Glasgow is dealing with ‘unprecedented’ pressure from almost 4,000 new arrivals – with SNP, Labour and Reform blaming each other for the rising housing crisis
Glasgow has become the front line of an increasingly bitter battle over rising asylum seeker numbers – as political parties blame each other for the crisis.
An increase in arrivals from all over the world has put the city’s housing stock under intense pressure, sparking an upsurge in anti-asylum protests and flag-waving.
Accommodating almost 4,000 asylum seekers, Glasgow has taken in far more newcomers than any other local authority in the UK.
Due to the number of asylum seekers who have been placed in the area, tensions in the city are now approaching “boiling point”, Reform UK claims.
‘Social cohesion’ under threat, says SNP
Susan Aitken, the SNP leader of Glasgow City Council, told The i Paper that such “loaded” language from the “far-right opportunists” in Reform was unhelpful. She added that it was a “sordid bit of wish-fulfilment in a city they do not know”.
However, the SNP-run council has made its own argument that the city is struggling to cope with “unprecedented” pressure from asylum seekers and refugees.
Aitken said the situation presents a “real risk to the order and cohesion of our communities” – urging the Home Office to agree a “pause” on sending any more asylum seekers to Glasgow.
Anti-migrant demonstrators at a ‘Far Right Unity Rally’ in September in Glasgow (Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)
Some 44 per cent of people declaring themselves homeless in Glasgow are now refugees. These are asylum seekers who have been granted the right to stay in the UK.
The council says overwhelming pressure on temporary accommodation – which means finding B&Bs, hostels or hotel rooms for refugees – has created a £66m black hole in its homelessness budget next year.
Glasgow City Council has already agreed a 7.5 per cent hit in council tax amid the significant financial pressures it faces.
Anti-migrant chants are ‘heart-breaking’
Motaz Amer – a 20-year-old from Yemen granted refugee status in 2023 – says he feels “at home” in Glasgow. But Amer, who lives in social housing, is worried that racism has been emboldened among a small minority.
“I’ve had one individual shout ‘Go home’ at me in the street, for no reason, other than the colour of my skin. It’s heart-breaking,” he told The i Paper.
Motaz Amer, from Yemen, has been in Glasgow since getting refugee status in 2023
“Glasgow is a friendly place,” he added. “But I think a loud minority of people have been deceived into blaming one group – immigrants – for problems that have been here for ages – problems with housing, the NHS, public services.”
Amer, who acts as adviser to the Scottish Refugee Council, added: “The Scotland flags you see, it’s heart-breaking to see some try to use it for the politics of division. Because it’s a country that is welcoming.”
‘SNP saying the same things as Reform’
Reform UK councillor Thomas Kerr, who represents a deprived ward in Glasgow’s east end, said there is “real anger” about the disproportionate impact of asylum seekers and refugees on the city, given the shortage of social housing.
“I deplore any form of racism, and anyone [shouting] ‘go home’ should be condemned. But I just don’t see Glasgow becoming this evil, racist city,” he told The i Paper.
“The shortage of housing, and the pressure the asylum issue is putting on housing, is a big issue. There is frustration in the city that is reaching boiling point.”
Falkirk has emerged as the angry frontline of the immigration debate in Scotland (Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)
Kerr added: “The SNP are essentially saying the same things Reform is saying. Susan [Aitken] hates it when I remind her of that – but a pause [on more asylum seekers] is what I have been saying for years.”
The Reform politician says the Scottish flag is being hung on lampposts partly because people are “so angry” about immigration levels.
“But it’s partly wanting to take back their patriotism.”
Home Office ‘a machine that creates homeless refugees’
Glasgow hosts 3,777 asylum seekers, the latest Home Office figures show, significantly more than the next biggest asylum city of Birmingham, with 2,832.
Eight of the 10 local authorities with the most asylum seekers are in the North of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
But how did Glasgow come to have so many new migrants?
The city council was one of the first local authorities in Scotland to take part in the Home Office’s “dispersal policy” in the early 2000s – which aimed to spread the support burden across the UK.
The Home Office’s Scottish contractor, the Mears Group, has continued to send large numbers of people to Glasgow in recent years because of the availability of hotel space and relatively cheap flats in the private rented sector.
The SNP council leader blames the Labour Government in Westminster for placing so many people in Glasgow without proper financial support.
“If that does not change, a pause may be necessary to protect our ability to play a proper role in the asylum system in the longer term,” Aitken told The i Paper.
Aitken also blames Labour for cutting the time that asylum seekers granted refugee status get to sort out their housing before being forced to leave hotels from 56 days to 28 days. She calls Home Office policy a “machine that creates homeless refugees”.
Refugees travelling up from English cities
Meanwhile, Labour blames the SNP.
Joani Reid, Labour MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven, on the outskirts of Glasgow, points to SNP legislation in 2022 which allowed people to apply as homeless without any local connection.
“Refugees are being granted status in cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle, then getting on a train to Glasgow to declare themselves homeless,” she said.
Those declared homeless are then eligible to be housed by the city council in temporary accommodation.
The Scottish Refugee Council said there was no clear evidence for why refugees were travelling from English cities to Glasgow, arguing that some may already have family in the city.
An anti-asylum protest in Newcastle in September (Photo: Ian Forsyth/Getty)
Some Labour MPs accept that the Home Office bears some responsibility. Reid, who sits on the Home Affairs Committee, said the department had been “too slow in trying to secure a fairer distribution”.
A scathing report by the committee in October found that asylum accommodation was “not evenly distributed across the UK” and “stark disparities remain”.
The North West of England has hosted 27 asylum seekers per 10,000 people, official figures show. The North East has 26 asylum seekers per 10,000. By comparison, the South East has just 7 per 10,000.
Labour MPs in “Red Wall” seats vulnerable to Reform are not happy about it. Luke Akehurst, MP for North Durham, told The i Paper it was “not fair” that some communities “have had to absorb large numbers of asylum seeker HMOs [houses in multiple occupation] because we have cheap terraced housing”.
Jonathan Brash, Labour MP for Hartlepool, said the Home Office must do more to end the “lopsided dispersal” which took place under the previous government. Brash said private contractors “have dumped people in towns like Hartlepool simply because our housing is cheap – it’s disgraceful”.
In Glasgow, Aitken said civic leaders were “tearing their hair out at [Labour] ministers’ reluctance to engage” – urging the Home Office to provide money to help the SNP council deal with a “dire situation”.
However, James Mitchell, professor of public policy at the University of Edinburgh, said the SNP has become “a victim of its own making” because it “wants to portray itself as welcoming asylum seekers in Scotland but simultaneously complains when that happens”.
A spokesperson for Mears Group said it was working towards a “more even dispersal of asylum seekers and reduce the reliance on Glasgow”. The contractor has begun housing migrants in other parts of Scotland after a deal with local authorities in 2024.
A Home Office spokesperson said it was working to move asylum seekers into “more suitable accommodation such as military bases” to ease pressure on communities.