In an act of apparent desperation, Britain’s left-wing government has begun contacting thousands of private rental properties to potentially house tens of thousands of supposed asylum seekers after a legal challenge threatens to quash the use of hotels to house mostly young male illegals in local communities.
The UK’s asylum accommodation programme was thrown into chaos this week, as the High Court ruled in favour of the Epping Forest district council to shut down the controversial Bell Hotel, which sparked a wave of anti-mass migration protests after one of its residents, an illegal alien from Ethiopia, allegedly sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Essex.
The Home Office — the government ministry tasked with managing immigration — had attempted to block the injunction to shut down the migrant hotel, arguing that it would “substantially impact” its ability to house migrants in hotels across Britain, given the likelihood of further challenges from other councils.
This appears to have been prescient, with Brexit boss Nigel Farage promptly announcing that all 12 councils under control of his Reform UK party would be launching legal challenges in the wake of the Epping ruling. While this may have been predictable, the issue seems set to snowball as even councils controlled by the governing Labour Party said they plan on launching legal challenges as well, belying the widespread public anger over the scheme.
Although the government gave the impression of being flustered about its next steps, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday evening that the Home Office had already begun this month contacting property specialists to commandeer at least 5,000 residential units to house some 20,000 hotel migrants. According to the paper, the government has been primarily targeting two-bedroom houses and flats to house, on average, four migrants each.
At present, around 32,000 alleged asylum seekers are being housed in at least 210 hotels, providing flashpoints for a growing protest movement across Britain.
In June, it was reported that multinational contracting firm Serco — one of the principal agents behind the hotel migrant scheme — had been contacting private landlords to inquire about renting their properties to house migrants, offering up to five years guaranteed rent, utilities, council tax and repairs, all at taxpayer expense.
While dispersing a majority of hotel migrants into private residences may seem a viable solution to quell public anger and mitigate the anti-hotel migrant protest movement, the supposed solution is likely to come with its own set of problems.
The disruption to the already tightly-stretched housing market by dumping migrants into small communities, driving up rent prices even higher, was cited as one of the factors in raising local tensions before the outbreak of multiple days of destructive riots in the Northern Ireland town of Ballymena in June after two teens were accused of attempting to rape a local girl.
It is also doubtful that it will do much to allay concern expressed over the danger posed by unvetted young migrant males to women and girls, with two Afghan migrants put up by the government in Nuneaton Homes of Multiple Occupancy (HMOs) recently being accused of kidnapping, strangling, and raping a 12-year-old girl in the town. The accusation, and the alleged efforts by police to “cover up” the suspect’s immigration status, resulted in a major protest earlier this month in the Warwickshire town.
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