Unnecessary Detention Camps to be built in place of desperately needed homes for everyone
9 May 2026
The housing crisis was created by decades of underinvestment, shrinking social housing and political failure — not by refugees. Yet instead of offering a serious, costed programme to build homes for working people, Reform UK prefers the politics of detention camps, scapegoating and division.
There was a time when mainstream politicians would refuse to share platforms with the far right. The point was not to lend respectability to dangerous and objectionable views. Today, however, sections of the mainstream media increasingly platform and normalise them.
From the BBC to sections of the press and broadcasters such as GB News, disproportionate airtime is now given to anti-migrant rhetoric and parties whose politics depend on scapegoating refugees and asylum seekers.
Lately, a great deal of attention has been devoted to Reform UK’s proposal to build large-scale containment infrastructure for asylum seekers in constituencies that do not vote for them.
Yet there is no serious, specific or costed programme for building the homes people actually need. Glasgow’s housing emergency was formally declared in 2023 after decades of underinvestment, shrinking social housing stock and rising homelessness. The city’s own reports point to structural shortages, rising costs and lack of affordable supply.
Reform candidates have instead blamed asylum seekers and refugees for supposedly “jumping the housing queue”.
That is literally impossible.
People seeking asylum are not entitled to social housing. They are forcibly accommodated wherever private asylum contractors decide to place them, often moved repeatedly around the country into empty rooms, voids and temporary accommodation. Many are desperate to leave hotels and hostels where they survive on £9.95 per week and poor-quality institutional food. People with health conditions, including diabetes, are becoming more unwell in these conditions.
Recognised refugees have the same housing rights as everyone else. They do not “jump” queues either. In reality, many become trapped for long periods in temporary homeless accommodation because there is not enough social housing available for anyone.
Migrants subject to no recourse to public funds cannot access mainstream benefits or housing support at all. Again, no “queue jumping” involved.
One thing is certain: not one family will come off a housing waiting list because of this divisive rhetoric. Not one affordable home will be built for nurses, carers, cleaners, teachers or young people locked out of housing security. Not one social house will emerge from the politics of scapegoating. But there will undoubtedly be lucrative multimillion-pound contracts for corporate giants.
Those who peddle divisive rhetoric seem to need a highly visible group to blame in order to redirect public anger away from the political failures that created the crisis in the first place. Pointless detention camps provide the perfect target: expensive, performative and guaranteed to solve nothing.
Robina Qureshi