Only a fool would believe that the decision of Boris Johnson’s Conservative Government to use hotels to accommodate large numbers of refugees in already hard pressed working class areas, was a good idea – especially considering the damage already done by New Labour’s ban on asylum seekers gaining employment and contributing to society, making them dependent on state support.
It’s notable that asylum seekers and refugees are seldom, if ever, placed in hotels in middle class or wealthy areas and that the venues chosen are predominantly within working class communities where resources are already stretched and morale is at an all time low, following decades of successive governments’ right wing economic policies.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/09/britain-asylum-hotels-racism-culture-war
For all the hysteria and mock outrage, in contrast to the fortunes of working class communities and asylum seekers, for the Conservative Party and its Ultra Conservative Frankenstein’s Monster, Reform UK, ‘migrant hotels’ have been both a lucrative cash cow and political mana from heaven.
Laughing all the way to the bank: Firoz Kassam’s Asylum Hustle
The privatisation of the Asylum system gifted millions of pounds of easy money to shameless, rack-renting, slum landlords. The Holiday Inn, on the edge of Blackbird Leys, the scene of recent Asylum protests, is owned by Firoz Kassam. Kassam is a canny businessman who bought Oxford United for £1 and was gifted the land by Oxford City Council for less than half the market value enabling him to build both the Kassam Stadium and the Holiday Inn. He is justifiably an unpopular figure locally for forcing United out of the stadium in order to free up the land for even more profitable use. Yet the Oxford United story is only the tip of the iceberg.
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/1769534.stadium-sale-good-value/
Having amassed a fortune in the 1980s from government handouts for housing homeless people in his notoriously putrid Mount Pleasant Hotel in Kings Cross, Kassam came early doors to the asylum racket. In 2000, long before the far right recognised the issue as politically useful, Kassam made headlines over his London Park, ‘Hostel from Hell’, where according to newspaper reports, some residents felt even more unsafe than they did in the war torn countries from which they had fled.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jul/09/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices
It is important to note that Kassam and other hoteliers who hit the jackpot at the taxpayers expense through housing asylum seekers, repaid the favour, with substantial donations to the Tory Party.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/jun/02/conservatives.uk3
The Failure of Government Asylum Policy
While Kassam raked in the money, the Holiday Inn, Blackbird Leys, became home for refugees from across the globe and for four years, there had been no obvious fuss and no outcry of opposition from local residents. Fast forward to last summer’s ‘Farage Riots’ and still no trouble at the Holiday Inn and it remained that way until 3 weeks ago when a sorry looking stranger with a placard and two elderly women with a dog rolled in. The following Saturday saw the same motley crew turn up, and it would probably have been the same the next week, but emboldened by the High Court ruling that the former Bell Hotel in Epping must stop housing asylum seekers, Nigel Farage called for national protests and the small group of zealots outside the Holiday Inn increased slightly, their ranks swelled by locals living next to the hotel who appeared to be more animated by the slogans and megaphones of the much larger and more organised counter protest than anything else.
Yet, while right wing opportunists have waited on the sidelines until the issue of ‘Asylum hotels’ became politically useful, more sober heads had been airing concerns about government policy for a number of years. One such group is the Refugee Council, founded in the wake of World War 2 to address what was at the time, an unprecedented refugee crisis, which recently reiterated its position on the issue:
“Everyone agrees that hotels are the wrong answer: they cost the taxpayer billions, trap people in limbo and are flashpoints in communities. Through our frontline work, we see how protests and hostility leave people who have fled war and persecution feeling terrified and targeted in the very places they are forced to live. Ultimately, the only way to end hotel use for good is to resolve asylum applications quickly and accurately so people can either rebuild their lives here or return home with dignity. This will cut costs and allow refugees to integrate into their new communities, contribute, and play their part in Britain.”
Locally, the Independent Working Class Association, which represented Blackbird Leys on Oxford City Council between 2002 – 2012 also tried to address the issue:
‘..As a rule political refugees are housed in the most under-funded areas which are duly expected to share out already meagre resources with the new arrivals. Across the country, the government is shown to have repeatedly short-changed councils to whom refugees are allocated. The interests, concerns and sensitivities of local communities are also routinely dismissed. Unsurprisingly this can be a source of suspicion, tension and resentment.’
IWCA Manifesto July 2003
Unfortunately the mainstream parties had no such consideration for local communities, so it was full steam ahead with no visible strategy for managing the impending crisis. Given the political climate, a disenfranchised working class and a relentless, extremely well funded campaign of disinformation on social media, it was almost inevitable that a quasi messianic autocrat with a pocket full of promises would emerge. Enter, stage right, Nigel Farage, who had cynically positioned himself to profit from the misery caused by the application of the very policies that have served him and his class so well.
Traitors?
The extreme right wing element at recent anti-asylum protests have attempted to label anyone who refuses to be bullied into adopting their hateful world view as a ‘traitor’, but if a traitor is one who acts against the national interest, maybe they should look a little bit closer to home.
Nigel Farage was a member of the Conservative Party from 1978 to 1992. He was, and remains, a passionate supporter of the party’s anti-working class, neo-liberal economic policies. In 1979 when Nigel’s idol, Margaret Thatcher, came to power, the gap between rich and poor was lower than at any time in recorded history. Four decades and counting into the neoliberal experiment, and that gap has widened to Victorian proportions, leaving many of our once proud working class communities on their knees. The use of food banks has increased by 51% in the last five years, while over the same period, wealth inequality has risen at a staggering rate with the UK’s 50 richest families now holding more wealth than 50% of the population.
https://www.trussell.org.uk/news-and-research/latest-stats/end-of-year-stats
The political right loves to bang on about ‘Broken Britain’, but they conveniently fail to mention that they broke it.
The Thatcher Government’s widespread privatisation of public services (more than 40 UK state owned businesses were sold off between 1970 and 1990), resulted in billions of pounds of public money being syphoned off into the private bank accounts of overseas venture capitalists. Today, it is the public utilities sector where the impact is most keenly felt. If we’re looking for a prime example of an individual beneficiary of the privatisation of UK utilities, we need look no further than the aptly named Hong Kong billionaire, Li Ka-shing. Ka-shing, was recently paid more than £2 billion pounds in dividends as a director of the CK Group, owners of UK Power Networks, the company that supplies electricity to the South East of England. Ka-shing’s cut is just a fraction of the astronomical figure that has been lost from the UK Exchequer through the privatisation of our utility services.
When the Game is up, Move the Goalposts
It has become more and more difficult for those on the right to keep up the pretence that Thatcherism has been anything but an unmitigated disaster for the UK. The physical and emotional scars of Thatcherite policies blight the landscape of contemporary Britain. This can be seen more than anywhere else, in the former industrial heartlands, where working class solidarity, dignity and industry has been replaced with unemployment, poverty, zero hours contracts and heartbreaking social decline. This is the legacy of Thatcherism and millions of voters know it, which is why, if the elite want to cling to power, Conservatism needs a rebrand – and you can guarantee that the Reformed version will be even more vicious.
https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/energy
Old Wine in New Bottles
Reform UK has nothing to offer working class people. Farage is a well connected millionaire; the product of an elite private school and very much a part of the British establishment he claims to oppose. His party is bankrolled by a particular type of wealthy individual who would have traditionally donated to the Conservatives but now feel that Reform better represents their interests. These people would not be investing in Reform UK if they thought for one minute that the party would consider reintroducing a fair tax system or implementing any other form of wealth redistribution to help tackle rising inequality. Independent international media platform, Open Democracy, report that ‘Farage’s party has sought to frame itself as an alternative to the political status quo of the Conservatives and Labour, yet this is at odds with its wealthy funders, many of whom are longtime political donors and paid-up members of the elite’.
Nigel Farage and his Limited Company, Reform UK, are happy to whip up hysteria over desperate people arriving in small boats, but they turn a blind eye to the moral bankruptcy of the likes of Firoz Kassam and other multimillionaire beneficiaries of the Great Asylum Hotel Swindle who are milking millions of pounds from the public purse to fund their luxury lifestyles in Riviera tax havens – tax havens incidentally, from which Reform UK receives 10% of its donations. Farage may self identify as a ‘man of the people’, but we’re having none of it.
Blackbird Leys Community Spirit 
Very well put Stuart about those grifting from this issue , I would say though that some of those protesting have legitimate concerns after some sexual assaults by those housed in the hotels in Epping and elsewhere , a lot of these generally young men come from very religious and conservative cultures and have backward views about women and sexual minorities , so while the likes of Reform will stir the pot , you can also be sure that the liberal establishment will continue to shout ‘ nothing to see here ‘ as in the grooming gangs issue , thus boosting the likes of Farage and Robinson who thrive on conspiracy narratives. I also think that many housed in hotels are not fleeing conflict and are economic migrants , no doubt desperate but its not the same thing as being a refugee , I have some experience of this working in the homeless sector where many have made bogus asylum claims but are given leave to remain, these things are pounced on by the right wing but it would still be a massive issue if they did not , people feel that its not fair to have to compete with incomers for scant resources .
Of course ideally there would be enough housing and jobs to go round but as we know that isn’t the case.
Regards
Duncan Greenland
Duncan Greenland
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Hello Duncan
Thank you for getting in touch and for your thoughts. You make very good points.
I agree that there is a difference between economic refugees (many of whom, as you point out, are desperate) and those genuinely seeking asylum.
I also agree with your points about refugees often coming from religious/ conservative cultures. It’s important to remember that in such cases, the refugees have escaped from these authoritarian regimes and on first arrival to a place of sanctuary, will probably be open to having the views inculcated by these regimes challenged. The onus should be on the host nation to encourage integration and the adoption of secular values and to give refugees the opportunity to make a contribution to society.
You may have seen Joe Kenehan’s article, ‘The Politics of Asylum’, on this page. Joe wrote of the type of problems faced as a volunteer teaching English to asylum seekers and refugees:
‘To make things worse, after 30 years of multicultural policies that have managed to flip the meaning of “segregation” into “safe space”, coupled with cuts to services meant to facilitate integration, asylum seekers’ main source of help and information when they arrive in the UK are bedfellows of the conservative religious leaders that dominate the political landscape of the homelands they had escaped from. Refugees find themselves in a bubble in which the only contact with outsiders is with volunteers and English teachers.’
https://stuartcraft.politics.blog/2021/05/03/the-politics-of-asylum/
In good faith, I tried to have a discussion with the handful of protesters outside Kassam’s hotel when they first arrived three weeks ago. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, they were very defensive and had no interest in anything but parroting the Farage narrative. When challenged, one of the women gushed: ‘We love Nigel’ and then started banging on about how ‘Asians’ don’t integrate as ‘they all want Sharia Law’. I volunteered that I know a lot of Asians in Oxford who are very integrated into the local community. Maybe I should have given up when she told me that I was talking rubbish and that I need ‘to wake up’, but being a glutton for punishment, I persevered in the vain hope of getting through to them. In answer to a man with a badly drawn placard, declaring that: ‘Migrants don’t want to integrate’, I pointed out that this obviously isn’t the case for all hotel residents, as we have a few that train with us at the local judo club (nice fellas as a matter of fact). I offered the protester the opportunity to come along to meet them, but, presumably, because this would challenge his lazy views, he refused.
Yes, the handling of asylum seekers by successive governments is a national scandal and needs addressing urgently, but the right wing extremists have contributed absolutely nothing positive to the debate.
If the asylum hotel problem went away tomorrow, Farage and Co would need another scapegoat. Asylum Seekers are the latest in a long line of scapegoats used by the right to detract working class people from the devastating impact of neoliberal economic policies that have served them so well. Before he moved on to asylum seekers, Nigel Farage’s flavour of the month were immigrant workers from Poland, who at the time, like today’s refugees and asylum seekers, were politically impotent, isolated and vulnerable, and like all bullies, Nigel prefers a victim that is unable to fight back.
Sure, Farage is happy to whip up racism amongst the working class when it suits him, but what the liberal left often fail to understand is that the only thing he really believes in is power and money. For him, racism is a diversion, nothing more. The maintenance of a system that serves him and his partners in crime is his main priority and his fellow Reform UK members and donors, who hail from diverse ethnic religious and national backgrounds, know very well that they have nothing to fear from Reform UK, as dividing the working class by whipping up racism amongst the ‘poor’ is just a power game to protect the system that keeps them in the lap of luxury, while most of those who do the real work in society, struggle to make ends meet.
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Thanks for you reply Stuart , I pretty much agree with you on all the points you made and I’ve read the excellent article by Joe Kenehan , who also raises some really interesting points , I think that the ethno- nationalist right and the the identity politics obsessed left to some extent mirror each other and neither are really looking for solutions, for as as you said it provides scapegoats for them , for the right the migrants, the left its often the white working class who they normally assume are bigots , I think an open debate about migration legal and illegal is necessary in order to try and detoxify an important issue that the working class are effected by the most and as an aid to successful integration. I really enjoy the blog and find you and your colleagues articles a refreshing change from the usual cliched stuff online , its a real shame the IWCA is no longer around or anything similar.
Thanks
Duncan
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Absolutely Duncan
Thanks for your support.
Take care.
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Hi , this is really great stuff , cutting through all the crap surrounding this
I too tried in good faith to have some discussion at the Gloucester
hotel protest with ‘the other side’. I said “Hi , I am a leftie working
class person and we need to talk’ Some were willing to talk, and seemed
open to me challenging them to campaign for universal stuff like Housing
for All, it Free Dentists for everyone,rather than scapegoat migrants.
As the left we have to get our hands dirty with this and argue for a
working class that includes migrants, who when they are allowed to work ,
can often be really militant in unions and win pay rises from EVERYONE.
Obviously this isn’t always possible at every protest , for example
at the Gloucester one ,more hardened actual fascist elements showed up ,
who just sent interested and need a more traditional antifa approach.
Please continue to share your insights into this as they arise. I am
particularly interested this as the capitalist class rally desperately
behind the nation state whilst the international working class ,
millions of them, will have to move from the central areas most affected
by climate change to further north i.e Us..
Whether this is socialism or barbarism, solidarity or genocide is the question for me..
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Thank you Pegar and fair play to you for making the effort to open up a dialogue. Sadly too many ‘activists’ believe that simply standing on the other side of the road shouting at the opposition is a strategy for victory. While, as you suggest, there are dark forces at play behind much of the mischief, from our experience in Oxford at least, we can see that while those with the most to gain, are happy to light the fuse and stand well back when the fireworks go off, there are often vulnerable, lost individuals, directly in the line of fire. These sad characters have fallen prey to online disinformation and right wing fairytales.
Farage and his affluent bedfellows are of course, quite happy to exploit the most disenfranchised to build their movement, but these feeble foot soldiers are completely oblivious to the fact that the love is unrequited and sadly, if Reform took power, the party’s planned welfare cuts would provide a rude awakening.
An ‘Anti-Government Protest’ was held in Oxford on Saturday, organised by those trying to set the mood for a General Election to capitalise on the fact that Farage is riding high in the polls. We took along a four page leaflet put together from the Great Asylum Hotel Swindle article and tried to engage with both protesters and counter-protesters. The discomfort amongst both groups at our confident, pro-working class, approach was palpable. There seemed to be a feeling that we’d broken the unwritten rule by refusing to play their dead end game of identity politics and by raising the elephant in the room – class. In complete contrast, the response from the general public, many of whom had simply stopped to enjoy the circus, was generally very favourable. We had some great conversations with a wide range of people and found common ground with most of those who stopped to talk to us.
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That sounds great – is it possible to post up the leaflet?
A comrade from Bristol TUC a really good start on a leaflet, and I made a meme , plus found some other art to put in the middle :
https://stuffit.org.uk/solgen/leaflet2.pdf
https://stuffit.org.uk/solgen/top1.png
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Hello Pegar.
Please email me directly on:
Blackbirdleyscommunityspirit@gmail.com and I’ll send you the leaflet.
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