There have been weeks of protests
here,
>> of counterprotest,
>> of political interventions.
>> They should be detained
ahead of them being deported,
>> culminating in this week's high court
ruling, concluding that this hotel in
Essex can, for now at least, no longer
house asylum seekers. What this ruling
came down to was a breach of planning
rules. Eping Council argued that because
the hotel was no longer being used as
such, i.e. you or I couldn't book a
hotel room there, that they should have
made a new planning application when
they started housing asylum seekers. The
Home Office tried to argue it was still
a hotel, just one that they booked
exclusively. But the judge disagreed,
sparking fears from the government that
other councils could follow suit. And
that's exactly what the council housing
this asylum hotel 6 milesi down the road
from Eping is planning to do.
>> It's not a knee-jerk reaction. We have
written to the home office a couple of
times. It is something that we've uh
that we've opposed right from the very
start um following this legal ruling. Uh
we feel that it's something that we
should look at and our legal team are
doing just that.
>> And why why do you want to close the
hotel? Have you had issues there?
>> It's on the doorstep. It's been the
number one thing that comes up bar none.
Go around. Steve Wley says he got into
politics to help with bins and schools.
Nevertheless, as deputy leader of
Broxbourne Council, which houses an
asylum hotel, he now finds himself in
the middle of a fiery national debate.
>> Of course, all of this began under your
party. Isn't this just political
opportunism?
>> I fully respect that it it was the hotel
was opened under under the Conservative
uh Conservative government and um the
electorate made that brutally clear at
the last election. I think it's really
important we learn by that. We
acknowledge it and um we we try and uh
we try and put things right.
>> The use of asylum hotels has
increasingly become a political hot
potato. The number used peaked in the
summer of 2023 at over 400. By the time
Labour came to power last year, it is
almost h haveved to around 213.
It now stands at around 210 hotels. The
hotels are housing more than 32,000
asylum seekers according to the latest
data released in March.
It's not just Broxbourne Council looking
to challenge the government's use of
asylum hotels. Nigel Farage says 12
councils that Reform UK run will do the
same. Writing in the Telegraph, the
Reform UK leader urged people concerned
about the threat posed by young
undocumented males living in local
hotels to follow the example of the town
in Essex and peacefully protest.
More troubling for the government
perhaps is that today two Labour
councils Tamworthworth and Whirl
confirmed they too plan to explore
blocking hotels being used for migrants.
>> It'll be for other local councils to
decide how they want to proceed and we
are mindful of that. As I say, we're
looking closely at the judgment. We'll
put in place appropriate alternative
accommodation arrangements for those who
are currently located. But the the the
bigger issue is the process of being
able to more effectively and more
quickly make decisions about people's
asylum status. And we're able to
evidence very significant progress with
doing that.
>> Quick to share his position, Robert
Genrich encouraged other councils to
fight the government.
>> Every patriotic council, whether
conservative, reform, whatever, should
follow Eping's lead and seek an
injunction.
>> But other councils may not have the same
legal grounds. Yesterday's ruling for
Eping was unique, determined by the fact
that some of the protests turned
violent.
>> So, we have the irreparable harm. We
have issues of specific circumstances
which crosses a threshold because
usually when we have applications like
that, they don't succeed.
>> The Eping protest began after an asylum
seeker was charged for sexually
assaulting a teenage girl. Now, those
who work with migrants fear they're all
being tarnished. These are not in the
main people who commit crimes in the UK
whilst claiming asylum. These are people
who are genuine refugees who seek
sanctuary and protection.
>> All the while, the political rhetoric
keeps hardening and the small boats that
fuel the crisis keep arriving. More than
50,000 since Labour came to power. And
tomorrow morning, the latest immigration
figures may yet put more pressure on the
government.
>> Well, earlier I spoke to former Attorney
General Dominic Griev. I began by asking
him whether the court's decision to
block Eping Hotel from housing asylum
seekers drove a coach and horses through
the entire policy of using hotels for
that purpose.
It would if that were to happen, but
it's not guaranteed that those other
applicants will necessarily get an
interim injunction. And I think if you
read the judgment carefully, you can see
that it is very fact-specific, but it
calls into question the government's
policy of housing asylum seekers in
hotels because the judge makes clear
that there are grounds on which you can
argue that using a hotel as an asylum
hostel uh is a change of use and that
therefore it requires planning
permission. the government hasn't taken
any emergency powers uh to override that
and therefore in the circumstances each
time the government is using a hotel as
an asylum hostel it runs the risk of
such a challenge being made. So should
the government take emergency powers in
order to force through the use of hotels
for this purpose or should they
basically construct um detention centers
or disperse asylum seekers into homes of
multiple occupants which poses different
challenges.
>> All those things pose challenges and if
you're going to uh have detention,
you're going to have to get military
camps or old military camps and convert
them for that purpose. And the
government undoubtedly faces a problem
because it has an obligation under the
refugee convention and our own domestic
law to process these asylum seekers and
also holding them in detention
uh in itself is probably unlawful.
>> You opposed the last government's
solution which was to develop the Rwanda
policy. Do you now think maybe you were
mistaken given the scale of public
disquires?
>> I didn't oppose it. I'm not in
parliament. I simply highlighted that I
had some serious doubts that it was
likely to be successful. Ultimately,
breaking the business model is about
providing very clear evidence that if
people come into this country and seek
asylum and have their asylum
applications rejected, they are certain
to be deported back to their country of
origin. That's the thing which is most
likely to provide a deterrent. The
difficulty is that lots of people coming
in believe that even if their asylum
application fails, they will actually be
able to disappear into the country and
even if they're living on through the
black market economy, they will survive
here.
>> Well, you've also long opposed
withdrawing from the European Convention
on Human Rights. Um Kem Bay, the Tory
leader, is now reviewing whether that
should be done. I mean, do you sort of
question your own opposition in the past
or are you still certain that um that
would not be a good idea?
>> We think the European Convention on
Human Rights is really peripheral to
this issue. It's the Refugee Convention
which absolutely underlies and underpins
the way in which we process asylum
applicants. But at the end of the day,
the main reason why I think we're not
removing people or having difficulty
removing people is that they've
destroyed their documents. In many
cases, the country of origin won't take
them back. That needs a collective
effort by Western democracies which are
affected by this to persuade those
countries that they have got to have
these people taken back. And of course,
may I just point out that by leaving the
European Union, some of our leverage on
this is probably lost. So, I think there
are there are really difficult issues.
There are moral issues here and there
are also practical issues. A lot of
people listening and you know people who
are thinking about voting for reform UK
might hear you speak and say well it's
lawyers like you that have prevented
successive governments from fixing this
problem. Do you accept any share of the
blame?
>> No I don't I don't think we've failed to
help the government fix this problem at
all. Indeed lawyers have been available
to advise successive governments about
ways in which the pro problems might be
fixed. One of the problems I have to say
to you is that governments don't always
listen to their lawyers and they tend to
hair off in uh directions which they
think may be electorally popular but in
fact never deliver anything.
>> Dominic Reeve, thanks very much for
joining us. Thank you.