Pressure mounts on Starmer over small boat migrants and asylum hotels

Sir Keir Starmer faces mounting pressure over the small boats crisis after protests continued outside asylum hotels and a poll suggested voters thought he was failing to grip the problem.

The Prime Minister and his government have set out measures to speed up the asylum appeals system to aid the removal of people with no right to be in the UK.

But Labour former home secretary Lord Blunkett said the Government had so far failed to offer a “comprehensive answer or an understandable narrative” on tackling the crisis.

Legal fights 

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

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

Lord Blunkett, who has suggested temporarily suspending elements of the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Refugee Convention to deal with the problem, said Sir Keir had to be “radical” in his approach.

A YouGov poll for The Times found that 71% per cent of voters believe the Prime Minister 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.

‘Comprehensive answer’ 

Lord Blunkett told the newspaper: “I think that the individual measures the Government has taken are extremely helpful in their own right but don’t add up either to a comprehensive answer or an understandable narrative.

“At the moment the issue is so toxic and beginning to get out of the Government’s grip to the point it is very hard to bring it back. A further package of actions is absolutely vital to start controlling both the public narrative and the delivery.”

But Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar rejected the idea of shelving human rights protections to tackle the problem.

He said the situation was “complex, it’s difficult” and “there is no one silver bullet”.

Mr Sarwar told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour: “I think we have to accept the European Convention on Human Rights.

“I think we should be working with our international partners around how we strengthen each other and try and address some of the issues collectively. But we should be protecting the European Convention on Human Rights.

“We have got to fix the broader systemic issues, which is why we have a failed immigration system right now.”

He acknowledged the need to tackle underlying frustrations about a lack of housing and pressure on public services.

“They’re all legitimate questions and pressures that we have to find a solution to.

“And I think, for those easy solutions some political parties want to have, to blame the migrants or blame the migrant hotels, I think, undermines the legitimate hard work that needs to happen to fix the immigration system, fix the asylum system, fix our NHS and build more houses across the country.”

Asylum 

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.

The record level of applications comes as the backlog of people waiting for an initial decision on their claims dropped to 90,812 at the end of June.

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

Labour has promised to end the use of the sites by 2029.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said “completely unacceptable” delays in the appeals process left failed asylum seekers in the system for years.

The UK Government has put forward plans for a new system where a panel of independent adjudicators, rather than tribunal judges, deals with appeals over asylum decisions.

Gimmicks and games

There are about 51,000 asylum appeals waiting to be heard, taking on average more than a year to reach a decision, with the backlog now thought to be the biggest cause of pressure in the asylum accommodation system.

The Home Secretary said the overhaul would result in a system which is “swift, fair and independent, with high standards in place”.

Border security minister Dame Angela Eagle said Labour was “clearing up the mess of the previous government”.

She wrote in the Daily Mirror: “Our reforms will resolve appeals faster, get people out of hotels and cut costs to taxpayers.

“No gimmicks, no games, this real work is all part of our system-wide approach to delivering necessary, lasting change.”

However, the Refugee Council’s Imran Hussain said: “The fastest way to speed up asylum appeals is to get decisions right first time.

“But at the moment, nearly half of appeals are successful, meaning that the initial decision was wrong.”