'I Want Them Closed': Keir Starmer Pledges To Get Rid Of All UK Asylum Hotels By End Of Parliament

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During an interview on Monday, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke about potential fixes to the UK's asylum hotel system, which has come under intense scrutiny in the past month and ignited protests.

Transcript

00:00Let me take you to one of these towns where there is an asylum hotel.

00:04How would you feel if it was a hotel at the end of your vote?

00:07If your daughter was having to walk past one of these hotels every day, how would that make you feel?

00:12I completely get it. I mean, local people, by and large, do not want these hotels in their towns, in their place.

00:19And nor do I. I'm completely at one with them on that.

00:22I'm not in any way underestimating the strength of feeling that there is.

00:30Because people strongly feel that these claims should be processed.

00:35People shouldn't be held at their expense.

00:37They don't want that hotel at the end of the road. They're trying to live their lives.

00:40They're worried if their children are safe.

00:42Well, look, I understand why people want the hotels closed. I want them closed.

00:47And I will work across the board to close them as quickly as possible.

00:51That is my aspiration. Every one of those hotels closed down as quickly as possible.

00:56Well, the way to do that is to work through the backlog.

00:59Can you put a date on it?

01:00Well, we've said we'll get rid of them all by the end of the Parliament.

01:03That's a long way. That's four years away.

01:04I'd like to bring that forward. I think it's a good challenge. I want to bring that forward.

01:07And part of the change in the phasing of government is to say, what we need to do needs to go further and faster and be brought forward.

01:18But do I understand why people are concerned about asylum hotels? Absolutely, I do.

01:22Do I share their feeling that they should be closed as soon as possible? Yes, I do.

01:27But we've got to have a sensible way of actually doing that and not a fanciful proposition.

01:33And it's all very easy for Nigel Farage to put out fanciful propositions that aren't going to work.

01:40It's actually not fair to the public to keep pretending that these answers are there.

01:43And, you know, these are people who just talk down our country.

01:47They want the problems to persist. Nigel Farage doesn't want these problems to go away.

01:51Because once the problem's gone, he's got no grievance.

01:55He's got nothing for his politics to attach to.

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