This week, immigration minister Anna Turley announced, with minor fanfare, the government will stop using a further 13 hotels to house asylum seekers across the country. It brings the total shut this year to 44, in pursuit of Labour’s manifesto pledge, now reiterated by Andy Burnham, to cease hotel use completely by the end of this parliament. Doing so would remove what have become highly visible symbols of an increasingly toxic debate about migration.
Less than 160 to go, according to the Home Office. There was a risk the announcement might be drowned out by howls of rightwing outrage after the prime minister dared suggest that middle-class areas also ought to house asylum seekers. I spoke to specialist reporter Diane Taylor, who has followed shifts in immigration policy and the individuals who must live through them for decades.
Solar eclipse | Wednesday’s eclipse began in Russia’s remote Arctic north, going on to trace an arc over much of western Europe. From the UK to northern Italy, tens of millions of people turned to the sky as the light of the setting sun was almost completely blocked out. UK news | Nurses are collapsing during shifts amid “inhumane and impossible” conditions caused by extreme heat, their union has warned, as Andy Burnham promised to grapple with “the bigger questions” of climate adaptation.
US politics | Karoline Leavitt will step down as White House press secretary at the end of August, Donald Trump announced. Science | Astronomers claim to have discovered a new kind of cosmic object, a black hole “star”, which is the size of the entire solar system and glows with a brilliant red light. Middle East | Israeli militants have besieged two Palestinian families in their homes since the weekend, aiming to take over their properties in the West Bank village of Qusra through a campaign of terror.
Hotels were used as an occasional, temporary housing fix for asylum seekers pre-Covid, but became the default option in place of flats at the very start of the pandemic. The home office justification was public health – but I spoke to hotel residents back in 2020 who told me about cramped living conditions, limited access to food, drink and financial support, alongside spiralling mental distress. I still remember running through Glasgow city centre in June 2020 to reach the scene of a mass stabbing, and how my stomach dropped when I realised I was heading to a hotel housing asylum seekers.
Badreddin Abdalla Adam Bosh, a Sudanese man, had stabbed six people including a police officer at the Park Inn hotel before being shot dead by police. An inquiry into his death is ongoing. To be clear: politicians across parties, support agencies and the far-right all agree that these hotels need to shut, though for different reasons.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
