EXCLUSIVE: In a fiery attack on Reform’s Robert Jenrick, senior Lib Dem Max Wilkinson will urge ministers to look to Europe to shut down ‘Jenrick’s hotels’ – pointing to the MP’s 2022 brag
Dozens of “Jenrick’s hotels” housing thousands of asylum seekers must finally be shut, ministers will be urged today in a fiery attack on the Reform MP.
Lib Dem frontbencher Max Wilkinson will lash out at Tory turncoat Robert Jenrick, who famously bragged about securing hotels when he was Immigration Minister. In a keynote speech, Mr Wilkinson, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, will tell the Lib Dem conference that the Reform MP and his colleagues are “shamelessly” exploiting a small boat crisis they helped to create.
He will call on the government to look to sign up to a new EU migration pact to clear up the mess left by Mr Jenrick and co. Mr Wilkinson is expected to say: “Was it not Robert Jenrick himself who bragged about opening up more asylum hotels when he was Immigration Minister?
“And was it not the Tories in the Home Office who stopped processing asylum cases leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for a huge backlog? We have seen their politicians visit Dover and Calais over and over and over again to shamelessly point at the mess that they created.”
In an interview in 2022, as the asylum backlog grew, Mr Jenrick told Sky News: “More hotels have been coming online almost every month throughout the whole of this year. So, (fellow Reform defector) Suella Braverman and her predecessor, Priti Patel, were procuring more hotels.
“What I have done in my short tenure is ramp that up and procure even more because November, historically, has been one of the highest months of the year for migrants illegally crossing the Channel.”
Nigel Farage later branded Mr Jenrick a “fraud” when sharing the quote on X. But this did not stop Mr Jenrick defecting to Reform in January after being sacked from the shadow cabinet by Kemi Badenoch, who got wind of his plan.
Blaming Brexit for the small boats crisis, Mr Wilkinson will call for the UK to join the EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact, which sees participating nations agree to co-operate on screening and returns. Other countries that are not part of the bloc, including Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, have adopted elements of the agreement.
Mr Wilkinson will say: “Before the (Brexit) referendum, not a single small boat crossed the Channel. Since then, more than 200,000 people have tried to make that dangerous journey – some, tragically, never making it to safety on those flimsy rubber dinghies.
“The new status quo created by the Tories and Reform and then weaponised by them has led directly to the unrest and mistrust we see across the nation.
“There is a solution: to enter EU’s landmark new Migration and Asylum Pact. To put a stop to dangerous Channel crossings and the criminal gangs’ business model once and for all.
“And to close down Jenrick’s hotels, which never worked for communities or asylum seekers, despite costing taxpayers a fortune. This is the solution we need to build an asylum system British people can trust – that is fair and effective for all.”
Last week Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the pact should not be viewed as a “silver bullet”, telling MPs: “It is a real mistake to think that that pact is the future and if we were in that, this problem would go away – because I promise you it would not.”
Since leaving the EU, Britain has not had a Europe-wide returns agreement, but last summer Keir Starmer reached a one-in-one-out deal with France. This has seen around 1,400 small boat arrivals returned so far in exchange for people deemed to have legitimate claims coming the other way.
Labour has vowed to close the remaining asylum hotels by the general election by shifting people onto large sites while their applications are processed. At its peak there were over 56,000 people living in around 400 hotels.
At the end of June there were 16,021 in under 160 venues.
