The asylum system would “descend into chaos” if Labour refused to open more hotels for people seeking refuge in the UK, a Home Office minister has told the Guardian.
Angela Eagle, the minister for borders, security and asylum, said officials had been forced to find more private accommodation for new arrivals and blamed the backlog of tens of thousands of cases built up under the last government.
The government’s decision to open asylum hotels despite Keir Starmer’s pledge that he would close them have been condemned by the Tories and Reform.
In Labour’s election manifesto, Starmer said he would “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”.
In her first public comments on the development, Eagle said ministers had no choice but to make the temporary move after discovering nearly 120,000 unprocessed asylum claims after Labour took power.
They did create the problem. When they close the safe routes inevitably it meant that people started coming over on the dreaded “small boats”. Rather than the approved method of asking for asylum, then being granted asylum, and then coming over on the ferry.
The issue isn’t that people want to come and live in the UK the issue is that people who want to come and live in the UK are not being given legal methods to do so. It’s not like these methods didn’t exist, the Tories removed them