Labour.
Lord Falconer rejected suggestions that the UK might 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, 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.”
After the decision on Friday, the Home Office minister Angela Eagle said: “We inherited a chaotic asylum accommodation system costing billions. This government will close all hotels by the end of this parliament and we appealed this judgment so hotels like the Bell can be exited in a controlled and orderly way that avoids the chaos of recent years that saw 400 hotels open at a cost of £9m a day.”
The Refugee Council’s chief executive, Enver Solomon, said using hotels to house asylum seekers was “untenable”, adding: “Waiting until 2029 to end their use is no longer an option. As long as hotels remain open, they will continue to be flashpoints for protests, fuelling division and leaving people who have fled war and persecution feeling unsafe.”
The charity urged ministers to adopt its “one-off” scheme that would grant temporary permission to stay to those asylum seekers most likely to be recognised as refugees because of the situation in their home country. This would lead to the closure of hotels by next year, according to its own analysis.
Farage criticised the court of appeal’s decision, claiming the government had “used ECHR against the people of Epping”. Despite the ruling relating to people legally seeking asylum, he added: “Illegal migrants have more rights than the British people under Starmer.”
Home Office lawyers had argued that the government’s duties towards asylum seekers under the ECHR were “fundamentally different” from Epping Forest district council’s planning responsibilities.
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