\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>ith its donkey rides, historical grand pier and long sandy beach, Weston-super-Mare is a quintessential Victorian seaside resort; busy with ice-cream toting crowds in the summer but imbued with the laidback charm of a town that moves at a slower pace.<\/p>\n But in the last few months, the town has become deeply divided over a proposal to become a council of sanctuary, a project designed to improve efficiencies in the provision of support for refugees and asylum seekers.<\/p>\n The move was seized upon by Reform UK, which launched a prolific social media campaign against the plans. Supporters of the scheme have said that Reform campaign was riddled with misinformation and led to a U-turn by the town\u2019s council just six months after it had voted in favour. The charity behind the project, City of Sanctuary UK (CoS), said it was the first time that had happened in England.<\/p>\n Reform \u2013 which has no elected councillors in the North Somerset town \u2013 repeatedly claimed online that becoming a council of sanctuary would lead to a surge in \u201cillegal immigrants\u201d and that joining the network would divert taxpayers money away from public services, claims strongly refuted by the charity and supporters of the scheme.<\/p>\n The council of sanctuary award links up authorities in an attempt to improve support for asylum seekers and refugees settling into the area; it has no influence on the numbers placed in a town, that is a decision made centrally by the Home Office and its contractors. It costs a town council \u00a3150 a year for the three-year duration of the award.<\/p>\n <\/span>People enjoying the town\u2019s extensive, sandy beach earlier this year.<\/span> Photograph: Ben Birchall\/PA<\/p>\n Since it was first proposed, heated protests have broken out in the normally peaceful town. Councillors who supported the scheme have received abusive correspondence.<\/p>\n Caroline Reynolds, a Liberal Democrat councillor who first put forward the motion in March, said: \u201cReform were looking for something and I fell right into their hands without realising. I\u2019m not saying that would have stopped me. That I would have done anything differently, but that\u2019s just what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Reynolds said the \u201cmisinformation\u201d started as soon as the motion was published. \u201cReform said we would be inundated with illegal immigrants,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Reform helped mobilise a large protest of about 200 people outside the town hall on the night the motion was put to a vote. Counter-protesters have alleged chants of \u201csend them back home\u201d were heard as well as comments about grooming gangs.<\/p>\n Reynolds said the arguments she heard against the proposal became more intense and prejudicial. \u201cIt became about grooming gangs, being inundated with migrants, a little bit of Islamophobia,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She added that she and colleagues in other parties received abusive emails. \u201cThe worst one I had was: \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be a shame if in the future some time one of these illegals you think so much of carries out a crime against you or your family, as is happening all over the country,\u2019\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n Other councillors came under pressure from residents and started to speak out against the proposal. Ultimately, in late September, the authority decided to abandon the plans.<\/p>\n Holly Law, who has lived in Weston-super-Mare for 15 years, spoke at the meeting in September in support of the proposal. \u201cI wanted the council to take a stand and commit to ensuring that we\u2019re as welcoming as possible. I\u2019m embarrassed that there are hundreds of councils that have uncontroversially committed to being a city or council of sanctuary and I find it sad it was rejected,\u201d Law said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were intelligent councillors bending to the misinformation shared,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Tensions mounted throughout the summer. Avon and Somerset police are investigating a suspected hate crime at a cafe, which was vandalised and covered in racist stickers overnight in late August. No arrests have been made.<\/p>\n Reform is polling well in the town. In the most recent YouGov MRP poll, the party was forecast to take the seat of the local Labour MP Dan Aldridge if an election had been held the day after the survey was conducted.<\/p>\n The local branch of Reform increased its activity on social media as soon as the motion appeared in the council agenda. When the motion was voted through, the branch claimed on social media: \u201cThis means that the council must support illegal immigrants, possibly meaning future financial funding.\u201d<\/p>\n It claimed organisations were \u201cpushing mass migration into towns like ours\u201d.<\/p>\n Allow Facebook content?<\/p>\n This article includes content provided by Facebook. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And responding to a post by the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, in June claiming 17,000 people had crossed the Channel so far in 2025, the Weston branch wrote: \u201cComing to a council of sanctuary near you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>In June, Nigel Farage claimed 17,000 people had crossed the Channel so far in 2025.<\/span> Photograph: Jordan Pettitt\/PA<\/p>\n Oliver Hargreaves, the 29-year-old chair of the local Reform branch, stands by the allegations the scheme would facilitate illegal migration. \u201cThe website clearly states they would work with policy leaders to fight for anyone who came here by any means,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Hargreaves, who has ambitions of becoming a councillor or MP, also claimed that City of Sanctuary UK had a \u201clist of demands\u201d, among which was a requirement to work with local media to publish positive stories about asylum seekers. The charity rebutted this, saying that while there were criteria to be met, media was not mentioned, although councils would be expected to \u201craise awareness\u201d of their work in support of inclusion.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have asylum seekers in the town is contrary to the wants and needs of the taxpayer majority of the town,\u201d Hargreaves said, a point contested by supporters of the sanctuary proposal. \u201cWhy are they here? They\u2019ve come from multiple safe countries. I just don\u2019t think it should just be a given that local taxpayers should be burdened with their presence, I mean fiscally.\u201d<\/p>\n When allegations of misinformation were put to Hargreaves, he said: \u201cBut they [CoS] are not being honest in the way that they\u2019re thinking. I mean, it is an explicitly leftwing charity with leftwing objectives to influence our local media and policymakers, because there is an influx of immigration via asylum seekers. And there will be more.\u201d<\/p>\n Most recent official figures suggest Weston-super-Mare is a town that historically has experienced below average levels of migration. In 2021, 10.4% of the population was born outside the UK, while 6.7% identified as \u201cnon UK\u201d. The ethnic and religious make up of the town is uniform, with 95% of the population identifying as white. The numbers identifying as Asian, black, Muslim, Sikh or Jewish are far below the national average.<\/p>\n But Hargreaves claimed that over the past five years the town of about 83,000 people had experienced a \u201cheavy increase in immigration\u201d, and that there were about 150 asylum seekers in Weston-super-Mare. The Guardian has not been able to verify this figure.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all about trajectory, right?\u201d Hargreaves said. \u201cI don\u2019t care about now. I care about five years\u2019 time. And the things that they\u2019re doing, the things that they\u2019re prioritising, the landing pads that they\u2019re making for themselves, point merely to a direction of an increase of immigration that people don\u2019t want to increase.\u201d<\/p>\n Hargreaves claimed the public found it frustrating to see support for immigrants in the town when services were being stretched. He used broken toilets and reduced bin collections as examples. \u201cIf you weren\u2019t seeing a coincidence of dropping of living standards and house prices being 10 times more than they were 10 days ago, people really wouldn\u2019t care,\u201d Hargreaves said.<\/p>\n There are no hotels being used to house asylum seekers in Weston-super-Mare, although the local Reform branch has been accused of falsely claiming there are, focusing on one temporarily closed hotel in the town.<\/p>\n <\/span>The Labour MP Daniel Aldridge said the Reform branch\u2019s social media accounts were \u2018full of attempts to divide our town\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Laurie Noble\/House of Commons\/Laurie Noble<\/p>\n Aldridge, the town\u2019s first ever Labour MP, sayid Reform UK\u2019s Weston-super-Mare\u2019s social media accounts were \u201cfull of attempts to divide our town\u201d, adding that he was concerned by the \u201cblatant, shameless spreading and encouraging of misinformation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir continued misinformation about our town feels increasingly damaging, like they want to trash our reputation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Aldridge said he had received reports of people arriving in the town for a short break being wrongly labelled as asylum seekers and in some cases harassed in the streets. \u201cThis behaviour needs to stop,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t just spread fear and misinformation. It damages Weston\u2019s reputation as a welcoming seaside town.\u201d<\/p>\n The row had caused many residents to feel \u201cintimidated and vulnerable\u201d, Aldridge continued. \u201cI do not recognise the Weston some Reform UK activists try to portray.\u201d<\/p>\n But the MP fell short of backing the the scheme. \u201cThe truth is, Weston already acts like a town of sanctuary \u2013 we don\u2019t need a stamp of approval to show that,\u201d Aldridge said.<\/p>\n There are 32 awarded councils, with a further 180 involved in the network. Maggie Filipova-Rivers, the local authority programme manager for CoS, said: \u201cCouncils are free to decide whether or not to seek the award, and we respect that. What we do feel is that some of the facts about what the award means have been misunderstood or lost in the debate.\u201d<\/p>\n Filipova-Rivers said the charity was realistic about the challenges in the current political climate but added: \u201cThe appetite for inclusivity and fairness is still very much alive. Our main concern is that the political noise around immigration risks distracting from the valuable, practical work councils are doing every day to support integration.\u201d<\/p>\n Reynolds remains optimistic. \u201cI\u2019m very hopeful,\u201d she said. \u201cNow, a lot of people have contacted me, people have stopped me in the street to say that this is not their town. It\u2019s a loud minority.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With its donkey rides, historical grand pier and long sandy beach, Weston-super-Mare is a quintessential Victorian seaside resort; busy with ice-cream toting crowds in the summer but imbued with the laidback charm of a town that moves at a slower pace. 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