Gary S 🐘🦋

Long post 👇 The British media and reactionary MPs have pushed a dangerous myth: that people seeking asylum are being treated like hotel guests. The reality is the opposite. Hotels are being used as makeshift holding facilities. Many people seeking asylum share cramped rooms with strangers, sometimes whole families squeezed together. There is no luxury, no 4* service. The real winners here are not the residents, who have endured terrible journeys and often all have legitimate cases for asylum, but hotel owners. The government guarantees occupancy, funnelling millions into private companies under lucrative contracts. What looks like a “costly burden” on taxpayers is in fact a transfer of public money to businesses that profit from the housing shortage and asylum backlog. In fact, the true scandal is that much of this spending comes out of the overseas aid budget. Instead of addressing the root causes of displacement, through humanitarian aid, peacebuilding, or development programmes abroad, funds are being diverted to line the pockets of hoteliers and other contractors in Britain. In effect, money designed to reduce the need for asylum in the first place is being wasted propping up a broken system. There is a far more rational and humane path. Britain could invest properly in stabilisation and diplomacy overseas, support peace initiatives, and strengthen humanitarian responses where crises begin. At home, it could drastically speed up asylum processing so people aren’t stuck in hotels for months or years. And crucially, it could grant the right to work. Allowing asylum seekers to work means tax revenue, less welfare dependency, stronger local economies, and faster integration. Instead, the government has chosen the most wasteful, divisive, and inhumane approach possible: trapping people in limbo, feeding resentment, and handing public money to private hotel chains. This is not an accident, it’s a political choice — one that helps nobody except the contractors cashing the cheques. So, if we want a system that is fair, fiscally responsible, and humane, it already knows what to do: speed up asylum decisions, allow people to work, stop profiteering from hotel contracts, and restore the overseas aid budget to its actual purpose — tackling crises at their source.