As Reform’s conference takes place the poison will continue. Asylum hotels rather than channel crossings have been the main focus the right have used to whip up reactionary mobilisations. And as we have mobilised against the racists, a question about the kind of local organising we need to support inclusive communities under attack from reactionary forces has been posed.

Hotels for asylum seekers?

Approximately 50,000 asylum seekers who have fled to Britain are waiting months if not years for their applications to be decided. During this time, they have no right to work and no right to claim standard benefits. Typically a person in this situation has only £49.18 per week to live on, a paltry sum loaded on a particular card and thus marking them out.

This is the context in which the government has a responsibility to provide those who do not have an alternative – i.e. the overwhelming majority – with accommodation. Hotels have become an increasing setting for this accommodation since 2020 as the backlog in applications grew.

Reform and the right wing media suggest that is a luxurious privilege – an easy sell when homelessness and overcrowding is growing. In fact some of these properties are hardly fit for human habitation, especially given that people have no choice but to share a room usually with three others – sometimes with people who do not even speak the same language. 

In many major cities there is a glut of hotel accommodation which was seen as a good destiny for investment. Some business owners are doing very well out of the asylum hotels.

We are not in favour of the segregation of asylum hotels or the appalling conditions. We oppose barges, army bases and detention centres. We argue for local authorities to be responsible with adequate funding for people to be allocated social housing and increased funding for courses such as learning english which are also important for integration, particularly for women. 

And all of this would be significantly turned around if asylum seekers had the right to work and were therefore not financially dependent on the state. 

Criminals?

Far right propaganda, including that perpetrated by Reform, criminalises all migrants. Many media outlets, regardless of platform, repeat this time and again as do politicians from other parties.

So those crossing the channel in small boats – or in lorries or through any other method of transport – are routinely described as criminals when they are exercising their rights under international law. It is the lack of safe routes that forces them into danger. Our response: ‘No human is illegal.’

Right-wing tabloid newspapers such as the Express, the Mail, and the Sun and the TV Channel GB News developed a relationship with Farage and Reform over Brexit but are in line with their whole reactionary agenda – especially when it comes to migration. 

What is perhaps more indicative of how far the political centre has moved to the right is that the BBC gives Reform, and particularly Farage , much more airtime than other parties of equivalent size and that their spokespeople are often unchallenged over blatant lies by those interviewing them.

Meanwhile the extent to which the radical right is dominating social media platforms poses a major challenge for antiracists and the left more generally. 

Protection? 

One new – and pernicious – element in this summer’s far right intervention is the claim that groups of young migrant men pose a criminal threat, particularly for sex crimes against ‘our’ wives and daughters. This is linked to the long-running far-right campaign claiming that gangs of Asian and Muslim paedophiles are responsible for the abuse of underage girls in towns like Oldham or Rochdale. This wasn’t a focus during last summer’s racist campaign.

So when a young refugee from an asylum hotel in Epping was charged with a sexual offence this was a convenient touchpaper. The classic suggestion that migrants – racialised people or those from different cultures – are collectively responsible for any alleged crime any member apparently commits is never far from the surface of what is being claimed. This is reminiscent of the lynching ideology – and praxis – in the southern states of the United States. 

There seemed to be a conscious attempt by Reform to give women supporting them a higher profile than usual, badging them as concerned local residents. It’s true that antiracists quickly discovered that the most prominent of these ‘local residents’ was playing the same role in Epping and, at least, in Islington. Not very credible – but as far as we know not challenged by the mainstream media.

Reform, like the far right in the US, see women as well as children as the possessions of men i.e. fathers and husbands. And perhaps the fact some of these women were wearing pink – and that the far right group, the Homeland Party, have been encouraging women to attend the protests under the label ‘Women wear Pink’ is unlikely to be an accident. And concern about sexual abuse is somewhat contradictory when we know that many men on the far right have convictions for violence against women. 

This is the context in which some countermobilisations tried to ensure we had women on our platforms and leading our marches. It’s also why this important petition has been launched. 

Court battles 

On 22 August, a judge ruled that a hotel had violated urban planning regulations by hosting asylum seekers after the local Tory council brought a case against the hotel. This was claimed as a victory by far-right and fascist protesters. 

Reform and the Tories pushed all councils where there are hotels to take similar action and even some Labour councils intimated they would. Farage held a press conference on 26 August setting out a detailed programme on the issue with a lot of media coverage. He put forward:

• immediate mass deportations,
• internment camps in disused military bases,
• sending people to Rwanda or other third countries,
• monetary inducements to individual migrants for voluntary return,
• agreements with regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iran to take people back, with subsidies to be provided,
• along with withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and other international treaties,
• and five charter flights a day expelling migrants.

On 29 August the Epping hotel together with the Home Office won an appeal against the earlier judgment so the migrants will not be forced to move on 12 September. Predictably Reform and the Tories condemned this , arguing that Starmer is putting migrant rights above those of local people. The fascists responded with more mobilisations including organising the forced entry of five masked men into a London asylum hotel.

Around the same time, there was a significant campaign of displaying union jacks high on lamposts particularly in areas close to hotels where asylum hotels are situated. In the south of Islington, for example, these were being put up by fairly large groups of men with large ladders – making it difficult for those that objected to remove these symbols of Empire that were clearly being used to intimidate.

The local council – and one of the local universities whose building was defiled by these symbols – did take them down on a regular basis, while left campaigners made sure the area was covered in antifascist stickers.

There is a side discussion on the left about whether we can reclaim the union jack – by adding slogans about welcoming migrants or changing the colours. For many of us this is a cul-de-sac we shouldn’t go down. For those colonised under this flag, the butcher’s apron – as it is known to many Irish people – will always remain a symbol of bloodshed and subordination. (It’s interesting that in Scotland the far right have been using the Saltire rather than the union jack as their anti-migrant symbol – not sure what that represents.)

We know that during this period there was an increase in racist attacks in the area – including against people born in the area or who came here decades ago. And others have felt less confident going out, especially alone. 

It seems the battle over the flags has ebbed over the last few days, but with the fact that Reform is riding high and the complete complicity of the Labour government with their anti-migrant agenda these issues need to be central to our organising over the weeks and months ahead

Accommodation rather than answers

Labour’s response is appalling. They only challenged the decision over the Bell hotel in Epping because they couldn’t move that fast to resettle the occupants. They frequently use the same negative language of ‘illegal’ migrants as Reform and the Tories. Their official reaction to Farage’s pressure did not include a single word on the rights of refugees and the need for their support.

They are clear they want to end the use of hotels – and not from the same perspective as us. Being interviewed by the BBC on 1 September, Starmer said he wanted to bring the deadline forward to achieve this. Later that day, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper unveiled new ‘tough’ measures in parliament including making it harder for refugees with asylum rights to reunite with their families. This is not only a proposal for the future – she has already frozen such reunions for those that have already been given indefinite leave to remain.

Support for migrants and a progressive alternative to reactionary propaganda – whichever party it comes from – must be at the centre of the project of building a new left party. At the same time we need to find the best way of building alliances on the ground which can involve forces broader than those involved in the ‘Your Party’ development to combat racism.

These are not easy challenges, but ones we cannot afford to duck.

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