Farage’s pick for Shadow Chancellor ‘ignored locals’ concerns about Stradey Park asylum plan’

Martin Shipton

Reform UK supporters reacted with rage when Llanelli Labour MS Lee Waters pointed out that Nigel Farage’s choice for Shadow Chancellor had ignored local people’s concerns about a proposal to open an asylum hostel in the town.

Mr Waters posted a message on his Facebook page that said: “People who back Reform in Llanelli will be voting to put back into government the Tory Minister who wanted to use the Stradey Park Hotel as an asylum hostel.

“As Home Office Minister at the time Robert Jenrick dismissed local opposition and would not listen to reason. He REFUSED to meet with our local MP Nia Griffith to listen to local concerns.

“And that’s who Reform want to make Chancellor of the Exchequer. If you vote Reform that’s what you’ll be supporting.”

Mr Jenrick defected from the Tories to Reform in January 2026, days after he had been suspended from the Conservative Party by its leader Kemi Badenoch when evidence emerged that he was planning to jump ship.

Responding to a Reform supporter who said he couldn’t remember him opposing the plan, Mr Waters referred her to an earlier post from 2023 in which he stated: “I’ve just spoken to the chief executive of Carmarthenshire Council and am reassured that they are exploring all avenues to stop the Home Office placing 200 vulnerable people in the Stradey Park Hotel without proper support, or funding for local services to help them.

“I’ve also asked the council to put together a taskforce to help the staff at the hotel in the event the unscrupulous hotel owners lay them off.

“In other cases I understand the Home Office’s private contractors managing the situation have brought in outside facilities. I’m told that the staff have so far been told nothing and have not been issued with any redundancy notice.

“I am writing to the owner to ask him to take care of his team from the highly inflated fees he is likely to be commanding.

“Let’s remember that none of this is the fault of the people who will be coming.

This is what the Home Office website says: ‘To stay in the UK as a refugee you must be unable to live safely in any part of your own country because you fear persecution there. This persecution must be because of your race, your religion, your nationality, your political opinion, anything else that puts you at risk because of the social, cultural, religious or political situation in your country, for example, your gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. You must have failed to get protection from authorities in your own country.’

“These are vulnerable and often traumatised people. It’s not their fault that the UK Government have failed to manage the system. There are outside extremist groups trying to whip up trouble. Let’s not let them succeed.”

‘Shocked’

In May 2023 Dame Nia Griffith, the MP for Llanelli, asked Mr Jenrick, who at the time was responsible for the then Conservative government’s immigration policy: “Local residents in my constituency are rightly shocked and concerned to hear that the Minister’s Department is planning to house 300 asylum seekers in the Stradey Park hotel, a totally disproportionate number for the village of Furnace and local services. Will the Minister meet me to hear about local concerns, and what is he doing to prevent the need to commandeer the Stradey Park hotel and to clear the Home Office backlog of 160,000 undetermined claims so that those from safe countries can be returned and those who are genuine refugees can move out of hotels and be integrated in small numbers into suitable communities?”

Mr Jenrick did not answer Dame Nia directly, instead stating: “I am delighted to hear that the Government have just chalked up another vote for the Illegal Migration Bill, because Members cannot say they want open borders, with unlimited numbers of individuals coming into this country, whether legally or illegally, but they do not want them in their own constituency—it is an inconsistent approach. If the hon. Lady feels so strongly and is getting such strong representations from her constituents, she should support the government’s efforts to clamp down on illegal migration.”

Backed down

Months later, in October 2023 and after Carmarthenshire County Council launched a legal challenge to the proposal, the Home Office finally backed down and the scheme was abandoned.

Mr Waters said at the time he was glad the Home Office had “finally seen sense and have realised their plans for Stradey were unworkable and wrong-headed. But what a mess they have created, and now leave behind.”

Llanelli is Labour’s most vulnerable seat to Reform in Wales. At the 2024 general election Dame Nia Griffith’s majority over the second-placed Reform candidate was just 1,504 votes.