Protests continued against the Labour government’s plans to house hundreds of mostly young male migrants in converted army camps, which locals warn endanger their communities.
While the government was busy promoting its supposed crackdown on mass migration, hundreds of locals in Crowborough took to the streets on Sunday to protest against plans to place 600 migrants in the town’s army barracks.
Demonstrators were heard chanting “Starmer out!” and seen carrying placards reading: “If in doubt, keep ’em out”, “Protect our community”, and “Crowborough says NO”, according to The Sun.
Speaking to the paper, one local resident said: “The announcement was just dropped on us from a great height with no consultation and no detail and it is the fear of the unknown that is really worrying people.
“Six hundred unemployed, bored young men in one place is a lot of people and they are going to be… looking for things to do.”
Protests also broke out in Inverness, Scotland on Saturday over plans to house over 300 alleged asylum seekers at the nearby Cameron Barracks. The plans come amid a broader effort to reduce the number of migrants living in hotels at taxpayer expense. The Tory era scheme previously sparked nationwide protests following the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl outside of a migrant hotel in Epping by an Ethiopian illegal.
The latest round of protests came as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced a raft of measures intended to reduce migration, an issue which has dogged the left-wing Labour government over the past year and has been cited as a key motivating factor for the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.
Mahmood said that the government will attempt to model its immigration policies on the Danish model, which has been relatively successful in blocking illegal immigration compared to its European counterparts. The Home Secretary stated that one of the central measures will require alleged asylum seekers who enter the country illegally to wait twenty years before becoming eligible for permanent residence.
Chairwoman of Crowborough Shield, which organised the demonstration on Sunday, Kim Bailey said: “20 years sounds reasonable, but it won’t make any difference to our current situation. It won’t make any difference to what happens here.”
Critics have also claimed that the government’s plans to reduce migration will have little impact while the United Kingdom remains bound by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its associated Strasbourg-based court, which is often appealed to in order to prevent deportations from Britain. Although the UK withdrew from the European Union, the ECHR is technically a separate institution and therefore Britain’s membership was not impacted by Brexit.
Writing for the Daily Mail, Professor Matt Goodwin said: “Mahmood and Starmer might like to think that they can sort out Britain’s acute illegal migration problem without withdrawing from the ECHR, a body which has almost sacred significance for the Prime Minister, given his background as a human rights lawyer. But they are fooling themselves.
“This ‘Danish lite’ approach will be no more effective than the much-mocked ‘One In, One Out’ deal with France. A gimmick that grabs headlines but does nothing to move the dial.
“If it was serious about reducing illegal migration, Labour would withdraw from the ECHR, repeal the Human Rights Act and finally put Britons where they belong, which is first.”