The leftist Labour Party government is facing backlash from backbenchers over plans to prioritise migrants over Britons in newly built government housing.
Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer may be forced into another politically embarrassing U-turn, as a brewing rebellion from within his own party’s ranks is brewing over the already contentious issue of housing asylum seekers, many of whom entered the country illegally.
The government is seeking to move away from the Tory-era scheme of block booking hotels across the country to house migrants, which sparked nationwide protests following a spate of sexual assaults committed by foreign inhabitants against native women and girls. The government appears to believe the public objects not to the migrants themselves but the hotels, and that by moving the new arrivals into different forms of accommodation the controversy will evaporate.
One scheme as a potential alternative to hotels is a programme to create new council housing by building new buildings or refurbishing derelict properties to house migrants.
However, this has raised the issue of the 1.3 million low-income families in Britain currently on government waiting lists for council housing, with some Labour MPs vowing to rebel against the plan unless their constituents are given priority over migrants.
Labour MP for Hartlepool, Jonathan Brash, told the Daily Mail: “We have an acute shortage of council housing, with local families and key workers stuck on waiting lists or in temporary accommodation.
“Any programme to build new social homes should be focused first and foremost on meeting that local need.”
Blackley and Middleton South Labour MP, Graham Stringer, added that the scheme is “unacceptable” given the “shortage of council housing that should be going to local people.”
One Labour MP, who spoke to the paper anonymously, predicted that the scheme “will go down awfully” in the so-called Red Wall seats of the country that traditionally backed Labour but have increasingly sided with Nigel Farage’s anti-mass migration Reform UK party.
“I’ve told the Home Office I’m against it and they need to U-turn on it in my seat,” the MP said. “My problem is they won’t become council houses for years and when you have … a waiting list of 10,000 people – they will feel asylum seekers will be prioritised – never mind the loss of houses in our area.”
At present, the government is housing around 36,000 asylum seekers in hotels throughout Britain, a figure which is likely to continue to rise in light of the over 41,000 illegal migrants who reached the UK by crossing the English Channel from France last year.
While the government has only committed to ending the migrant hotel scheme by 2029, it is seeking quicker alternatives, such as the commandeering of private homes, council flats, and former military bases.
The Home Office began using a former army barracks in Crowborough for such purposes, transferring 27 male migrants from hotels to the camp last month. This has sparked multiple protests, including over the weekend, as locals expressed concern for the safety of their small town.
According to The Times, the government is concerned that protests against the migrant camp could boil over into riots along the lines seen following the Southport massacre in the summer of 2024 that saw three young girls stabbed to death by second-generation Rwandan Axel Rudakubana.
An assessment from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government reportedly warned: “The proposal [to house migrants] may give rise to anxiety amongst local residents, which may be adversely affected by protesters/demonstrators or riots.”
Indeed, it is already clear buying up property in communities has already created new community grievances which can also lead to protests. As reported at the time of the Ballymena protests last summer, in analysis of the social and economic issues which built the pyre sparked by another sex assault, local journalist Dougie Beattie revealed:
…the alleged attack on a 14 year old girl, now that isn’t what is at the very heart of this problem… There are other problems in social housing in Northern Ireland… the [government’s contractor] has bought up contracts with all the private landlords and what that has done is reduced the housing stock, but it has also… set up the price of rent much, much higher.
Because of course the [government] pays much, much more than an ordinary person going to hire a house… [the government’s contractor] has offered all the private landlords twice the rent in order to keep these migrants because, of course, the government is giving them big money to get them out of the hotels.
So what’s happened is the people of Ballymena that lived here, born here, actually can’t get housed here and that too is causing friction in this area.