The British seaside town of Bournemouth has a complex relationship with migration. It needs migrants to work in the tourist industry, which is vital for the economy.

Some residents say it’s always been a multicultural place, but others question if too many people coming here undermines the cultural identity of the town.

On Bournemouth seafront, we find that immigration is something that some white British people want to talk about – but not openly, and not on camera.

One woman, who knows the town well, said: “Bournemouth has changed because of the migration of people who have come here. The whole atmosphere of the place has changed.

“It’s strange to hear foreign languages spoken so frequently in our country. To not understand anything that’s being said around you is disconcerting,” she added.

I asked her if it made her uncomfortable, and if so, why? Is it the scale of migration which is bothering her?

“Visually, that seems to be the case,” she says. “We see what we see. I don’t see many white British people.”

I’m trying to get to the heart of what’s troubling her.

“It’s hard to define. I remember how it was. I remember the community. I’m worrying that our society as Brits is being undermined by the people who are coming in,” she says.

For decades, Britain has wrestled with the thorny issue of migration – who should be allowed into the country and from where.

The change in the demographic of the town is clear. Between the 2011 and 2021 censuses, the non-British-born population in Bournemouth’s local authority went up by 47%, and UK net migration has continued to rise significantly since then.

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Post-Brexit changes

Nine years ago – just before Brexit – we visited Bournemouth’s Cumberland Hotel. Back then, the staff were mostly EU citizens – many from Eastern Europe.

Returning to the hotel, we speak to the manager, Sean Nell.

He said: “A lot of our workforce were EU nationals and after Brexit, a lot of them left – they found other work other than hospitality.

“A lot of our workforce we’re seeing now that we can recruit from is probably South Asia.”

One of the staff is barman Shardul Tomas, who came to the UK from India in 2022 on a student visa. Whilst studying for his master’s degree, he began working at the hotel.

“It’s good to come here and experience new culture and do what we wish to do in our fields….after Brexit, the Europeans were less, so we were able to get good jobs,” he said.

‘We are replaced’

Nine years ago, Margaret Kubik was the assistant restaurant manager at the Cumberland.

We tracked her down and discovered she’s now working as a self-employed driving instructor.

She said: “When we met nine years ago, we as the Polish people were very much accused of taking the jobs from English people. Now we are replaced by the South Asian people.”

‘It’s not England any more’

For some Bournemouth residents, hotels housing asylum seekers have almost become the focal point for wider concerns about migration – as is happening in other towns across the UK.

Visiting a protest outside an asylum hotel, we found people are less camera shy than the woman on the seafront – seemingly more comfortable talking about migration among a crowd of like-minded people.

In reference to asylum seekers, one protester, shaking her head, told us: “We don’t know who these people are. Who are they? It makes you feel like it’s not England any more.”

For a couple of hours, two angry groups face off over their differing views on immigration. But not everyone shares concerns about the impact of migration on the town.

Kevin Maidment was born in Bournemouth. I asked if he feels the fabric of the town has changed.

Protesters ‘need somebody to hate’

He said: “No, because it’s always been a place where foreign language students visit.

“I think this lot down the road, they need somebody to hate… now it’s refugees, 10 years ago it was the Poles and the Eastern Europeans,” he said.

Watching the two groups with opposing views trying to drown each other out is a man called Colin. He lives in a flat between two asylum hotels, a few minutes walk apart.

“Personally, the immigrants aren’t a problem on the street or anything like that at all,” Colin says, referring to those seeking asylum.

“But people are fed up with the cost. The cost is a big problem because it’s so high.”

But with more councils vowing to launch legal challenges over the government’s use of asylum hotels, the immigration protest movement shows no sign of fizzling out.

Two Labour-run councils have said they are considering taking legal action to stop the use of hotels to house migrants in their areas after Epping council won a temporary injunction on Tuesday.

The leaders of Wirral and Tamworth councils both say they are considering their legal options in the wake of the Epping case, citing similar concerns about the impact of the hotels on their local communities.

Epping Forest District Council won an interim High Court injunction to stop migrants from being accommodated at The Bell Hotel, after arguing its owners did not have planning permission to use it to house migrants.

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In a statement, Paula Basnett, the Labour leader of Wirral council, said: “Like many other local authorities, we have concerns about the Home Office’s practice of placing asylum seekers in hotels without consultation or regard to local planning requirements.

“We are actively considering all options available to us to ensure that any use of hotels or other premises in Wirral is lawful and does not ride roughshod over planning regulations or the wishes of our communities.

“Wirral has always been proud of its record in supporting families and those fleeing conflict, but it is unacceptable for the government to impose unsuitable, short-term arrangements that disrupt communities and bypass local decision-making.

“If necessary, we will not hesitate to challenge such decisions in order to protect both residents and those seeking refuge.”

Carol Dean, the Labour leader of Tamworth Borough Council, said she understands the “strong feelings” of residents about the use of a local hotel to house asylum seekers, and that the council is “listening to their concerns and taking them seriously”.

She pointed out that under the national Labour government, the use of hotels has halved from 402 to 210, with the aim of stopping the use of any hotels by the end of this parliament.

But she continued: “Following the temporary High Court injunction granted to Epping Forest District Council, we are closely monitoring developments and reviewing our legal position in light of this significant ruling.”

Cllr Dean added that they had previously explored their legal options to challenge the use of the hotel but decided against them, as temporary injunctions were not being upheld.

However, the Epping ruling “represents a potentially important legal precedent”, which is why they are “carefully assessing” its significance for Tamworth.

“We fully recognise the UK government has a statutory duty to accommodate people seeking asylum. However, we have consistently maintained that the prolonged use of hotel accommodation may not represent the best approach – either for our local community or for the asylum seekers themselves,” she said.

“We will continue to work constructively with government departments and all relevant agencies while making sure the voice of our community is heard at the highest levels of government.”

Last night, Conservative-run Broxbourne Council also announced it was exploring its legal options, and the Reform UK leader of Kent County said she was writing to fellow leaders in Kent to explore whether they could potentially take legal action as well.

Use of Epping hotel ‘sidestepped public scrutiny’

The prime minister and the home secretary are under huge pressure to clear the asylum backlog and stop using hotels across the country to house those waiting for their applications to be processed.

Protests have sprung up at migrant hotels across the country. But The Bell Hotel in Epping became a focal point in recent weeks after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

Epping Forest District Council sought an interim High Court injunction to stop migrants from being accommodated at the hotel, owned by Somani Hotels Limited, on the basis that using it for that purpose contravened local planning regulations.

The interim injunction demanded that the hotel be cleared of its occupants within 14 days, but in his ruling on Tuesday, Mr Justice Eyre granted the temporary block, while extending the time limit by which it must stop housing asylum seekers to 12 September.

Somani Hotels said it intended to appeal the decision, its barrister, Piers Riley-Smith, arguing it would set a precedent that could affect “the wider strategy” of housing asylum seekers in hotels.

A government attempt to delay the application was rejected by the High Court judge earlier on Tuesday, Home Office barristers arguing the case had a “substantial impact” on the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, in performing her legal duties to asylum seekers.

But Mr Justice Eyre dismissed the Home Office’s bid, stating that the department’s involvement was “not necessary”.

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The judge said the hotel’s owners “sidestepped the public scrutiny and explanation which would otherwise have taken place if an application for planning permission or for a certificate of lawful use had been made”.

He added: “It was also deliberately taking the chance that its understanding of the legal position was incorrect. This is a factor of particular weight in the circumstances of this case.”

Reacting to Tuesday’s judgment, border security minister Dame Angela Eagle said the government will “continue working with local authorities and communities to address legitimate concerns”.

She added: “Our work continues to close all asylum hotels by the end of this parliament.”

A row has broken out between the Tories and Reform about previous comments on migrant hotels, so who said what and when?

At the centre of the argument is an interview Robert Jenrick did with Sky News back in November 2022, one week after he was appointed immigration minister in Rishi Sunak’s government.

His appearance came amid a crisis at an asylum seeker processing centre in Kent, which had become severely overcrowded – with migrants sleeping on the floor and families being housed in marquees.

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The home secretary at the time, Suella Braverman, had also been accused of allowing the situation to develop by failing to procure sufficient alternative accommodation – such as hotels – for migrants to be taken to.

Asked about this by Sky News in 2022, Robert Jenrick said: “More hotels have been coming online almost every month throughout the whole of this year.

“So, Suella Braverman and her predecessor, Priti Patel, were procuring more hotels. What I have done in my short tenure is ramp that up and procure even more because November, historically, has been one of the highest months of the year for migrants illegally crossing the Channel.”

Fast-forward almost three years, and this clip has been seized on by Reform UK as evidence that Mr Jenrick “boasted” about how many migrant hotels he had opened.

That’s a potentially damaging accusation, given the now shadow justice secretary recently joined protests outside a migrant hotel in Essex.

Mr Jenrick responded by accusing Reform of posting a “selectively clipped” video that didn’t include the context about the Kent processing centre.

To an extent, he has a point.

At the time, the government was fighting accusations that they were risking an expensive court action from migrants claiming they were being detained unlawfully.

The minister’s response was to point out that they were sourcing alternative options to make sure this didn’t happen and to prevent order breaking down in Kent.

Mr Jenrick has also pointed to other comments he made at the time saying, “it is essential we exit the hotels altogether” and describing the expensive hotel bill as “disgraceful”.

But that’s not to say Robert Jenrick hasn’t undergone quite a pronounced shift in both language and substance when it comes to migration.

For instance, in the same Sky News interview in 2022, he said: “I would never demonise people coming to this country in pursuit of a better life. And I understand and appreciate our obligation to refugees.”

At the time, this wasn’t a surprising view from a minister commonly considered to be in the centre of the Tory party.

But Mr Jenrick’s time as immigration minister saw him move further to the right.

As he has since said himself: “I could see the breakdown of the British state was doing immense damage. It angered me, and it motivated me to do absolutely everything to fix the problem.”

The following months saw Mr Jenrick significantly harden his position, to the point that he resigned over the government’s approach.

But the bigger contradiction Reform is trying to get at by picking this fight is around the Tory record.

It is a fact that the use of hotels to house asylum seekers peaked at just over 55,000 while the Conservatives were in power.

Similarly, it’s a fact that legal migration reached record levels on the Tories watch.

Mr Jenrick can fairly claim that – in the final year of his front-bench career – he did go further than most to try to change this.

But he can’t change the data from the time.

Reform knows that – just as it also knows the Tory record on migration is one of the big pull factors bringing their voters over to them.

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