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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
UK wins court ruling to keep asylum seekers in hotel but risks angry
response
By Reuters
Updated:
11:56 AM EDT, Fri August 29, 2025
Source: Reuters
The British government on Friday won a court ruling that means asylum
seekers will not have to be evicted from a hotel where a resident was
charged with sexual assault, a decision that could ignite more protests
and criticism from opponents.
has now become the dominant political issue in , eclipsing concerns
over a faltering economy, as the country faces a record number of
asylum claims and arrivals by migrants in small boats across the
Channel, including more than 28,000 this year.
Last week, London’s High Court granted an to stop asylum seekers
being housed in the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, about 20 miles (30 km)
northeast of the capital, which had become a of sometimes violent
demonstrations after an Ethiopian asylum seeker living there was
charged with sexual offenses.
But on Friday, the Court of Appeal upheld the government’s appeal
against that ruling, which had been made on planning grounds, and
lifted the temporary injunction which would have led to the asylum
seekers being evicted.
While the court victory will ease the headache of immediate, widespread
hotel closures, it opens up the Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his
ministers to accusations from his main political opponents that he is
siding with asylum seekers over the fears of local people.
“Keir Starmer has shown that he puts the rights of illegal immigrants
above the rights of British people who just want to feel safe in their
towns and communities,” Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the main
opposition Conservative Party, said in a statement.
The government had argued the injunction would lead to further protests
across the country seeking to force the immediate closure of hotels,
and putting pressure on the system to house asylum seekers waiting to
have their cases determined.
David Bean, one of the three appeal court judges, said if protests,
even unlawful ones, were used to obtain injunctions, it could
incentivise others to follow suit, creating “a risk of encouraging
further lawlessness.”
“We inherited a chaotic asylum accommodation system costing
billions,” Angela Eagle, the minister for asylum, said: “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 9 million pounds a day.”
Farage plan
Currently there are just over 32,000 migrants in more than 200 hotels
across the country, according to government figures up to the end of
June.
While the government plans to close all these by the next election, due
in 2029, in the meantime its lawyers said it had a legal duty to
provide accommodation to asylum seekers facing destitution, under its
obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.
This week , leader of Britain’s populist Reform UK party which is
leading in opinion polls, announced a plan to repeal human rights laws
to permit .
While his proposals were criticized as unworkable by lawyers and his
party has just four lawmakers in the 650-seat parliament, it gained
extensive media coverage.
“The government has used ECHR against the people of Epping,” Farage
said on X. “Illegal migrants have more rights than the British people
under Starmer.”
Pro-migrant groups say opportunistic politicians and far-right groups
are deliberately seeking to exploit and inflame tensions for their own
ends. Epping Council, which had sought the injunction, is controlled by
the Conservatives.
Critics of housing asylum seekers in hotels say the costly policy can
put the local community at risk and point to incidents where individual
migrants have been accused of serious crimes, including serious sexual
offenses against young girls.
This week, the Ethiopian asylum seeker went on trial accused of
sexually assaulting a teenage girl and another woman in Epping,
accusations he denied, while in a separate case in central England, two
Afghan migrants denied involvement in the rape of a 12-year-old girl.
Protests in Epping have continued with further demonstrations planned
for this weekend.
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