Nigel Farage has erupted with fury over Labour’s eleventh-hour bid to keep a controversial migrant hotel open. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed the Government wants to appeal the temporary injunction ordering the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, to close.
Ms Cooper defended the move, insisting hotels must be closed in a “properly managed way” rather than through “piecemeal court decisions”. Somani Hotels, the owner of the Bell Hotel in Epping, also confirmed it will appeal against the closure order, paving the way for a showdown with the community. But anger erupted over the Government’s intervention, with ministers accused of ignoring public anger, safety concerns and demands for rapid closures.
Reform UK’s Nigel Farage declared: “So, a huge victory, the Bell Hotel, people protested, they won a court case, the migrant hotel will close.
“And that, of course, all over the country, is leading to other communities standing up, protesting, demanding their hotels are closed as well.
“Yvette Cooper is going to fight that court order to demand that the Bell Hotel and other migrant hotels stay open.
“Ask yourself, whose side is this Government on? Is it on your side? Or is it on the side of young, undocumented males coming into Britain, too many of whom frankly assault our young women.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “This decision is a sick joke.
“It is completely wrong that the Labour Government is taking legal action to keep the Bell Hotel open. The Government isn’t listening to the public or to the courts.
“Instead of trying to keep illegal immigrants in expensive hotels, the Conservatives would immediately deport all illegal arrivals and ensure towns like Epping are never put in this position again.
“In the nine months before the election, the Conservatives closed 200 hotels. If that had continued, there wouldn’t be any asylum hotels now – but instead the number of asylum seekers in hotels has gone up under Labour.
“This problem is being caused because 2025 so far is the worst year ever for illegal immigrants crossing the Channel. Most are young men who have paid people smugglers to illegally enter the UK. Labour has lost control of our borders and communities up and down the country are paying the price.”
Shadow Home Office minister Matt Vickers said: “Utterly disgraceful that Labour are taking legal action to try and keep the Bell Hotel in Epping open.
“Every single illegal immigrant should be immediately deported, not kept in a hotel.”
Tory MP Ben Obese-Jecty added: “The Government’s position is completely untenable. Labour pledged to end the use of asylum hotels.
“This is them brazenly breaking that promise.”
A wave of protests is expected outside migrant hotels this weekend, including in Epping.
Nearly 30 demonstrations are believed to be taking place over the next three days, with demonstrations planned from Aberdeen to Exeter.
Councillor Holly Whitbread, who has been at the forefront of Epping Forest District Council’s campaign to close the hotel, slammed the “deeply disappointing” Home Office decision.
She said: “It was dreadful when the Government tried to intervene in the case on Tuesday.
“Obviously, they had time to get their ducks in a row and they were hugely disorganised, and then to take this further action today is deeply disappointing.
“I hope that the Court of Appeal will make the right decision in upholding the decision of the High Court.
“It really just continues to show the contempt that the Government have shown for our community here in Epping for a number of weeks, and beyond that when they first reopened the hotel a number of months ago.
“They’ve completely ignored community concerns. They seem to have no care for the impact this hotel is having on our community.”
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson said: “The people in Epping represent the vast majority of people in this country who believe that placing tens of thousands of undocumented and unvetted migrants in hotels presents a tremendous risk to local communities.
“They also believe that these hotels, housing approximately 32,000 illegal migrants as privileged guests at taxpayers’ expense, should be shut down.
“By lodging this legal challenge, we know for certain that this Labour Government will always put the interests of illegal migrants over those of the decent-minded British public.”
Judge Mr Justice Eyre granted Epping Forest District Council a temporary injunction preventing asylum seekers from being housed in the hotel in Epping because it did not have planning permission.
The council also argued the injunction was needed amid “unprecedented levels of protest and disruption” in connection with asylum seeker accommodation.
Community leaders and politicians declared Tuesday’s bombshell legal ruling a “victory for the mums and dads”.
But a senior Home Office source said it was a matter of “democracy” and that the judiciary should not be able to tell the government where it can and can’t place asylum seekers.
The Home Office told the High Court that a temporary injunction could have a devastating impact on its asylum accommodation plans. Barristers, acting on behalf of Ms Cooper, warned of a surge of “similar applications made elsewhere that would then aggravate pressures on the asylum estate”.
Injunction applications could become a “new norm adopted by local authorities”, they added.
The Home Office lawyers also suggested that granting the injunction “runs the risk of acting as an impetus for further violent protests”.
The department is challenging the High Court’s decision to block them from Tuesday’s hearing. If Labour wins, it could pave the way for the temporary injunction to be challenged.
Ms Cooper said: “We agree with communities across the country that all asylum hotels need to close, including the Bell Hotel, and we are working to do so as swiftly as possible as part of an orderly, planned and sustained programme that avoids simply creating problems for other areas or local councils as a result of piecemeal court decisions or a return to the kind of chaos which led to so many hotels being opened in the first place.
“That is the reason for the Home Office appeal in this case, to ensure that going forward, the closure of all hotels can be done in a properly managed way right across the country without creating problems for other areas and local councils.
“What we cannot have is a replica of the chaotic and disorderly situation that we saw under the previous government in 2022, when 140 extra hotels were opened in the space of six months because they lost control of the system.
“The previous government, which caused that chaos, is now trying to pretend that their time in office didn’t happen, and are simply trying to make the situation worse.
“While they play politics with this issue, we will get on with the job of sorting out the mess that they left behind, closing every one of the hotels that they opened, and doing so in a controlled and managed way.”
Security minister Dan Jarvis said the Government would appeal against the decision on Friday, which if successful would open the way for a wider appeal against a temporary injunction blocking the Home Office from using the Bell Hotel as asylum accommodation.
Asked whether he was “worried about any copycat protests” following the High Court’s decision this week, Mr Jarvis told broadcasters: “We’ve made a very clear commitment that we’re going to close all of the asylum hotels.
“That was a manifesto commitment that we stood on and we will honour.
“We’re clearing up the legacy that we inherited from the previous government but the closures of these hotels need to be done in an ordered and managed way.”