Asylum hotel protesters urged to meet with council
BBCAsylum protesters and counter protesters are to be asked to attend a meeting to discuss the impact of ongoing demonstrations outside a hotel.
Southampton City Council wants protesters, police and the Home Office to meet in January amid concerns about gatherings outside Highfield House in Portswood.
At a council meeting, Lib Dem group leader Richard Blackman tabled a motion for the protests to be relocated before an amendment was agreed for protesters and the authorities to convene at the next overview and scrutiny management meeting.
The Home Office said the government was working to "close every asylum hotel" and move asylum seekers into "more suitable accommodation".
The asylum seeker accommodation has been the focus of anti-immigration protests, with counter protests held by Stand Up To Racism.
At a full council meeting on Wednesday, Labour council leader Alex Winning, who tabled the amendment, said: "This motion calls for constructive engagement, bringing those protesting, the Home Office and police together, and I think that is how we find solutions - through conversation, not confrontation."
He said, although the protests were "lawful", they were creating problems rather than solving them, and putting a strain on police resources.
Senior Labour cabinet member Simon Letts said what started out as a protest about asylum was rapidly turning into protests about race, religion and ethnicity.
He said: "Anybody who has been there and heard what's being said by some of those marches knows that is the case.
"This is being turned by a rather nasty group of people to try and divide our city."
Conservative group leader Peter Baillie, who tabled his own amendment, said the scrutiny committee was "completely the wrong place" to be bringing protesters together.
Mr Blackman, who is the committee chair, said: "We need to think very carefully about how the meeting is planned, how we frame the purpose of the meeting."
Following the meeting, a Home Office spokesperson said: "We are furious at the level of illegal migrants and asylum hotels in this country.
"This government will close every asylum hotel and we are working to move asylum seekers into more suitable accommodation such as military bases, to ease pressure on communities across the country.
"The Home Secretary has set out the most sweeping changes to our asylum system in a generation to restore order and control to our borders."
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