THE leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, promoting his “Britain is lawless” campaign this week, spoke of “rising public anger” over migrants hotels, after heated protests in Epping (News, 25 July), Norwich, Canary Wharf, in London, and elsewhere. In a febrile atmosphere of this kind, it is wise to recall the words of the Archdeacon of Chelmsford, the Ven. Jonathan Croucher, after protests began outside the Bell Hotel, Epping, last month. “We are very conscious of the concerns,” he said. “But there is a fear that this is being latched on to by outside forces that have particular agendas and that, therefore, it’s quite difficult for the community to feel safe now.” He was speaking about protesters from beyond Epping who came to stoke up “agitation”; but his words could apply to politicians who seek to use public discontent to increase their electoral support base.
Listening to people’s concerns, as the Archdeacon suggested, should not entail allowing partial truths or outright untruths to go unchecked. As Anoosh Chakelian wrote in The New Statesman last week, it is a “misapprehension” to describe the hotels housing migrants as “five-star experiences”: she was told that at the Park Hotel, Diss (another site of protests), there was “breakfast running out, children going hungry and women asking for donations of buckets and mops because of uncleanliness”. Neither are the numbers in such accommodation on the rise: “there are 210 hotels housing 32,345 asylum seekers across the UK — a drop since the height of 400 housing 56,042 in 2023.”
A report published last month by the UCL Policy Lab, Citizens UK, and More in Common, This Place Matters: Reimagining community cohesion in Britain, draws on polling of 13,000 people in Britain and suggests that migration is by no means regarded as the sole cause of society’s woes: economic insecurity, the effects of the pandemic, and, crucially, social media also contribute to a climate of distrust and fragmented relationships. “With fewer shared spaces to connect in person, many are worried that technology is not just replacing face-to-face interaction, but also removing the incentives to engage beyond your doorstep,” the report says. Technology is also the means by which Mr Farage and more sinister far-Right activists transmit a partial, if not deliberately false, picture so effectively.
And here the Church has a part to play: both in taking the courage to speak clearly against part-truths and untruths, and by convening in a variety of ways that enable people to interact, face to face, and learn, or re-learn, to trust one another. Should anyone ask whether the country’s Christian foundations are under threat, one response could be this verse from the Bible: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall do him no wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself. . .”
