TODAY’S WEATHER

☁️ A cloudy day, but with a low chance of rain, for Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. It’ll brighten later. London stays overcast all day. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Pressure grows over asylum hotels | Labour MSP arrested and charged | Welsh hits out at Sturgeon

📣 The UK Government is facing a growing backlash over the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, with Labour-run councils now joining those run by Reform and Conservative groups in considering legal challenges.

The use of hotels for asylum seekers, which have been the target of protests from locals, is under threat after Epping Forest District Council won a High Court ruling. (Guardian) (Sky News)

• Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is encouraging Tory councils to take action “if your legal advice supports it”. (BBC)

• Zoe Williams: Far-right anger is destroying the very idea of refuge (Guardian)

• The asylum hotel crisis explained, below ⬇️

📣 Scottish Labour MSP Colin Smyth has been arrested and charged over possession of indecent images of children. Smyth, who has represented South Scotland since 2016, was arrested earlier this month in Dumfries, and has been suspended by his party. (BBC)

📣 Irvine Welsh says Nicola Sturgeon “set back” the cause of independence by trying to force her views on gender “down people’s throats”.

“Something that should be a fringe issue was allowed to leak right into the whole independence debate. Basically, it's nothing to do with it at all,” he said.

“She was out of step with what people feel and believe in the way that social engineers always are.” (Daily Record)

IDEAS
Explaining the Starmer government’s problem with “asylum hotels”

🗣️ The High Court’s ruling that asylum seekers in Epping must be removed by September 12 threatens to throw the Home Office’s arrangements for housing asylum seekers into chaos, fan the flames of both a huge political row, and act as a catalyst for unrest across the country.

More than 27,000 asylum seekers have crossed the English Channel this year. The issue of where to house them is not confined to Essex: in Scotland, there have been protests against asylum hotels - last weekend in Falkirk and earlier in August at two locations in Aberdeen. Falkirk Council is considering the implications of the court ruling, reports STV. A total of 1,352 asylum seekers are housed in hotels in Scotland.

But the problem is acute in England, where - according to the latest data, updated in March, 32,345 asylum seekers are housed in hotels. That’s around 31% of the 103,684 who have been given accommodation by the state (Sky News). That’s down from a September 2023 peak - almost half the number of hotels, 42% fewer people.

The government says it wants to end the practice of putting asylum seekers in hotels while they await assessment: it’s expensive and, increasingly, unpopular in surrounding communities. Hostility towards the people inside the hotels has grown in recent months, fanned by the far right and accusations of sexual assaults and anti-social behaviour by asylum seekers.

Reform and the Conservatives are also making trouble, encouraging their local authorities to move to close the hotels on their patches. Kemi Badenoch has called on Tory councils to take inspiration from the “victory for local people” and start similar legal action.

Reform, meanwhile, runs 10 councils and has gone further: Nigel Farage has called for “peaceful protests” to put the pressure on. “This is divisive and irresponsible,” suggests Andrew Grice: “if the far right again exploits such demonstrations, it will be nothing to do with Farage, of course.”

The counterargument is that protesters aren’t just upset about hotels: they’re upset at “the ease with which potential criminals are able to enter this country”, writes Michael Deacon (£), as well as the apparent state generosity to immigrants when there are British people sleeping rough.

The Government, says Deacon, could also be about to make things worse - by placing asylum seekers in houses, rather than hotels. That will leave protesters’ fundamental complaints unaddressed.

Others complain entire towns are being changed by large-scale migration: Bournemouth, for instance, has seen the non-British population rise by nearly 50%. The hotels have become a focal point for wider concerns about migration of all sorts. Even Labour-run councils are considering options to challenge the use of hotels to house migrants.

The problem will remain, then: where to house people while they’re being assessed for leave to stay in the UK. The Guardian offers a list: flats and houses, yes, but also large camps - former military facilities, barges, ferries and more.

Other countries are struggling too: in Germany, it reports, there are large initial reception areas with dorm-style accommodation where people can stay for up to 18 months. France and Spain both have shortages, which have led to informal settlements being set up.

The goverment’s plan is to reduce small boat crossings of the English Channel, and speed up the assessment of asylum claims - returning failed asylum seekers quickly, and thus reducing pressure on accomodation. The recent UK-France migrant deal, now in force, is part of that.

But that wider strategy is seen to play out as far as 2029. That doesn’t help a government wallowing at near-historic levels of unpopularity: this is a problem for Keir Starmer’s government now, with few easy options for a fix.

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 A Scottish forest has been sold for £145 million to a subsidiary of London-based asset manager Gresham House. Andy Wightman, a land ownership expert, says he thinks Gresham House could be on its way to becoming Scotland’s second-largest landowner after the deal. (Scotsman)

📣 NHS Fife has logged more than 9,000 data concerns in a decade, with reports of confidentiality breaches increasing every year since 2015-16. The figures have emerged amid concerns about confidentiality in the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal case. (The Herald (£) has the exclusive)

📣 Former Scottish international footballer Craig Burley has been landed with a £466,000 tax bill - with the judge taking a swipe at Scotland’s World Cup performances while handing down the bad news. (Sun)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Campaigners have renewed calls for a complete ban on smacking children in England, following a similar ban which has been in place in Scotland since 2020. (Independent)

📣 Lucy Connolly, jailed last year for a racist Tweet during the Southport riots, is to be released from prison today. She has served more than nine months of a 31-month sentence. (Mail)

📣 Grand Designs’ most notorious failed build - a lighthouse-inspired property atop a cliff in Devon, which ran millions over budget and helped its owners towards a divorce - has finally been sold, after 12 years. (Daily Record)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Israel has told thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes, and called up 60,000 reservists, as it prepares for a “new phase of combat” in Gaza. (Times £)

• Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned plans for a huge new settlement in the West Bank as a “flagrant breach of international law”.(Guardian)

🌎 Russia is continuing to stall on Donald Trump’s calls for a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. The country’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, dismissed European diplomacy as a “clumsy effort to sway [Donald] Trump”, and called for China to be among Ukraine’s security guarantors. (Guardian)

🌎 Texas has approved a naked piece of gerrymandering that has redrawn district boundaries and will give Republicans an edge in next year’s midterm elections. (AP)

🌎 Two US airlines - Delta and United - are being sued for charging extra for window seats… that don’t have a window. (BBC)

SPORT

⚽️ “Listless” Celtic endured a difficult night against Kazakhstan champions Kairat, drawing 0-0 at home. They now facing a difficult away leg at the wrong end of a long flight, and played at altitude, to reach the Champions League group stage and land a £40 million reward. (BBC)

Chants of “sack the board” rang round Celtic Park after a summer in which the club has failed to spend significant amounts refreshing the side. (Daily Record)

• Brendan Rodgers: “It’s clear what this team needs” (Sun)

⚽️ No such problems splashing the cash down south, it seems: Arsenal have hijacked Spurs signing of Crystal Palace playmaker Eberechi Eze, who looks likely to move to the Gunners for around £60 million. (Mail)