At the heart of this story is the use of hotels by the Home Office - and its private contractors - as emergency accommodation during the pandemic. But it goes beyond that. [...] https://twitter.com/trillingual/status/1317736969238122502

Hotels were on the rise before March 2020, as a privatised asylum housing system struggled to provide capacity. "Hotels" is misleading, though: these are controlled environments in which often traumatised people face obstacles accessing medical, legal and practical support.

The Glasgow cases have revealed a striking lack of accountability and transparency that surround this policy. The Home Office will not commit to a public inquiry - and so far will not even release details of an internal "evaluation" to Glasgow's elected MPs.

Unlike some countries, the UK has traditionally housed asylum-seekers in residential accommodation among settled communities. That system isn't without its problems, but many experts will tell you it at least allows people a chance to recover, and to integrate into daily life.

The alternative - segregated, institutional - is worse for people's wellbeing, and as we have seen, becomes a target for racists and fascists. Yet there are signs that the UK is shifting towards this form of accommodation, in a way that may outlast the pandemic.

In recent months we've seen the increased use of hotels - initially supposedly only for a few weeks during lockdown, but it's been months now - plus the use of former military barracks and detention centres; and suggestions of offshore "processing" on ferries or remote islands.

When I asked the Home Office what the long-term plan was, all they would tell me was that the use of military barracks "will ease our reliance on hotels and save the taxpayer money".

The current government has made it clear that it regards people who reach the UK in search of asylum as illegitimate. "Emergency" measures that states use to deal with inconvenient people very often become the norm... is this what we're seeing happen today?

If you want to know what segregated institutional accommodation looks like in practice, I would recommend @SorchaPollak's reporting on "direct provision" in Ireland, a system that the Irish government has just committed to abolish. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/direct-provision-the-controversial-system-turns-20-1.4081833