“So the optics of this are, Reform has been leading in protesting, and now the government is in trouble… That’s the optics of it. So, it appears to legitimise Reform’s critique.”
Home secretary Yvette Cooper has said that asylum hotels should be shut down in an “orderly” manner, rather than through “piecemeal court rulings”, as the government prepares to challenge the judgement.
“We agree with communities across the country that all asylum hotels need to close, including The Bell Hotel,” she said.
“We are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme that avoids simply creating problems for other areas or local councils as a result of piecemeal court decisions or a return to the kind of chaos which led to so many hotels being opened in the first place.”
But Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was quick to praise the outcome, calling it “inspiration to others across the country”.
“This community stood up bravely, despite being slandered as far right, and have won,” the far-right firebrand said.
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Deputy leader Richard Tice announced the party would pursue similar challenges in the ten councils it controls. Campaigners warned the Big Issue earlier this week that such cases risk allowing “protests to dictate government policy”.
Indeed, the court’s decision is more than just a logistical setback for Labour. It strikes at the party’s core rhetorical strategy on asylum, exposing it to criticism from both left and right.
“It is a blow but one that is of the party’s own making,” said Aurelien Mondon, a politics lecturer at the University of Bath who researches far-right movements.
“Labour’s decisions when it comes to its asylum strategies have been at odds with the public as they tried to appeal to the minority of far-right voters. This has then made the ‘issue’ far more prominent than it deserves to be at a time when the country is facing many crises.”
Labour’s increasingly hardline rhetoric on immigration – exemplified by Keir Starmer’s infamous ‘island of strangers’ speech – is aimed squarely at Reform-curious voters. Nearly half of Britons (48%) believe Labour is trying to court those voters, a recent YouGov poll found. Yet only 4% of Reform supporters say they would consider voting Labour.
“Pandering to a small minority of far-right voters has been at the expense of the Labour’s traditional support and the population at large, not to mention asylum seekers and racialised communities living in fear,” Mondon said.
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That approach risks alienating Labour’s left flank. An Ipsos poll published yesterday found that one in five Brits (20%) would consider voting for a new left-wing party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana – rising to a third (33%) of Labour’s 2024 voters.
The party is being tugged in two directions. While Starmer’s team prioritises wooing voters tempted by Reform, many on the liberal left are increasingly uneasy with Labour’s rhetoric
“You could get to a situation where you have sharp internal conflict within the party,” Murphy warned.
Mondon sees little chance of Labour resolving this contradiction under its current leadership. “Considering the Labour Party has chosen to take a far-right approach to the issue, it will be very difficult to row back and gain control of the narrative,” he said.
“I cannot stress enough how much damage this has done as it has helped mainstream incredibly dangerous politics. The rise of alternatives to the far-right approach is urgent but it cannot come from this Labour government which has lost all credibility.”
The danger may not just be ideological, Murphy warned, but regional.
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“If you’re a Labour council in a Reform-curious area of the country, the incentives for you to explore mounting similar legal challenges if you are able to will be quite high,” Murphy said. “The reason why I think that’s invidious is you’ll get into a situation where local Labour councillors and Labour MPs from the same party are challenging the Labour government over this issue because of their own electoral fears from particular voters.”
Reform benefits most from the sense of chaos. “It’s in Reform’s longer-term political interests for the government’s asylum and refugee policy to be in a state of chaos,” he said. “It feeds into the wider anxieties that Reform voters feel about control of borders. So in that sense, this is a boon for Reform.”
Meanwhile, the Conservatives seem missing in action. Although Epping Forest Council, which brought the case, is Tory-run, the victory has been claimed almost entirely by Reform.
“We are still in the environment where, at least in the reporting of politics, Nigel Farage is seen as the main opposition to the government,” Murphy said.
“It was a Tory council, but the very dynamic of our conversation is an indication of where the Westminster bubble’s mind is, and where the polling is – to prioritise Reform over the Tories. That’s a danger for the Conservative Party, but more broadly, it shows how the landscape has shifted.”
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