Overview

• Police oversaw rival demonstrations outside migrant hotels across the UK over the bank holiday weekend, with arrests reported and Epping remaining a focal point.
• Ministers unveiled plans for independent adjudicators to handle asylum appeals more quickly, targeting roughly 51,000 pending appeals that currently take about 53 weeks on average.
• The Home Office says at least five more hotels will close by year-end with a bigger wave of closures next year, noting the hotel count is down to just over 200 and daily costs have fallen from £9m to £5.5m.
• A High Court injunction ordered the removal of asylum seekers from Epping’s Bell Hotel; the government plans to appeal as Conservative-led councils weigh further legal action against hotel use.
• A YouGov poll found 71% of voters think the prime minister is handling the hotel issue badly, while critics from the Conservatives and Reform UK dismissed the reforms as insufficient and Nigel Farage prepares a tougher deportation plan.