The British government is under pressure on a range of fronts in its attempts to manage asylum seekers entering the UK.
In one notable development, Epping Forest council won a temporary injunction in the High Court in London last week that prevents the government using a hotel in its area for housing asylum seekers. Roughly eighty councils throughout the UK have signalled that they will take similar legal action following the High Court ruling.
If the temporary injunction is upheld, it has significant implications for the government’s policy. The UK Home Office has said it would appeal.
This setback is symptomatic of a chaotic asylum system. A lack of investment and resources means that it could take well over a year for an application for asylum to be assessed. The latest figures show that there are over 224,000 “work in progress” cases in the UK asylum system.
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Migration has become a hot button issue. The Reform Party has surged in popularity by depicting Britain as a country assailed by waves of illegal migrants. There have been a growing number of often violent anti-migrant demonstrations outside hotels housing asylum seekers.
Keir Starmer’s government has adopted increasingly tough language on illegal migration in an attempt to regain control of the political narrative. However, there are few practical solutions being put forward. Reform has pledged to deport every illegal migrant in the country without providing a credible roadmap for how this could be achieved. In reality, the majority of asylum seekers are fleeing war or the effects of climate change, rather than trying to “game” the system.
The UK government needs to try to dial down the tension and invest the resources needed to make the asylum application system more humane but also more efficient. There are lessons, here, too for Ireland, where the Government has also toughened up its language on asylum seekers and has proposed new legislation in line with a common EU migration policy. As in the UK, the scope for the issue to become yet more inflammatory in Ireland is all too clear.
