Starmer told to shut hotels for migrants or lose voters

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that Labour must take decisive action on the migrant crisis or risk losing voters to Reform UK, after the government won a significant court challenge over asylum hotels.

- HOLLY BANCROFT MILLIE COOKE HARRIET BOUCHER

Lord Falconer, who served under former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, backed the government's decision to fight an injunction that would have seen asylum seekers moved out of the protest-hit Bell Hotel in Epping. He said people were demanding action to close asylum hotels.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “We've obviously got to move forward in relation to closing the hotels and also stopping the crossings. The government always has the burden of doing what's possible and the government is doing the right thing in relation to it, but there's a lot more to do, and if we don't, as a government, do it, then you'll see those opinion polls raised yet further for Reform, because they don't have the burden of having to be practical.”

His intervention comes after Court of Appeal judges revoked a ban on housing asylum seekers at the hotel, which has been plagued by unrest. They said the move would have “obvious consequences” for the government's duty to house asylum seekers and could “incentivise” other councils to seek similar legal action if allowed.

Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) had successfully sought an injunction against the use of the hotel for migrants after a series of violent protests at the site, sparked by the arrest of a resident over alleged sexual offences. If the Epping injunction had not been overturned on Friday, 138 asylum seekers would no longer have been able to be housed there beyond 12 September.