The Bell Hotel in Epping, just outside of London, gets no new bookings, yet is full every night. That’s because, since 2020, it has been used by the government to help house the thousands of asylum seekers who arrive each year on England’s southern coast and become trapped in administrative limbo.
Save the hoteliers, no one is happy with the current system: Not the government and local councils, who have to stump up huge sums to pay the lucrative contracts; not the asylum seekers, who can spend years living in a small room waiting to learn if they can stay in Britain; and, more recently in the case of the Epping hotel, not local residents, some of whom say they feel unsafe with the groups of young men living in town.
From time to time, these grievances boil over. In Epping, the flashpoint came last month after an asylum seeker from Ethiopia was charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl in the local high street. He has been charged with other offenses and is awaiting trial. He denies the allegations.
Many residents were incensed. Some held protests outside the hotel – fueled by those on the hard-right – which turned violent.
But the protesters were given something to cheer on Tuesday, when the council won a landmark High Court ruling that will block the owners of the Bell Hotel from housing asylum seekers, after the council complained that the hotel was not being used for its intended purpose. The 138 people living there will have to be removed next month.
The court ruling has shunted this three-star hotel into the center of a political firestorm and a huge headache for the Labour government. Where these asylum seekers will go next poses the thorniest of problems for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
For Nigel Farage, the firebrand leader of the hard-right Reform UK party, however, the ruling was a cause for celebration.
Farage, once the driving force behind Britain’s Brexit movement and now a member of parliament, applauded what he called a “great victory.” He called for similar protests outside migrant hotels across the country, to “put pressure on local councils to go to court” to try to block other hotels from housing asylum seekers.
If councils across the UK choose to take similar legal action, that could create a major problem for the government. In the UK, some 210 hotels are being used to house around 32,000 people. If other councils win rulings like Epping, the government could within months have to find another place to house them while their claims to asylum crawl through the British system.
Protesters gathered outside the Bell Hotel in July. – Isabel Infantes/Reuters
Some carried signs reading, “Save Our Kids.” – Henry Nichols/AFP/Getty Images
A turning point
Mohamed Khador said it took him three years to make it from Somalia to England. The longest time the 24-year-old spent anywhere was in Austria, where he worked briefly as a dish washer, but mostly he was always on the move. When he arrived in Dunkirk, northern France, he had saved about $1,000. That was enough to buy him a space on a derelict dinghy, with some 70 others, hoping soon to see England’s white cliffs. The journey across the Channel was “scary, painful, cold,” Khador told CNN.
When he arrived four months ago, he was taken to a processing center. Since then, he has lived at the Bell Hotel.
At first, things were “normal,” he said. While the locals would play cricket, he would play soccer with others staying in the hotel. “We’d go out. Nobody cared,” he said.
Then came what he calls “the incident.”
The “incident” seemed to have become a touchstone in the town’s collective mind.
In July, Hadush Kebatu, a 38-year-old from Ethiopia, was charged with sexual assault, harassment, and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity. She was 14.
Eddie and Elaine, a couple who have lived in the area for 15 years and declined to give their last names, said the past few weeks have been a turning point, after years of relative calm.
“This summer is the worst it’s been, with the problems,” Elaine told CNN. “No one, really, thinks it’s a good idea to have 150 men in a place like that, on the corner of a town, right next to the school.”
The day after the court ruling, many in the town made their feelings known. Dozens of people drove past the Bell Hotel, honking their horns in seeming celebration. Others called out “Get Starmer gone” and, “About time, get rid of ’em.” There were several loud chants of “Niiigel,” in support of Farage, one of a select number of British politicians whom the public feel they know on a first-name basis.
For Khador, “the incident” also changed everything. He said people have thrown beer cans at him while he walks to the local shop; others shout “scum” as they drive by.
“They say you are innocent until proven guilty. It’s like the opposite of that now. It’s like you are guilty until proven innocent. At the moment, you’re just an immigrant. You’re guilty.”
Residents say the “incident” in July sparked a wave out outrage. – Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images
‘Our streets’
The road that runs from the town center to the Bell Hotel has, in the past two weeks, been lined with the white and red of the England St. George’s Cross flag.
“I think it’s great,” said one passerby. “These are our streets.”
But others were quietly troubled by the displays of nationalism, which some feared could have an ugly edge. One man said he did not want to be quoted because, if he expressed support for migrants, he feared he might become a target for the protesters who had on recent nights demonstrated outside the hotel.
“It’s a small town. People talk. Everyone knows where everyone lives,” he said.
Although Farage has called for “peaceful” demonstrations across the UK, recent protests have not always been peaceful.
Last summer, the UK saw protests devolve into thuggish violence and outright racism when misinformation helped fuel anti-immigration riots across the country. The killing of three girls in Southport, northern England, at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga class last July led to widespread unrest, with dozens arrested. In one instance, protesters set fire to a hotel used to house asylum seekers while people were still inside.
Far-right activists were accused of using social media platforms to spread disinformation, most notably falsely claiming that the Southport attacker was an immigrant who had arrived in the UK illegally. In reality, the man convicted of the murders was as teenager born in the Welsh capital Cardiff to Rwandan migrants.
Since Labour came to power last summer, around 38,000 people have arrived on small boats; down from a peak in 2022, but still more than a third up on the previous year. Many of those have been housed in hotels.
Recent policies, such as a “one-in-one-out” deal with France, cannot solve the central problem: Thousands of people each year are still willing to risk their lives to travel across the Channel.
Frustration with high levels of immigration, coupled with discontent over Britain’s sluggish economic growth, has provided fertile ground for nativism.
“We’re a small country,” said Eddie. “We can only absorb so much before it changes our whole environment. But we, actually, were brought up here – by our parents, after World War II.”
Asked where he thinks those staying in the Bell Hotel should be removed to, he said: “We think there should be probably purpose-made camps. They’ve had years to think this out… They should be building some camps to absorb the influx and deal with them.”
Security fences block the Bell Hotel, with guards waiting in the lobby day and night. – Carl Court/Getty Images
Following the court’s ruling, the government said it is looking at a “range of appropriate accommodation” in which to house asylum seekers in England. The Home Office – which tried to stage an 11th-hour intervention to stop the ruling – warned the court’s decision would “substantially impact” its ability to house asylum seekers in hotels across the UK.
Those impacts are likely to grow larger still, as other councils weigh whether to lodge their own legal challenges. Farage said the 10 councils run by Reform UK will do “everything in their power” to win similar rulings. Even some Labour councils have announced similar plans.
At the Bell Hotel, all 80 rooms housing 138 people will need to be emptied by the evening of September 12.
For Khador, the Somali man, this likely means many more months before he can, as he sees it, restart his life. Asylum seekers are not granted the right to work while their application is pending.
“I just want to prove that I’m not a criminal. Just prove that I can contribute. I’m not a freeloader,” he said.
But whether he’s in another hotel or a different type of accommodation altogether makes little difference. “It’s going to be the same in every place,” he said.
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