Eamonn Holmes challenged former Labour adviser Scarlett MccGwire during a heated exchange about Britain’s obligations towards migrants, asking, “Why is it our duty to welcome them to Britain?”
The confrontation comes amid mounting tensions over asylum accommodation, with demonstrations planned at hotels housing migrants across multiple UK towns this weekend.
Eamonn fumed that ‘people are angry’ and questioned why it is ‘our duty’ to take asylum seekers
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The host fumed: “People are angry. I know they’re immigrants. And you said something earlier about, ‘oh, it’s our duty to take them’. Why is that our duty?”
Ex-Labour adviser Scarlett MccGwire said: “Of course people are angry. But that doesn’t mean you encourage people to set light to hotels.
“That doesn’t mean we take it out on the hotels and that’s really, really important.”
She added: “We’ve got to sort the problem out, but the problem is not being solved by putting people in hotels.”
Eamonn said: “You said earlier that you had someone staying with you, and fair play to you for that.
“We were talking yesterday and saying, if people around the country said, I’ll take somebody, I’ll take somebody, you can understand that, but in reality, those people are few and far between.”
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Ms MccGwire said: “I would have thought there are quite a lot, though Gary Lineker, for example. I only take in refugees, people who’ve been granted asylum.
“But the point is, we do have to do something about migrants. It’s a European problem.
“There’s this perception that they all come here, but in fact, the French, the Germans, the Spanish, the Italians, and the Greeks all deal with large numbers too.
“This is a shared problem that we’ve got to tackle, and the way to do that is by talking and working together. What we cannot do is respond with violence or talk about setting fire to migrants. It has to be about dialogue, not hate.”
Epping has become a focus for anti-immigration protests in recent weeks | GETTYLatest Government data shows over 32,000 asylum seekers are currently living in hotel accommodation, an eight per cent increase during Labour’s first year in power.
Despite the rise, Home Office figures published on Thursday show that overall UK asylum spending has fallen by 12 per cent.
The number of people awaiting initial asylum decisions fell below 100,000 at the end of June, the first time this has happened in four years.
The Government has committed to ending the use of hotels for asylum seekers by 2029, when the current parliamentary term concludes.
