Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accused the leftist Labour Party government of putting the interests of illegal migrants over British mothers, as a cabinet minister defended the argument that asylum rights outweigh local concerns of safety.
The Brexit boss firmly planted his party’s flag on the side of concerned mothers as legal battles continue between local councils and the Home Office over the controversial migrant hotel scheme, which sparked protests last month after an illegal Ethiopian migrant put up at taxpayer expense at the Bell Hotel in Epping was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl from the Essex town.
While the local council successfully won a High Court challenge to shut down the hotel for housing supposed asylum seekers. However, the Home Office won an appeal to keep it operational on Friday, after effectively arguing that asylum rights outweigh the concerns of locals over safety.
Responding to the decision on Sunday, Mr Farage told the Daily Mail: “The question is ‘whose side are you on’. Clearly, the government, in the case of Epping, has said that the illegal immigrants. Reform says the mothers of Epping. This will drive many more voters towards us.”
Meanwhile, anti-migrant hotel demonstrations, which have occurred every weekend over the past two months, continued, with protests taking place on Saturday, including in Falkirk, Newcastle, Oldham, Stoke-on-Trent, and Swindon.
Additionally, according to The Times of London, at least 19 local councils have vowed to continue legal challenges to shut down migrant hotels despite the Court of Appeals ruling against the Epping council. This includes all 12 councils under the control of Farage’s Reform UK party.
Despite the mounting public anger over mass migration and the taxpayer-funded hotel scheme placing often unvetted young migrant males in communities across the country, the Labour government defended the Home Office position that asylum rights should trump local concerns.
Questioned by Sky News broadcaster Trevor Phillips on Sunday, whether she supported the legal argument that asylum seeker rights should outweigh the rights of the British public, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Yes, of course we do.”
“But what I would add is that whilst I recognise the obvious and legitimate concerns that people have about the use of asylum hotels, had we not acted in the way that the Home Secretary did around that case, we would have ended up with lots of disruption in terms of what that would have meant around asylum hotels,” she said.
Phillipson claimed that there must be a “balance of rights” and that the government has a “responsibility” to people who claim asylum to process their requests and thus provide accommodation while their cases are being adjudicated.
While the cabinet minister said that she understood why locals were “frustrated” over migrant hotels, she went on to blame Nigel Farage and Reform UK for “whipping up anger” about immigration.
She claimed that only her party has put forward solutions to the issue. She stressed that Labour is planning on shutting down the hotel migrant scheme; however, the party has admitted that this may not be accomplished until 2029.
Conversely, Farage’s Reform Party has said it would construct detention centres on military bases and work with third-party countries such as El Salvador and Rwanda to house supposed asylum seekers rather than providing them with hotel rooms.
Farage has also said that if elected, his government would leave the deportation-blocking European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and establish a deportation command centre with the task of removing at least 600,000 illegals from the country during his first term.
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