Newly elected Prime Minister Andy Burnham of the United Kingdom has vowed to have wealthier areas also ‘play their part’ in housing migrants in the country, not just the lower-income neighbourhoods. As part of that plan, 1,250 male migrants are set to be placed in an old military base near Piddington, a village of just 400 people in Oxfordshire County in South East England.
The proposal has caused anger in the small village. Residents have even voted in a symbolic referendum to leave the United Kingdom as part of their protest against the migrant placement plans. The scale of the proposed accommodation means that the number of asylum seekers housed near the village could be more than three times its population.
Defending the plans on the talk radio station LBC on the morning of Wednesday, 12 August, Home Office minister Anna Turley argued that asylum seekers needed to be distributed more evenly across Britain.
‘This is about fairness,’ she said, stressing the need for a ‘fair and equitable system’ that spreads asylum seekers across the country while limiting the impact on individual communities.
Asked about the prospect of accommodating three times as many asylum seekers as there are residents in Piddington, Turley pointed out that the migrants would not actually be housed within the village itself, but at the former military site.
She was subsequently asked whether the asylum seekers would be permitted to leave the site. Turley confirmed that they would. However, she also added that the facility would provide everything they needed and thus its residents would be ‘managed’ and ‘contained’.
Turley also defended the government’s broader approach of using former military bases, industrial sites and student accommodation to house asylum seekers. According to the minister, such locations would provide more secure and manageable accommodation while costing less than housing migrants in hotels.
‘We know where people are. We can manage the system,’ she went on to say.
The Labour government’s plans to move masses of migrants into wealthier areas of the country have drawn criticism from Conservatives, who have accused it of advocating what they described as a ‘vindictive punishment beating’ against Britain’s middle class, the Daily Mail reports.
The government has also announced that asylum accommodation at the Grand Metropole Hotel in Blackpool, United Kingdom, will be closed.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast in another recent interview, Minister Turley said communities such as Blackpool, where property prices are relatively low, had already taken their ‘fair share’ of asylum seekers. She argued that the resulting pressure had placed a ‘huge burden’ on local communities and contributed to ‘real civil unrest’.
The minister stressed that local areas would only be expected to accommodate asylum seekers where sufficient capacity exists. She also argued that former military barracks and industrial sites were preferable to using hotels for asylum accommodation.
‘Local areas would only be expected to accommodate asylum seekers where sufficient capacity exists’
‘Our priority now is making sure that we look after asylum seekers in a secure place, in a place that is much more appropriate and where we limit the impact on local communities,’ the Labour minister said.
Turley also addressed the government’s efforts to tackle illegal Channel crossings during an interview with Times Radio, saying ministers would ‘redouble’ their efforts to prevent migrants from making the journey to Britain in small boats.
Her comments came after a record 230 people arrived in the UK aboard a single small boat earlier this week. However, Turley claimed that overall small-boat crossings had fallen by 40 per cent.
She attributed part of the recent increase in the number of people being placed on individual boats to growing desperation among people smugglers, who she said were forcing more migrants onto increasingly unsafe vessels.
According to Minister Turley, smuggling gangs have also begun operating further down the British coast. She said the Government must therefore remain ‘relentless’ in its efforts to combat the crossings and avoid becoming complacent despite the progress it has made.
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