Protesters took to the streets of Epping, a town in the northeast of London, on July 27, 2025, holding a banner that read “Don’t let the far right divide us with their hatred and violence: unite.” Their destination was The Bell Hotel, which was believed to be housing asylum seekers. The demonstration was a response to the anti-immigrant protests that had been taking place in the area for weeks, reportedly orchestrated in part by the far-right.
The government can breathe a sigh of relief this afternoon as the Court of Appeal has ruled in its favor, overturning the High Court’s temporary injunction on The Bell Hotel. The injunction was meant to stop the hotel from accommodating asylum seekers. The Epping Forest District Council had taken sudden legal action, claiming that using the building for this purpose was against planning laws. The High Court had backed the local authority and ordered all asylum seekers to be removed from the hotel by September 12.
However, Labour and the Bell Hotel’s owners, Somani Hotels, argued that kicking out the asylum seekers without a plan went against the Home Office’s statutory duty to the immigrants. And the Court of Appeal’s judges agreed. Lord Justice Bean stated that the Home Secretary is legally expected, by parliament, to ensure that asylum seekers do not sleep on the streets. He also warned that allowing the injunction to remain would incentivize further protests.
This court victory means that Labour will not be left in a tricky situation of trying to find new accommodation for the asylum seekers just yet. But there’s no denying that anti-immigration sentiment has grown across the UK, especially as this one case became nationwide news. The rise of Reform UK is also a testament to the traction this subject is gaining. Labour is desperate to win back any voters it believes it has lost to the rising right-wing party, even if it means losing left-wing supporters to pro-refugee groups like the Green Party.
Although the building houses fewer than 140 immigrants as they have their asylum claims processed, it still became a microcosm of the wider backlash against the UK’s immigration system. Plenty of other councils had threatened to take similar legal action against the asylum hotels in their local authorities, spurred on by anti-immigration critics like Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch.
This whole case also brought up a great paradox within Labour’s thinking around the asylum sector, which Keir Starmer’s political opponents are ready to exploit. The government has promised to end all asylum hotels by the end of this parliament (around 2029) – but in the written evidence for this case, they found themselves arguing in favor of the scheme. They stated that ending asylum hotels now would be “chaotic” and “disorderly,” and that they planned to bring the program to a close in a “managed way.” However, the government also admitted that they would face “considerable difficulties” in finding alternative housing for the Bell Hotel’s residents, especially considering the rising number of boat crossings.
So what does ending it in a “managed way” mean? And dodging one injunction does not guarantee long-term success – especially as it was only a temporary one. Epping Forest District Council may still be granted an injunction after a full hearing of the legal claim, expected in October. As Tory leader Badenoch wrote on Twitter, “This ruling is a setback, but it is not the end.” She urged Tory councils seeking similar injunctions to “KEEP GOING” and offered support to all local authorities considering this route. “Keir Starmer scrapped the Rwanda removal plan, promised to smash the gangs, yet illegal crossings are the highest they’ve ever been,” she said. “Labour has run out of options, so the only answer left is to dump the problem on local communities.”
Farage used the opportunity to get one clear message across on social media, writing, “The government has used ECHR against the people of Epping. Illegal migrants have more rights than the British people under Starmer.” Minister for border security and asylum Angela Eagle effectively called for more time from the public before passing judgment on Labour’s success in managing this issue. In a statement, she reiterated that Labour wants to close hotels like The Bell in a controlled manner to “avoid the chaos of recent years that saw 400 hotels open at a cost of £9m a day.” Eagle added, “It will take some time to fix the broken system we inherited, but the British public
