Labour May Have Won The Court Battle On Housing Asylum Seekers, But Can It Win The Culture War?

The government will be breathing a sigh of relief this afternoon.

The Court of Appeal has ruled in its favour by overturning the High Court’s temporary injunction on Epping’s Bell Hotel which was meant to stop accommodating asylum seekers.

After weeks of local protesters – reportedly orchestrated in part by the far-right – calling for the immigrants to be turfed out amid fears of a spike in crime, Epping Forest District Council took sudden legal action.

They claimed that using the building for this purpose was against planning laws.

The High Court backed the local authority and declared all asylum seekers would have to be removed from the hotel by September 12.

But Labour – and the Bell Hotel’s owners, Somani Hotels – argued that kicking out the asylum seekers without a plan went against the Home Office’s statutory duty to the immigrants.

And the Court of Appeal’s judges agreed.

Lord Justice Bean said the home secretary is legally expected – by parliament – to make sure asylum seekers do not sleep on the streets.

He also warned that allowing the injunction to remain would incentivise further protests.

This court victory means Labour will not be left in a tricky situation of trying to find new accommodation for those asylum seekers just yet.

But there’s no denying that anti-immigration sentiment has grown across the UK, especially when this one case became nationwide news.

The rise of Reform UK is also testament to the traction this subject is gaining.

Labour is desperate to win back any voters it believes it has lost to the rising right-wing party, even if it also means losing left-wing supporters to pro-refugee groups like the Green Party. 

Although the building houses fewer than 140 immigrants as they have their asylum claims processed, it still became a microcosm of the wider backlash against the UK’s immigration system.

Plenty of other councils had threatened to take similar legal action against the asylum hotels in their local authorities, spurred on by anti-immigration critics like Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch.

This whole case also threw up a great paradox within Labour’s thinking around the asylum sector which Keir Starmer’s political opponents are ready to exploit.

The government has promised to end all asylum hotels by the end of this parliament (around 2029) – but in the written evidence for this case, they found themselves batting in favour of the scheme.

Arguing that ending asylum hotels now would “chaotic” and “disorderly”, the government’s lawyers said they planned to bring the programme to a close in a “managed way”.

But the government also admitted they would face “considerable difficulties” in finding alternative housing for the Bell Hotel’s residents, especially considering the rising number of boat crossings.

So what does ending it in a “managed way” mean?

And dodging one injunction does not mean long-term success – especially as it was only a temporary one.

Epping Forest district Council may still be granted an injunction after a full hearing of the legal claim, expected in October.

As Tory leader Badenoch wrote on X: “This ruling is a setback, but it is not the end.”

She urged Tory councils seeking similar injunctions to “KEEP GOING”, and offered up support to all local authorities considering this route.

“Keir Starmer scrapped the Rwanda removal plan, promised to smash the gangs, yet illegal crossings are the highest they’ve ever been.

“Labour has run out of options, so the only answer left is to dump the problem on local communities,” she said.

Farage used the opportunity to just get one straight message across on social media, writing on X: “The government has used ECHR against the people of Epping.

“Illegal migrants have more rights than the British people under Starmer.”

Minister for border security and asylum Angela Eagle effectively called for more time from the public before they passed judgement on Labour’s success in managing this issue.

In a statement, she said again that Labour wants to close hotels like the Bell a controlled manner to “avoid the chaos of recent years that saw 400 hotels open at a cost of £9m a day”.

Eagle added: “It will take some time to fix the broken system we inherited but the British public deserve nothing less, and we will not stop until the job is done.”

The question is, how much time will the public give them before chalking it up as another broken promise?