Some asylum seekers arriving in the north-east of England are being refused accommodation over "social cohesion issues" and a spurge of far-right activity there, The Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday, citing a note that the UK Home Office had sent to an asylum seeker's solicitor.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th September, 2018) Some asylum seekers arriving in the north-east of England are being refused accommodation over "social cohesion issues" and a spurge of far-right activity there, The Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday, citing a note that the UK Home Office had sent to an asylum seeker's solicitor.
According to the note, the Home Office had agreed with the local authorities not to accommodate any "foreign nationals with known criminality," while sources close to the bodies providing accommodation claimed that some of the refusals were motivated by raising far-right activity in the area.
"On 2 May 2018 a property was offered by G4S in the Newcastle area. However, due to an agreement between the Home Office and local authorities in the north-east region to not house any foreign nationals with known criminality in the north-east because of ongoing social cohesion issues in the area, the property request was cancelled with G4S (the Home Office's accommodation provider in the area) on 25 May 2018," the note read.
A spokeswoman for the North East Migration Partnership organization, monitoring migration situation in the region, confirmed to the newspaper that local authorities were concerned over "social cohesion issue."
In June, UK parliamentarian Julie Elliott asked the Home Office to stop the influx of asylum-seekers to the north-east of the country over increased tensions in the area, as Justice for the Women and Children, along with other far-right organizations, namely, the English Defence League (EDL) are protesting rape, focusing on Muslims' involvement into sex-related crimes.
A spokeswoman for the Home Office told the newspaper that while there was no policy of refusing housing to asylum seekers arriving in areas where far-right organizations were active, the authorities had currently put the accommodation on hold.
"There is no such policy of not housing asylum seekers in areas where the EDL (or other similar organisations) have a strong presence. Local authorities across the north-east continue to participate in the asylum dispersal scheme - however, we have paused dispersal of foreign national offenders in the region whilst we review the national distribution of such cases," she said.
According to the UK government's estimates, 26,350 asylum seekers have arrived in the country in 2017. If the UK government concludes that an asylum seeker's fear of being persecuted in his or her home country is valid, then he or she gets the status of a refugee.
