'We're exploring contingency options,' insists Home Office minister after High Court bans migrants from Epping hotel
The government is exploring 'contingency options' to house migrants living at the Bell Hotel in Epping after a High Court ruling temporarily blocked them from staying there.
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Security minister Dan Jarvis told LBC that the government is looking 'very closely' at Tuesday's High Court judgement on the housing of migrants at the infamous Epping hotel following weeks of protests.
It comes after Epping Forest District Council asked a judge to issue an interim injunction stopping migrants from being accommodated at the Bell Hotel.
The injunction meant the hotel’s owner, Somani Hotels Limited, would have to stop housing asylum seekers there by September 12.
Local authorities are moving to launch their own legal actions after Epping secured a High Court victory temporarily blocking migrants from being housed in a hotel.
"The specifics of the legal challenge actually relate to a planning matter and the specific use of that hotel. So we're looking very closely at the judgment," Mr Jarvis told LBC's Tom Swarbrick.
He added: "Clearly we are in the process of identifying contingency options for what's going to happen to those people who are currently accommodated in that hotel in Epping."
Read more: Tensions remain high in Epping as immigration protests return amid fears of another summer of unrest
The hotel has been at the centre of a series of protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker who was staying there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
Protests began peacefully in the town, but quickly turned violent after far-right agitators became involved, including men with links to neo-nazi parties in the UK.
LBC has revealed far-right social media accounts from Russia, America and Europe were encouraging the disorder.
Exclusive analysis conducted for LBC by the digital consultancy 411 shows that the accounts are attempting to inspire members of the far right to join protests.
A Facebook group with 1,600 members is being used to organise coordinated protests outside the Bell Hotel in the coming days.
The ruling on Tuesday has seen Reform UK leader Nigel Farage suggest that the 12 councils where Reform UK was the largest party would consider legal challenges following Tuesday’s ruling.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Farage said the local authorities would do “everything in their power to follow Epping’s lead”.
There are reports the group is being run by Homeland, a splinter group of far-right organisation Patriotic Alternative, labelled “extremist" by Michael Gove when he was Communities Secretary.
Mr Jarvis said: "Of course we don't want to see any violent protests anywhere. And I think it's worth understanding...there have been very longstanding concerns about the use of this particular hotel that go back a number of years.
"So concerns have been expressed going back more than five years since it was first opened. It was opened again for a second time in 2022 and at that point there was a conversation about whether there would be a challenge by the local authority."
Recent days have seen the Home Office warn the judge that an injunction could “interfere” with the department’s legal obligations, and lawyers representing the hotel’s owner argued it would set a “precedent”.
Epping Forest District Council had asked a judge to issue an interim injunction stopping migrants from being accommodated at the Bell Hotel.
The area had seen thousands of people turn out in protest about the housing of migrants in the Bell Hotel.