LONDON, Aug 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — More than 70 per cent of Britons disapprove of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s policy of placing asylum seekers in hotels, according to a YouGov poll for the Times newspaper, reported Sputnik/RIA Novosti.
According to data cited by the Times, 71 per cent of British voters believe that the Prime Minister is approaching the problem of placing migrants in hotels incorrectly.
This opinion is shared by 56 per cent of supporters of the Labour Party, to which Starmer belongs.
More than a third of voters, or 37 per cent, believe that the problem of immigration is the most acute for Great Britain.
At the same time, 31 per cent of Britons believe that the right-wing populist party Reform UK of Nigel Farage could best handle this issue.
Only 9 per cent of Britons believe in the potential success of the Labour Party in this area, while 6 per cent believe in the success of the Conservatives.
The survey was conducted on Aug 20-21 among 2,153 British voters, with no margin of error provided.
In early August, the council of the British city of Epping stated that it considered it incorrect to equate the use of The Bell Hotel to accommodate refugees with its intended use and that it would seek to have the accommodation of migrants there declared illegal from a zoning perspective.
The head of the council, Chris Whitbread, stressed that the refugees being accommodated were not checked for criminal records, while five schools and a nursing home were located in the immediate vicinity of the hotel.
In mid-July, riots broke out in Epping against the backdrop of the trial of a 38-year-old migrant accused of rape.
Hundreds of demonstrators repeatedly gathered near The Bell Hotel, and during one of the protests, protesters clashed with the police, with several people being arrested. In late July, Epping local authorities called on the UK government to close hotels where migrants were being held.
Undocumented migrants often seek any opportunity to get to the UK and obtain refugee status, which opens access to financial benefits and social programmes.
Last year, more than 36,800 immigrants arrived in the UK illegally by boat through the English Channel, which is a quarter more than the year before.
The record figure was recorded in 2022, when over 45,700 migrants reached British shores.
The UK authorities spend several million pounds a day on accommodating asylum seekers in hotels. — NNN-AGENCIES
