High Court ruling boxes the Government in over asylum seeker hotels
The High Court ruling granting a district council a temporary injunction to block asylum seekers from lodging at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, is a reminder that it is not unreasonable to ask and put the views of law-abiding ratepayers ahead of those of asylum seekers.
The reasons for objecting to asylum seekers being housed in hotels are myriad.
Firstly, there is the issue of suitability of using hotels. Dropping asylum seekers into a neighbourhood with little monitoring or support around them does neither migrants nor communities any good.
Secondly, the optics of housing asylum seekers in hotels jars with a hard-pressed public that is struggling to afford the basics in life.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, talks about winning on this issue. Quiet what victory looks like he fails to articulate. The reality is that these asylum seekers have to be housed somewhere.
The care with which Security Minister Dan Jarvis chose his words reveals the position the Government finds itself in. The legal ruling leaves Labour in zugzwang.
Any attempt to find a solution will be critically undermined if the number of small boat crossings continue to grow.
There may be some respite on the horizon in the form of winter, when it is too cold and dangerous for small boat crossings, and numbers come down.
It is an opportunity for the Government to contemplate the way forward. As it is clear that we cannot have another summer like this one, where small boat crossings occur with regularity. There are no easy answers despite what Farage says.