Kemi Badenoch has been accused of spouting ‘desperate and hypocritical nonsense’ after calling on Tory councils to launch legal challenges over a problem her party caused
Kemi Badenoch has breen branded “desperate and hypocritical” after kicking off over the asylum hotel mess her party caused.
The under-fire Tory leader called on Conservative-controlled councils to launch legal challenges over hotels as the Home Office faces a massive headache. In a letter to Tory councils, Mrs Badenoch said she was “encouraging” them to “take the same steps” as Epping Council “if your legal advice supports it”.
On Tuesday a High Court judge ordered all asylum seekers in the Bell Hotel in Epping to be moved out. But Ms Badenoch’s intervention has been dismissed as “desperate and hypocritical nonsense”. It comes as leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said he would help councils with legal challenges, despite having bragged about the number of hotel rooms he’d secured while Immigration Minister.
In September 2023, when Rishi Sunak was Prime Minister and Ms Badenoch was a Cabinet member, more than 56,000 asylum seekers were being housed in hotels. Around 400 were being used for this purpose, at a cost of over £9million a day. Experts said a “failure of public policy” had seen the asylum backlog spiral as the Tories pursued their futile Rwanda scheme.
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Labour has vowed to shut all asylum hotels by the end of the current Parliament. In her letter, Mrs Badenoch praised Epping Council’s legal challenge and told Tory councils she would “back you to take similar action to protect your community”. But she added that the situation would “depend on individual circumstances of the case” and suggested Tory councils could pursue “other planning enforcement options”.
She also accused Labour of “trying to ram through such asylum hotels without consultation and proper process”. The Bell Hotel had previously been used as asylum accommodation briefly in 2020 and then between 2022 and 2024 under the previous Conservative government
A Labour spokesperson said Mrs Badenoch’s letter was a “pathetic stunt” and “desperate and hypocritical nonsense from the architects of the broken asylum system”, saying there were now “20,000 fewer asylum seekers in hotels than at their peak under the Tories”.
It is unclear where people currently living in the Bell Hotel will go. Khadar Mohamed, 24, told The Mirror those ensconced inside were ‘living in pain and fear’ each time locals held protests outside the hotel and that many now were more uncertain about their futures.
The High Court decision has prompted councils controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK to investigate whether they could pursue a similar course of action. These include Labour-run Tamworth and Wirral councils, Tory-run Broxbourne and East Lindsey councils and Reform’s Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire councils.
Patrick Harley, the leader of Conservative-run Dudley Council, told the Daily Mail it was looking at taking legal action, a verdict echoed by Richard Biggs, the Tory leader of Reigate and Banstead Council. But Labour’s Newcastle City Council and Brighton and Hove City Council have both ruled out legal action.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick echoed the Opposition leader’s views, saying the country is “in a mess”. He told the Daily Express: “Every patriotic council, whether Conservative, Reform, whatever, should follow Epping’s lead and seek an injunction”.
It is a far cry from his time as immigration minister, when he told Sky News: “More hotels have been coming online almost every month throughout the whole of this year. So (then-Home Secretary) Suella Braverman and her predecessor Priti Patel were securing more hotels. What I have done in my short tenure is ramp that up and secure even more.”
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