Post by Jane / Redsky

Conservative Party policy scapegoated immigrants as cover for Austerity post-Brexit they created the asylum seeker hotel situation with a deliberate backlog policy + hotel placements Disinformation distraction, red meat for the under-informed + xenophobic Someone to blame to stop people looking up

A graph of rapidly rising migrant numbers making small boat crossings from ~100 to 45,000 2018 - 2022 from: Sea Change on Border Control: A Strategy for Reducing Small Boat Crossings in the English Channel https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4351994 Thom Brooks Durham University - Law School; Yale University - Law School February 9, 2023

graph showing the mounting numbers of asylums seekers awaiting a decision since 2018 despite the numbers of applicants not increasing by much https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/asylum-backlog

graph showing asylum seeker application caseworking staff increasing to 60% from 2015-16 to 2021-22 but productivity falling to -70% during the same time period https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/asylum-backlog

aug 29, 2025, 5:48 pm • 10 3

Replies

This is the reality of asylum seeker hotels.

Martin Smith 22 Aug Two years ago I stayed two nights, by accident, in a former hotel in the process of converting to an asylum hostel. Heres my story and what I learned: I was needed on a job with work at a site just outside Coventry at very short notice. I googled the nearest hotel to the site and booked it online. On arrival at 10pm the car park was almost empty apart from a few works vans for a local building firm and needed weeding. There was one person on reception and having waited on my own in the lobby for 20 minutes asked me if I was sure I had the right hotel and explained it had just converted its use to a hostel. She explained the situation and told me this was her last night as hotel staff had been fired and replaced with a skeleton crew on minimum wage. I decided to stay even though all the hotel facilities were long closed down including the bar, the kitchen and even the vending machines and lifts. They offered breakfast in a private room in the morning at 7am only and advised me not to speak to other residents. I did not obey this instruction What I learned: * Several hundred old and young men, women and a handful of children were housed sometimes in groups of 4 to 6 in former double hotel rooms. * Cleaning/airing of my room had not happened for several weeks * There was no clean bed linen or housekeeping service https://www.facebook.com/549365711/posts/pfbid0yNVvci2PDxwRtHv8RjDrMCRg81uhr2JPiX52Wt33SFEWCPjjbXhxNL1AGgYUxUZhl/

* The windows were badly in need of cleaning and there were tiles loose in the bathroom, rusty taps and wallpaper starting to peel * The hotel smelled very strongly of tobacco smoke leading me to suspect the hotel standard smoke alarms had been disabled * The breakfast was truly poor quality and without choice over contents or dietary options. * Many residents were too traumatised and terrified to talk, avoided me particularly and stayed in their crowded rooms 23 hours a day * Many I talked with were from Somalia or Afghanistan - including at least one who had been a former British Army interpreter. * A few asked me to go to the corner shop on their behalf to buy cigarettes and Coke with their pocket money of at the time around £2 a day. * This was a former hotel which had been converted into a hostel for asylum seekers. I was the last paying guest and they shouldnt have taken my booking or arranged alternative accommodation once I turned up. * Statistically three quarters of the people I shared the hostel/hotel with will have been approved for UK residency by now, including, I hope, the former British soldier. * Not a single resident of the hostel/hotel was illegal in any way So if far right propoganda about

aug 29, 2025, 7:42 pm • 16 9 • view

also important 🙏 donate if you can (and come along to stand up to hate)

aug 30, 2025, 3:57 pm • 2 1 • view