So Epping Forest District Council – run by the Conservatives since 2006 – has just had its little courtroom jolly. A rousing legal “victory” against the dastardly plan to house asylum seekers in the Bell Hotel. You’d think they’d liberated Normandy. Right-wing pundits, frothing like bulldogs in a butcher’s shop, are hailing it as a blow for community, sovereignty, and whatever faded dream of 1952 still haunts their barstool politics.
But peel away the triumphal headlines and what you’re left with is a masterclass in political self-harm. Because what Epping Forest has actually done is kick a hornet’s nest with a Union Flag boot – and now the hornets are angry, homeless, and the Council may be told to put them up in their own guest room.
The ruling, in essence, says that housing asylum seekers in the Bell Hotel is a “material change of use” under planning law – and requires permission that was never granted. A neat legal technicality. But this isn’t some noble stand for democratic accountability. It’s bureaucratic NIMBYism with delusions of grandeur.
And the consequences? Oh, they’re poetic.
Because those asylum seekers haven’t vanished. They haven’t been whisked away on a barge to Rwanda. They’re still here – needing shelter, and still the legal responsibility of the state. And now that Epping’s Tories have slammed the hotel doors shut, the government – desperate to move people out of hotels – may well turn to local councils and say: “Right then – your turn. You house them.”
You wanted them out of hotels? Splendid. Let’s see what you’ve got available. A few spare council flats? Maybe a closed care home? Bit of underused social housing? Go on, Epping – you were so keen to defend your community, now you can manage its moral obligations too.
It’s the sort of self-sabotage that ought to be studied in public administration courses: How to use legal red tape to shoot yourself in both feet. By blocking hotel use, Epping has actually made it more likely that Labour will push for mandatory council involvement, cut out the private contractors, and hand the problem back to the very local authorities waving pitchforks in the planning committee.
Worse, once asylum seekers are placed in ordinary council housing, they’re less visible – and harder to remove. No grand campaign outside a Travelodge. No “Save Our High Street” stunts. Just quietly integrated lives in homes the council now has to explain to its constituents. The political responsibility shifts from Whitehall to the Town Hall.
And that’s where the real fireworks will start – not from the left, but from the Tory and Reform-voting faithful who’ve spent years fuming about their place on the housing list. Because once asylum seekers are placed into council-managed housing, the same voters who cheered this ruling will be screaming about queue-jumping. They’ll think their council stitched them up. And who will they blame when they’re told the next available flat’s gone to a Sudanese family? Not Labour. Not the Home Office. The council. Tory-run Epping Forest Council. They’ve served up their own base with a side of betrayal.
And make no mistake – Epping’s legal gambit may become the justification for nationwide legislation. Labour could respond by tightening dispersal rules, overriding local objections, or tying housing grants to mandatory participation. You wanted control? Now you’ve got it – and the bill.
Let’s not forget the grotesque irony: many of these asylum seekers come from war zones Britain helped destabilise – Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan. They’re here because we sold them democracy and delivered drone strikes. And now, faced with the mess we helped make, Epping Forest Council runs to the courts waving the Town and Country Planning Act like it’s the Magna Carta.
The Daily Mail, of course, called it “a win for common sense.” The same brand of common sense that gave us Brexit, Rwanda flights that never take off, and Suella Braverman. But actual common sense would recognise that housing is a national problem – and turning displaced people into planning disputes is not governance, it’s cowardice.
So let Epping bask in its temporary reprieve. Let them hoist the St George’s Cross outside the Bell Hotel and strut about like they’ve defended the realm. Because in a few months’ time, they may be doing what they feared most: housing asylum seekers in council-owned stock, under central government instruction, with no hotel buffer to deflect public ire.
They’ve mistaken a courtroom technicality for a political triumph. But the law is still the law – you can’t leave people destitute just because the local golf club doesn’t like the look of them. And now, having won their little planning spat, Epping may find they’ve lost the war on discretion.
They wanted to keep the front door locked. Now they may have to make up the spare room.
And here's the biggest irony: if Labour chooses to restructure asylum accommodation, not only could councils be made responsible for placements, but they may also end up footing more of the bill. What starts as a centrally funded obligation can easily become a cost quietly dumped onto local authority budgets, dressed up as "empowering local decision-making." So Epping may not just pay politically – they may soon pay literally.
No comments:
Post a Comment