Left Foot Forward speaks with refugees about right-wing protests, narratives about asylum seekers and the hotels
Stacey explains that before she came to the UK and was placed in an asylum hotel in Bristol, she Googled asylum seekers’ experiences. “It was like a jail for them and the conditions were really bad,” some people had said online. Stacey didn’t know what awaited her, but when she arrived, she was surprised to find lots of organisations set up to help her and said, “the majority of people were so welcoming and helpful”.
The welcoming atmosphere that Stacey describes has shifted over this summer. Echoing the fevered atmosphere that culminated in the Southport Riots last summer, there has been a rise in protests outside hotels housing refugees. Protests started at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex on 13 July, after a resident was charged with sexually assaulting a young girl. Reform and far-right groups have jumped on this case and used it to claim that small boat crossings are making British women and girls unsafe. Since then dozens of protests have taken place in other towns and cities, including Manchester, Dover, Portsmouth, Cardiff, Liverpool and Bristol.
Narratives are circulating that asylum seekers are living in luxury hotels, while Reform’s Richard Tice claimed this week that UK governments “focus more on humans from overseas than British humans”.
The protests
Just before Stacey arrived in Bristol, she heard there had been a protest outside the hotel. A couple of weeks ago, people from an anti-migrant group pitched up outside the hotel and started filming residents.
“There were a couple of people with phones, and they even posted it on YouTube”, she said.
Multiple right-wing, anti-migrant YouTube accounts, including one that posted about Stacey’s hotel, have been circulating videos from asylum hotels, claiming that residents enjoy four-star luxury, receive NHS care on-site, and take part in activities like bike lessons.
Stacey explains as she is fleeing persecution in her country, people videoing residents at the hotel is “frightening”.
“People are looking to kill my family and I, so when I’m in a hotel and I’m coming and going out and people are filming and putting it on social media, they put my life and my family’s life at risk because they’re publicising the name of the hotel,” she says.
Yonas* (not his real name) had to flee worn-torn Eritrea. He moved into a hotel in Bristol in July. He explains that there have been protests outside the hotel twice since he moved in. He says the police came to protect residents, but that the anti-migrant protestors were the minority.
There were around 30 to 40 anti-immigrant protestors compared to over 100 counter protestors.
Yonas says “the majority of people are just welcoming people, they can say hi, they have no problem with you.”
However, he adds: “There are some small groups of people and they just hate to see you.”
He explains that it can make him feel on edge as some people “just insult you or they just look at you in a bad way like they’re looking for trouble”.
Asylum hotels ‘not a luxury’
Yonas, (not his real name), a refugee from Eritrea, says that while people who are against asylum hotels focus on the idea that residents are living in luxury, it’s not the reality.
He tells Left Foot Forward: “In the hotel, it’s just basic things that you can get, you can have a bed and a meal three times a day, just a regular meal.
“It’s not like the way they’re quoting like a fancy place or fancy food. It’s just like regular things, basic things.”
Stacey says: “In one of the videos they mention that we’re having the time of our lives because we have access to a pool, spa and gym, but we have absolutely no access to the gym, pool and spa. None of that is available to us.”
“The residents in the hotel, they are being demonised, and we’re just a product of the system.”
Stacey and Yonas receive £8 a week from the Home Office. Asylum seekers living in a shared house get around £48 per week.
Yonas says, “At least for basic things you can manage with that, but it is not luxury.”
‘Staying in a hotel is not our choice’
Both Stacey and Yonas explain that they would like to be able to work, but as asylum seekers they can’t, which means they have to rely on government support.
“Staying in a hotel is not our choice. They don’t let us work. If they let us work, maybe you fund yourself and your taxes will help the country, but they don’t let us work,” Yonas says.
“A lot of us want to work, want to take care of ourselves, it’s not like we want to depend on the government,” Stacey says, adding “it’s not like you’re getting a decision [on an asylum application] today or in a couple of months”. On average, it currently takes between six months to a year to receive an asylum application decision.
Reform’s linking of asylum seekers and crime
The right is trying to make a link between asylum seekers and crime, in order to push their anti-migrant agenda.
Yonas acknowledges that some asylum seekers may get into trouble, but stresses that this is not representative. “There are really kind people. Most of us are fleeing persecution, torture, and war,” he says. “So because of those small peoples that they don’t need to generalise all,” he adds.
Data from the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse shows that in the year to December 2023, where the ethnicity of defendants was recorded (69% of cases), nine in ten were from white backgrounds. White British men were over-represented compared with the general population of England and Wales, and 99% of defendants were men.
Yonas adds: “Whoever did that we condemn it. The majority of this abuse is not only [being committed by] asylum seekers. It’s men in general.”
He says that instead of focusing on the real problems, these narratives “are just scapegoating asylum seekers or those who cannot defend themselves”.
The narrative is wrong
Both Yonas and Stacey say that to some extent they understand the frustration of the British public.
Stacey says that she can see why people would be angry if they’re receiving a negative narrative about immigration.
She says: “If I was getting that narrative just like the British people are getting, I understand why they would be angry, why they would feel like they’re paying taxes just to feed us and so we can live a life they’re not even living.
“But I just want it to be clarified that the life and narrative that is being painted is not the truth within hotels.”
She adds: “We are not here and just receiving benefits, living in a hotel and living a wonderful life as the narrative has been propagated.”
Yonas says: “I understand them somehow [anti-migrant protestors], they are furious, there are a lot of things going on here, but maybe they lose a tree for a forest.”
“I understand their concern but that’s not the main issue. Issues with housing and the NHS are not caused by asylum seekers. Maybe the government’s not funding it. Instead of focusing on the main problem, they need a scapegoat,” he says.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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