‘You’re tarring them all with the same brush.’
LBC presenter Iain Dale clashed with a Reform county councillor in Epping, who made sweeping statements about asylum seekers on air.
A Reform county councillor in Epping, Jaymey McIvor claimed it was “an insult to British people” that people “illegally” seek refuge in the UK. He also complained that asylum seekers are housed in hotels and “get fed”.
McIvor said: “They need to be away from schools, away from young children and they need to be away from communities like Epping.”
He claimed women cannot safely walk their dogs in Epping.
Dale responded to McIvor’s claims about asylum seekers, stating: “You’re tarring them all with the same brush.
“You’re basically saying every single asylum seeker is a danger to your child and that’s a disgrace.”
Sources say McIvor was expelled from the Conservative party last year over allegations he sent an unsolicited picture of his “private parts”. After that, he joined Reform.
Unprompted, McIvor asked himself: “What would I do if I was the Home Secretary today?”.
The LBC presenter intervened, stating: “I know what you would do, but the fact is you’re not. Thank God you’re not a Home Secretary.”
Dale added that “It doesn’t really matter what you’d do because we have a government, we have the current law and therefore the government has to decide what to do with people when they come into this country.”
He pointed out that while Reform wants to mmediately send asylum seekers back to France, the party knows this would be impossible as France would not accept them back.
“And so you’re just sitting there, really with no original ideas of what to do with them, just saying well let them starve effectively,” Dale said.
McIvor denied saying that, though he called asylum seekers being housed and provided with food “an insult”.
“Well you have, because you said you would not give them food,” Dale responded.
McIvor made these comments after the High Court granted Epping Forest District Council an injunction yesterday, to prevent migrants from being housed at The Bell Hotel in Epping.
Protests at the Bell Hotel started on 13 July, after a resident at the asylum hotel was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Members of Neo-Nazi group the Homeland Party have been planning the protests.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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