An Open Question to the Prime Minister: What is Being Done About the Crisis Fuelling Asylum Hotel Protests?

UK – On Friday night, from Leeds to Cardiff and from Portsmouth to the towers of Canary Wharf, Britain saw a wave of public anger erupt outside asylum hotels. These protests are not happening in a vacuum. They are the predictable result of a government system that appears to have lost control, leaving a vacuum of information that is now being filled with fear and fury.

The question for the Prime Minister is not how he plans to stop these protests. The question is: what is his government doing to address the series of catastrophic failures that are causing them?

The public’s trust in the asylum system is collapsing under the weight of an escalating series of shocking events. In Warwickshire, two Afghan asylum seekers have been charged with the alleged rape of a teenage girl. This is not an isolated incident but the most high-profile in a string of criminal cases that have raised urgent questions about the vetting of individuals being housed in communities across the country.

This real-world anxiety is being amplified by a torrent of deeply disturbing online content. One viral video shows a man in a hotel window making a chilling throat-slitting gesture to protesters below. Another widely circulated post warns that “ISIS Soldiers are in HOTELS and HMOs” and are planning to “BEHEAD OUR KIDS.” A third video shows a man holding a sign outside a hotel that reads, “There is a terrorist inside this hotel.”

Whether these online threats are genuine intelligence or malicious provocations designed to sow terror is a question for the security services. But for the public, the message is the same: the system is not safe.

This is why the Tameside Independent launched ‘The Dispersal Files,’ a major investigation to bring transparency to this secretive system. We have already submitted legally-binding Freedom of Information requests to the Home Office, demanding to see their contract with the private outsourcing giant Serco. We have demanded to see the specific clauses that legally oblige them to vet asylum seekers for criminal histories and to safeguard the public. We have demanded to see the data on how many “serious incidents” have been recorded in their properties.

The public has a right to know if the government and its private contractors are capable of keeping them safe. Until they get a straight answer, the anger we saw on Friday night is unlikely to go away. The Tameside Independent will be submitting this open question as a formal letter to the Prime Minister’s press office.