Sir Keir Starmer faces mounting pressure over the small boats crisis after protests outside asylum hotels continued over the bank holiday weekend.

A poll suggested that voters believe the prime minister is failing to grip the problem, despite his government setting out measures to speed up removals.

It comes as Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer warned that “the far right feels emboldened and validated” by other political parties.

So far this year a record 28,076 people have made the perilous journey across the English Channel in small boats, 46% more than in the same period in 2024.

Like many other European countries, immigration has increasingly become a flashpoint in recent years as the UK deals with an influx of people fleeing war-torn and poorer countries seeking a better life.

Official figures released earlier this month showed a total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.

There were 32,059 asylum seekers in UK hotels by the end of the same month.

Protests and counterprotests at sites housing asylum seekers continued over the weekend and the government is braced for further legal fights over the use of hotels.

Read more:
Fast-track asylum appeals process to be introduced

A YouGov poll for The Times found that 71% per cent of voters believe Sir Keir is handling the asylum hotel issue badly, including 56% of Labour supporters.

The survey of 2,153 people carried out on August 20-21 found 37% of voters viewed immigration and asylum as the most important issue facing the country, ahead of 25% who said the economy and 7% who said the health service.

Ms Denyer, who is MP for Bristol Central, condemned threats of violence in the charged atmosphere around immigration.

“The far right feels emboldened and validated by other political parties dancing to their tune.

“The abuse I’ve been sent has got noticeably worse in the last few months, escalating in some cases to violent threats, which are reported to the police.

“It doesn’t matter how much you disagree with someone, threats of violence are never, ever OK. And they won’t silence me.”

Is it time for gunboats to help stop the people smugglers?

Jon Craig

Chief political correspondent

@joncraig

Curbing the power of judges in asylum cases to tackle the migrant hotel crisis is a typical Keir Starmer response to a problem.

The former director of public prosecutions would appear to see overhauling court procedures and the legal process as the answer to any tricky situation.

Yes, the proposed fast-track asylum appeals process is fine as far as it goes. But for a government confronted with a massive migrant crisis, opponents claim it’s mere tinkering.

And welcome and worthy as it is, it isn’t going to “smash the gangs”, stop the boats or act as a powerful deterrent to the people smugglers plying their trade in the Channel.

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The sole surviving guest of a lunch where three others died after being served food laced with toxic mushrooms has told an Australian court that the actions of murderer Erin Patterson have left him feeling “half alive”.

Ian Wilkinson, who received a liver transplant and spent months in hospital after the poisoning in July 2023, described how he had been left traumatised as he delivered his victim impact statement at Patterson’s pre-sentencing hearing in Melbourne.

Patterson, 50, was found guilty last month of luring her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, to lunch at her home in Leongatha and poisoning them with individual portions of Beef Wellington that contained toxic death cap mushrooms.

A jury also found her guilty of the attempted murder of Mr Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.

Speaking at the start of the two-day hearing, Mr Wilkinson, a Baptist pastor, said the death of his wife had left him bereft.

“It’s a truly horrible thought to live with that somebody could decide to take her life. I only feel half alive without her,” he said, breaking down in tears.

“It’s one of the distressing shortcomings of our society that so much attention is showered on those who do evil and so little on those who do good.”

‘I bear her no ill will’

He described Gail and Don Patterson, the parents of Erin Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson, as the closest people to him after his wife and family.

“My life is greatly impoverished without them,” Mr Wilkinson said.

“I’m distressed that Erin has acted with callous and calculated disregard for my life and the lives of those I love. What foolishness possesses a person to think that murder could be the solution to their problems, especially the murder of people who have only good intentions towards her?”

He called on Patterson, who said the poisonings were accidental and continues to maintain her innocence, to confess to her crimes.

“I encourage Erin to receive my offer of forgiveness for those harms done to me with full confession and repentance. I bear her no ill will,” he said.

“I am no longer Erin Patterson’s victim and she has become the victim of my kindness.”

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The court received a total of 28 victim impact statements, of which seven were read publicly.

‘An irreparably broken home’

Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson – who was invited to the lunch but declined – spoke of the devastating impact on the couple’s two children.

“The grim reality is they live in an irreparably broken home with only a solo parent, when almost everyone else knows their mother murdered their grandparents,” he said in a statement that was read out on his behalf.

Patterson attended the court in person on Monday rather than watch via a video link from prison which she did during a hearing earlier this month.

The hearing is scheduled to continue on Tuesday.

Patterson faces a potential life sentence for each of the murders and 25 years for attempted murder.

She has 28 days from the day of her sentencing to appeal, but has not yet indicated whether she will do so.