By Sam Tobin and Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) -The British government on Friday overturned a court ruling requiring asylum seekers to be temporarily evicted from a hotel where one resident was charged with sexual assault, a decision that could ignite more protests and criticism from opponents.
Immigration has now become the dominant political issue in Britain, eclipsing concerns over a faltering economy, as the country faces a record number of asylum claims and arrivals by migrants in small boats
across the Channel, including more than 28,000 this year.
Last week, London's High Court granted an injunction to stop asylum seekers being housed in the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, about 20 miles (30 km) northeast of the capital, which had become a focal point of sometimes violent demonstrations after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexual offences.
But on Friday, the Court of Appeal upheld the government's appeal against that ruling, which had been made on planning grounds, and lifted the injunction.
While the court victory will ease the headache of immediate, widespread hotel closures, it opens up the Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his ministers to accusations from his main political opponents that he is siding with asylum seekers over the fears of local communities.
"Illegal migrants have more rights than the people of Essex," Nigel Farage, leader of Britain's populist Reform UK party which is leading in opinion polls, said on X ahead of the ruling. "Reform UK will put an end to this."
The government had argued the injunction would lead to further protests across the country seeking to force the immediate closure of hotels, and putting pressure on the system to house asylum seekers waiting to have their cases determined.
FARAGE PLAN
Currently there are just over 32,000 migrants in more than 200 hotels across the country, according to government figures up to the end of June.
While the government plans to close all these by the next election, due in 2029, in the meantime its lawyers said it had a legal duty to provide accommodation to asylum seekers facing destitution, under its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.
This week Farage announced a plan to repeal human rights laws to permit mass deportations of asylum seekers, and while the proposals were criticised as unworkable by lawyers and his party has just four lawmakers in the 650-seat parliament, it is garnering extensive media coverage.
The main Conservative opposition, which controls Epping Council which obtained the original temporary injunction, has also said Starmer wanted the Bell Hotel reopened in the face of local people's views.
Pro-migrant groups say opportunistic politicians and far-right groups are deliberately seeking to exploit and inflame tensions for their own ends.
Critics of housing asylum seekers in hotels say the costly policy can put the local community at risk and point to incidents where individual migrants have been accused of serious crimes, including serious sexual offences against young girls.
This week, an Ethiopian asylum seeker went on trial accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl and another woman in Epping, accusations he denied, while in a separate case in central England, two Afghan migrants denied involvement in the rape of a 12-year-old girl.
Protests in Epping have continued with further demonstrations planned for this weekend.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Michael Holden)
