Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government says asylum seekers and refugees should be distributed more evenly across Britain, arguing that poorer communities have carried a disproportionate burden and that middle-class areas must now “play their part.”
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Britain’s government is seeking to distribute asylum seekers and refugees more broadly across the country, including into middle-class communities, after acknowledging that concentrating large numbers of migrants in lower-income areas has strained housing, infrastructure and local communities and, in some places, contributed to civil unrest.
Immigration Minister Anna Turley said Tuesday that the government’s approach is intended to prevent communities with cheaper and more readily available housing from continuing to receive a disproportionate share of asylum seekers.
“I think this is about fairness, and we won’t be asking anyone to take more than they can, it’s about their fair share. And we look across the country at what is appropriate to be able to take, what is the infrastructure, what is manageable with the local community. So this is about fairness.
“What we’ve seen in the past is places like Blackpool, other communities around the country, where housing is perhaps cheaper and more plentiful, have had to take more than their fair share of asylum seekers, and that’s put a huge burden on local communities and created real civil unrest.
“So we want to make sure that we’re managing the system much better, in a more sustained way, and that’s reducing the impact on local communities, like I said it’s important that everyone plays their fair share in that and it’s making sure no one community is more over-pressured or over-burdened than others,” Turley told the BBC.
Her comments followed remarks from Burnham a day earlier in which the prime minister argued that asylum-seeker accommodation could no longer remain concentrated primarily in Britain’s poorest areas.
“I do have to say we cannot have a situation where it’s only the poorest communities in the country that receive all of the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers. I do believe all parts of the country need to work, to play their part, it’s a challenging issue we’re working at, we understand people’s concerns,” Burnham said.
The controversy intensified Monday when Burnham declined an opportunity to meet residents of a small village facing plans for a migrant accommodation center that would reportedly hold approximately three times as many people as the village’s existing population.
Rather than limiting the policy to communities where asylum seekers have traditionally been housed, the government is arguing for a broader geographical distribution intended to spread the pressures associated with accommodation across different parts of Britain.
Turley’s comments outlining that position were circulated following her BBC appearance, with a version of the BBC interview also appearing in coverage of the policy debate.
The government’s redistribution plans are unfolding alongside its effort to move illegal or irregular migrants, including many who arrive in Britain by smuggler boats across the English Channel, out of migrant hotels and into other types of accommodation.
Those alternatives include residential properties removed from the private rental market using government funds as well as former military facilities converted into migrant housing.
Nearly 70,000 boat migrants are now living in homes rented by the government, according to the information provided. Critics contend that government acquisition or rental of significant amounts of residential property reduces the housing available to ordinary residents, contributing to shortages and putting upward pressure on prices.
The government is also pursuing larger accommodation centers at former military bases. Some planned facilities could house populations three or four times larger than the villages located nearby.
Turley sought to reassure residents concerned about the impact of those facilities during an appearance on Sky News, saying asylum seekers housed at the bases should receive the services they need on-site. She acknowledged, however, that residents would not be restricted from leaving the facilities and traveling elsewhere.
The broader accommodation strategy represents an attempt to move away from migrant hotels, which have generated substantial public opposition, without ending the dispersal system itself.
Burnham has maintained that his government is reducing the number of arrivals but declined to establish a timetable for ending Channel crossings altogether.
“It would be wrong, I think, for me to make a prediction now based on a timeline,” Burnham said when confronted with the suggestion that the government should stop the arrivals rather than continually alter how migrants are accommodated after reaching Britain.
Although the number of individual boats arriving has been falling, the vessels being used have become substantially larger, increasing the number of passengers who can cross in a single boat.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage pointed to one vessel said to have carried 230 people as evidence that the nature of the Channel crossings has changed.
“It’s not small boats any more, it’s big boats… as one of them brings 230 people in. Estimates are that boatload alone will cost taxpayers £25 million over the lifetime of those people.
“This is a national security emergency, and if Andy Burnham can’t see that, then he’s not fit to be Prime Minister,” Farage said.
The government’s decision to spread asylum accommodation more evenly comes against a backdrop of protests and unrest surrounding migrant housing in several communities.
In a small Norfolk town last week, arrests followed three nights of protests after a group believed to consist of migrant men was placed in a House of Multiple Occupancy, or HMO, according to Breitbart News. Their arrival and the resulting local opposition occurred on the same day, followed by several nights of unrest.
Similar confrontations have occurred elsewhere.
A protest in Nuneaton followed allegations involving migrants housed in an HMO. A migrant living in such accommodation was subsequently convicted of abducting and raping a 12-year-old child.
Belfast also experienced protests and rioting following an alleged attack involving a suspected migrant. The unrest followed an alleged attempted beheading of a man in the city.
Ballymena experienced intense anti-migrant rioting last year after an alleged sexual assault on a local child. Reporting at the time also pointed to longer-running tensions surrounding housing, including government contractors acquiring residential properties for use as migrant HMOs.
Critics in Ballymena argued that local residents seeking housing were unable to compete with government-backed contractors acquiring properties for asylum accommodation, contributing to existing resentment before the unrest erupted.
Those pressures are central to the government’s argument for changing how asylum seekers are distributed. Rather than continuing to rely disproportionately on communities where housing is inexpensive, Burnham and Turley say the responsibility should extend across a wider range of areas, including communities that have historically received fewer asylum seekers.
Turley’s acknowledgment that previous policies placed a “huge burden” on some communities and “created real civil unrest” has made that rationale particularly contentious. The government’s proposed response is not to abandon dispersal but to distribute that burden more broadly so that, in its words, no single community is excessively “over-pressured or over-burdened.”
Under the new approach, Britain would continue shifting migrants away from hotels and toward military sites and residential accommodation while asking communities that previously housed relatively few asylum seekers — including more affluent and middle-class areas — to take what the government describes as their “fair share.”
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