Home Office asylum seeker military camps plan faces fury as Labour seats avoid 5,000 migrants

Labour has been hit with a backlash after it was confirmed the Home Office is planning to use more former military barracks to house thousands of asylum seekers.

There has been outrage after it was revealed the new locations would be in five seats not held by Labour at Westminster.

Professor Olga Matthias, spokesman for the Linton-on-Ouse action group, told The Telegraph: "It’s always been the wrong place. At the time of the campaign, we said it was the wrong plan in the wrong place.

"That hasn’t changed. It is a small village without the infrastructure to support hundreds of asylum seekers."

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Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is pursuing planning approval for three additional Ministry of Defence locations: MOD Bicester in Oxfordshire, RAF Barnham in Suffolk, and the former RAF base at Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire.

Together, these facilities would provide space for approximately 3,750 people awaiting asylum decisions.

Additionally, the government intends to extend operations at two existing sites. The Crowborough facility in East Sussex will remain operational until 2030, while Wethersfield in Essex will continue beyond 2027. Wethersfield's capacity is also set to increase from 800 to 1,200 bedspaces.

Liberal Democrat MP Calum Miller, whose Bicester and Woodstock seat contains one proposed site, expressed alarm at Labour's approach, adding: "My main concern at the moment is the lack of warning from the Home Office and the lack of evidence they have provided to me and the local community as to why this is justified."

Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy, whose West Suffolk constituency borders RAF Barnham, warned that "housing undocumented asylum seekers here would affect safety, services and cohesion."

Labour's own Terry Jermy, MP for South West Norfolk, broke ranks to oppose the Barnham proposal, stating he "strongly object to this site being used for this purpose."

Braintree District Council expressed bitter disappointment at the decision to keep Wethersfield operational indefinitely, with its capacity expanding to 1,245 people.

Council leader Tom Cunningham accused Labour of treating local residents with contempt, adding: "We are bitterly disappointed that, after more than three years of having the UK's largest asylum accommodation centre imposed on this district, it appears it will now stay for an indeterminate amount of time."

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Ministers have defended the controversial strategy as essential to fulfilling Labour's pledge to close all asylum hotels before the next election.

Justice minister Jake Richards told the BBC: "We made a promise to the British people that we would close these hotels, which have caused so much angst, so much anxiety, and so much pain across the country and we will do that."

The Refugee Council's Imran Hussain criticised the approach, saying: "Moving refugees from unsuitable hotels to unsuitable former military sites is storing up problems for the next prime minister by repeating policies that failed in the recent past."

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp dismissed the entire strategy, arguing Labour "should be putting illegal immigrants on a plane home rather than messing around with military camps and hotels."

The number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels has fallen to its lowest level since data was first reported in 2022, according to Home Office figures published last month.

There were 20,885 people staying in such accommodation while they were awaiting a decision on their asylum claims at the end of March, down 35 per cent year on year from 32,326.

The total had climbed as high as 56,018 at the end of September 2023. The issue of people being housed in hotels came to the fore last year with protests outside some sites.

On Thursday, the Home Office said 20 more hotels have now been closed.

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