The Prime Minister's plan to disperse asylum seekers across the country, including to rural villages, is set to intensify opposition rather than ease the burden, according to a new analysis.
Andy Burnham's asylum policy aims to place illegal migrants in every part of the country, including quiet countryside villages, as part of a fairness drive. The plan has sparked controversy, with local protests often dismissed as racist or bigoted, but now it is affecting areas with power, money, and influence.
Village Camps Spark Anger
In Linton-on-Ouse, North Yorkshire, plans to move 1,200 men to a former RAF base have angered Labour MP Rachael Maskell. She noted the site is next to a primary school and would result in six men for every woman in the village. Maskell had previously spoken at a Refugees Welcome Rally in 2015, saying, "We must keep going until we really are at saturation point because what does it matter if we have to wait another week for a hospital visit or class sizes are slightly bigger or if our city is slightly fuller?"
Former Tory minister Edwina Currie suggested a brothel for 1,200 men in Piddington, Oxfordshire, saying on Times Radio, "The obvious thing that 1,200 young men are going to need in the middle of a village like little Piddington is a brothel." She argued that new camps provided "opportunities for business" and create work.
Opposition to Intensify
Currie said hotels are being phased out because they are a "very obvious place to be and it can cause mayhem and, of course you get demonstrations outside so it's something that governments really do not want to do." She added that no one should have a veto if it is in the public interest to create a camp, explaining "if we endlessly allow objections to take over we don't get anything done."
The plan is expected to change the character of once quiet, respectable neighbourhoods, with large camps and HMOs increasingly used as accommodation, leaving neighbours powerless to act.
Power Remains in No 10
Burnham promised to "take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land," but the power to stop illegal migrant camps or HMOs is unlikely to be devolved. The Prime Minister's conclusion to the small boats crisis has been to tell all parts of the country to "play their part," but Middle England does not want to do that anymore than industrial towns do.
The plan will intensify opposition, and Burnham will be forced to act, or forced out when voters get a say on whether they want him in No 10.
