'Anger doesn't get you anywhere,' minister tells asylum hotel protesters
“Anger doesn’t get you anywhere”, the Border Security Minister has said, amid a rising number of protests outside asylum hotels.
Dame Angela Eagle promised that the Government was “doing the detailed work” to crack down on small boat crossings, after the Home Office unveiled its plan to pump an extra £100 million into tackling people smuggling.
Some of the money will support the “one in, one out” returns agreement pilot with France, and some will go towards funding extended police powers to seize digital devices.
Protesters have gathered outside hotels over recent weeks throughout the country, including in London, Newcastle and Epping in Essex, calling for their closure.
It comes after hooligans surrounded the Holiday Inn, in Manvers, Rotherham, last summer, and tried to set the hotel housing asylum seekers on fire, as part of the post-Southport riots.
Asked what her message was to protesters, Dame Angela told Sky News: “Anger doesn’t get you anywhere.
“What we have to do is recognise the values we have in this country, the rule of law we have in this country, the work we’re doing with the police to protect people.
“We will close asylum hotels by the end of the Parliament. We’ll do it faster if we can.”
Dame Angela also said: “We are doing all we can to deal with the challenges that the police are facing on the streets to make sure that women and girls are safe, and in fact, that everybody is safe on our streets.”
She had earlier told Times Radio: “Those who are worried and demonstrating have an absolute right to do that, so long as they do it peacefully.
“People don’t have a right to then have a pop at the police, which has been happening in some isolated cases outside hotels.”
Referring to plans to let police seize devices from people suspected of facilitating people smuggling, Dame Angela said the Government does not “want absolutely every phone”.
She told Times Radio: “But we do want the phones of the people that we think are organising and facilitating, and this extra money will enable us to do much quicker analytics of the phones that we seize.
“But of course, we’ve got to get the Border Security Bill on the statute book to give us those extra powers.”
The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill has cleared the Commons but must undergo further scrutiny in the Lords before it becomes law.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has previously said the money, which will also help pay for surveillance capabilities and data analysis tools, will “turbo-charge the ability of our law enforcement agencies to track the gangs and bring them down, working with our partners overseas, and using state-of-the-art technology and equipment”.
She added: “Alongside our new agreements with France, this will help us drive forward our plan for change commitments to protect the UK’s border security and restore order to our immigration system.”
The National Crime Agency has 91 ongoing investigations into people smuggling networks affecting the UK, the agency’s director general of operations Rob Jones said.