{"id":368411,"date":"2025-08-23T23:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/368411\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T23:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:44:09","slug":"protests-in-uk-against-asylum-seeker-housing-continue-counter-protests-arise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/368411\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests in UK against asylum seeker housing continue, counter-protests arise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  By&amp;nbsp<b>euronews<\/b>&amp;nbspwith&amp;nbsp<b>AP<\/b>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            23\/08\/2025 &#8211; 19:23 GMT+2\n            <\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\" width=\"72\" height=\"72\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n          ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Protesters took to the streets across the UK on Saturday including in the city of Liverpool to demonstrate against hotels housing asylum-seekers.<\/p>\n<p>A number of protests under the Abolish Asylum System slogan, coined by right-wing political parties, were also set to take place in other cities including in Bristol, Newcastle, and London.<\/p>\n<p>In Liverpool, a counter-protest organised by Stand Up To Racism was also held. <\/p>\n<p>Police could also be seen leading away protesters from the Abolish Asylum System protest and pushing back demonstrators from the counter protest. <\/p>\n<p>The dilemma of how to house asylum-seekers in Britain got more challenging for the government after a landmark court ruling this week motivated opponents to fight hotels used as accommodation.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians on the right capitalized on a temporary injunction that blocked housing asylum-seekers in a hotel in Epping, on the outskirts of London, to encourage other communities to also go to court.  <\/p>\n<p>Legal obligation to house asylum-seekers<\/p>\n<p>The issue is at the heart of a heated public debate over how to control unauthorized immigration that has bedevilled countries across the West as an influx of migrants seeking a better life as they flee war-torn countries, poverty, regions wracked by climate change or political persecution.<\/p>\n<p>In the UK, the debate has focused on the arrival of migrants crossing the English Channel in overloaded boats run by smugglers and escalating tensions over housing thousands of asylum-seekers at government expense around the country. <\/p>\n<p>The government is legally obligated to house asylum-seekers. Using hotels to do so had been a marginal issue until 2020, when the number of asylum-seekers increased sharply and the then-Conservative government had to find new ways to house them.<\/p>\n<p>There have been more than 27,000 unauthorized arrivals so far this year, nearly 50% higher than at the same point last year and ahead of the number at this time of year in 2022, when a record 45,755 came ashore. <\/p>\n<p>The number of asylum-seekers housed in hotels stood at just over 32,000 at the end of June, according to Home Office figures released Thursday. That figure was up 8% from about 29,500 a year earlier but far below the peak of more than 56,000 in September 2023.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001. <\/p>\n<p>In May, the National Audit Office said those temporarily living in hotels accounted for 35% of all people in asylum accommodation.<\/p>\n<p>Video editor<strong> \u2022 Rory Elliott Armstrong<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By&amp;nbspeuronews&amp;nbspwith&amp;nbspAP Published on 23\/08\/2025 &#8211; 19:23 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT Protesters took to the streets across the UK on Saturday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[2527,748,393,1105,4884,5805,1144,2579,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-368411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-asylum-seekers","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-far-right","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-migrants","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-protests","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115080741822362763","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}