Reform UK signals legal challenges against asylum hotel use
Reform UK's chairman has vowed to use "every instrument of power available" - including judicial review, injunctions and planning laws - to stop asylum hotels in the local authority areas in which they won control at last week's local elections.
Councils have no control over the use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers in their areas as the responsibility falls to the Home Office, which selects the hotels and contractors for the scheme.
In an interview on the Laura Kuenssberg show on Sunday (4 May), Zia Yusuf said the party's legal team is examining planning law mechanisms to challenge the use of hotels for asylum accommodation.
He indicated that the team is looking at potential breaches of change of use regulations.
He said: "A lot of these hotels - and there has been litigation around this already - a lot of these hotels when you suddenly turn them into something else, which is essentially a hostel, that falls foul of a number of regulations and that's what our team of lawyers are exploring at the moment."
He also suggested that the party is considering how budgets can be used to inhibit asylum hotel schemes.
His comments come after the party won 677 of around 1,650 contested seats at the local elections on Thursday (1 May).
The electoral gains saw Reform UK take overall control over the following ten councils: Derbyshire, Doncaster, Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, North Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire.
Reform candidates also won two regional mayoral elections in Hull and East Yorkshire, and Greater Lincolnshire.
Reform UK’s party leader, Nigel Farage, has also warned council staff involved in climate change initiatives or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives – or anyone wishing to continue working from home – to “begin seeking alternative careers very, very quickly”.
Speaking in Durham, where Reform took overall control of the county council, Farage said: “We want to reduce excessive expenditure, we want to find out who the long-term contracts are signed with and why and reduce the scale of local government back to what it ought to be: Providing social care, providing SEND needs for kids and mending potholes.”
Adam Carey
