Last week, I visited an asylum hotel in London after receiving reports that illegal immigrants were working as couriers for major delivery platforms. The Express has uncovered similar cases, and what I saw confirmed every word. What I found was a hotel that had Seemed to have become a courier hub for illegal migrants, paid for by the taxpayer and run under the nose of the Labour Government. This is a window into the system Labour have allowed to drift into absurdity.
Labour promised they’d end the use of asylum hotels, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Since taking office, the numbers have only gone up, with now over 32,000 people in hotel rooms. What we’re witnessing is industrial-scale rule-breaking, bankrolled by you. Every time a courier bag is zipped up in one of these taxpayer-funded hotels, it zips shut the credibility of the government running it.
It’s illegal for asylum seekers to work, it’s illegal for companies to hire them, and it’s criminal to use someone else’s ID to pass a right-to-work check. And yet, here we are, with platforms ignoring the loopholes and enforcement nowhere to be seen.
When illegal migrants arrive and are housed in taxpayer-funded hotels, supported with meals and services, and able to access work illegally through gig economy platforms, it is a farce and signals to the rest of the world that Britain’s border is open for business.
This is where policy has real-world consequences. If people see that arrival is followed by housing, support, and the opportunity to earn money – regardless of immigration status – it becomes impossible to implement the system the British people need and want. It creates precisely the kind of pull factor the government should be dismantling.
The Home Office must get a grip and crack down on every company turning a blind eye, kick every illegal worker off the platform, audit every asylum hotel for this issue, and stop pretending that this is not going on. Without enforcement, the promises mean little. And unless Labour changes course, the incentives to come illegally will remain firmly in place.
If you abuse our hospitality and commit a crime in this country, you forfeit your right to stay, you must be deported. No more second chances. That’s why the Conservative Party introduced our Deportation Bill, legislation Labour have twice voted against. We set workable policy to remove every illegal migrant in Britain, and yet, Labour took no shame in blocking it.
It’s time to shut the racket down and it’s time to put law-abiding citizens, not law-breaking couriers, at the heart of this country’s future.