As the "asylum seeker" crisis is in the news again, I thought it was worth republishing this article from September 2023...

As regular readers are aware, I live in Huddersfield, a moderately sized town in West Yorkshire, population 141,000, and the bit I live in is called Crosland Moor (which, despite spellcheck's perennial protestations, is not a typo).

It's a fairly quiet part of town, mainly residential, with a couple of schools and a few corner shops. It's quiet and friendly and almost a bit time-warpy, as children still play hop-scotch in alleyways and neighbours hang their washing out on the line (and even, gasp, occasionally talk to each other...). It's the predictable and uneventful sort of place that's popular with young families: indeed, when a fire engine turned up in our street last year, virtually everyone darted out of their houses, some still in pyjamas, to find out what was going on, as it was the most excitement the locale had enjoyed in ages... In short, it's quiet and safe and I like it that way.

Just over a mile from where I live is Chapel Hill, the site of a large student accommodation development, which has made headline news this week, because - with almost no notice - the students who were due to move into this accommodation this month, have been abruptly informed by the Home Office they must seek alternative accommodation, as the Chapel Hill site is going to be used to house 400 asylum seekers.

The wider community is reeling in shock and horror at this scandalous outrage, and while I share their horror, shocked I am not, as I asked the local council nearly nine months ago if that is what this accommodation was intended to be used for, since, as of 2022, it had not housed any students for three years. On the 14th December 2022, I wrote:

Dear Kirklees Council,

I am a resident of Huddersfield, currently residing in the Crosland Moor area, and I have noticed that the long-empty student accommodation development on Chapel Hill has recently started to have some work done on it.  This is the development to which I refer: https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/firms-behind-two-huddersfield-student-16120071

In light of the current migrant crisis, and PM Rishi Sunak's recent announcement that migrants will now be housed in disused student accommodation, I am concerned that this development is going to be used as accommodation for young male asylum seekers. 

I know that this development can house several hundred people, and, like many in the community, I do not believe this is a suitable location for hundreds of single young males from completely different cultures, without families or jobs or other obvious ways to integrate into the community. To make such a transition, these men would need large teams of specialist support workers, but as far as I can see from what is happening in the rest of the country, they are simply being "dumped". This does not bode well for these men, nor for the community which hosts them.

I know that the Home Office placed 88 single male asylum seekers in a disused mill in Milnsbridge, despite the objections of Kirklees Council, so I am aware that central government is very likely to do as it pleases where it comes to housing migrants, regardless of the wishes of local constituents or councillors.

However, I would like to be furnished with what information Kirklees Council has at this time, regarding potential asylum seeker accommodation in the student development on Chapel Hill, or anywhere else in Huddersfield.

Please reply as a matter of urgency furnishing me with all information you currently have regarding the government's plans to station asylum seekers in Huddersfield, and please let me know how you intend to respond to this situation to ensure Huddersfield is not made unnecessarily unstable or unsafe for its existing residents.

Yours faithfully,

M Finch

The email was sent to a general council email address, as well as to Jo Richmond, Head of Communities at Kirklees Council, and Naz Parker, Service Director for Homes and Neighbourhoods.

I did not receive a reply.

Why didn't I? It was a perfectly reasonable and straightforward enquiry, and all it needed to assuage my concerns was a brief, "I can assure you the Chapel Hill student development site is intended solely for the accommodation of students"

Yet they couldn't reply that way - because it wasn't. They already knew back in December 2022 (and likely long before that) what the Chapel Hill development was really to be used for, because this invasion (that's what it is) has been many years in the planning.

Let's look at the basic facts: it simply isn't feasible on any level, that the UK Government, happy to let its own vulnerable citizens starve, freeze, and be murdered on the state's dime, is so deeply concerned by the plight of asylum seekers that it would move heaven and earth - and spend a gargantuan fortune - to place them in luxurious accommodation that had already been reserved and paid for by legal UK residents.

Can you imagine the amount of red tape they had to wade through, the amount of work and money they had to put in, to pull off something like this? Imagine the amount of money they had to give the private landlord who owns the development to get him to agree to turf out £200-a-week legal UK tenants, and replace them with "asylum seekers"?

Let us remember that the UK Government lets its own citizens fester in unfit-for-human-habitation accommodation for years, we hear horror stories about it all the time., especially now as the housing crisis intensifies.

So why did they prioritise these "asylum seekers" for such swift relocation and such luxury accommodation?

The Chapel Hill site is no ordinary student hall, after all. We're not talking the barely-bigger-than-a-wardrobe standard student rooms with a bed and a desk, and a grotty shared shower block. We're talking serious opulence, with spacious, airy, en suite rooms with all the mod-cons, as well as an on-site gym and even cinema. It's a significantly more high-end living experience than even most working adults enjoy.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of basic, no-frills student blocks all around the country, many of them empty now more and more students choose to live at home. Why didn't the government put these so-called asylum seekers there, rather than booting paying tenants out of luxury accommodation?

There's only one viable explanation and that is that these people are not "asylum seekers" at all, they're important government assets with a vital job to do, which is why they're put up in such splendour at the tax-payer's expense. Government only bankrolls these kind of perks for its henchmen who are key in pushing the agenda (see: politician's expenses).

You will note, also, that these people are always placed in accommodation which either has gyms on site or very near by. Why? I mean, you'd think that if you're fleeing war and persecution, working on your biceps wouldn't be much of a key concern - but it would if you were a soldier needing to maintain your fitness whilst you wait to be deployed.

These people are soldiers, and they are here to enforce something that our own military (who will never turn against their own people) would not do. That is why they've been recruited from the kind of countries that despise the West, think us immoral and degenerate, and so would think nothing of brutally enforcing some sort of totalitarian state regime (indeed, they might even think they were doing us a favour).

Because I've noticed some interesting themes in the reporting of this story. Much as the papers purport to be outraged and aghast at innocent students being kicked to the kerb to make way for migrants, they nevertheless made sure to include some quotations from local residents who see it rather differently.

Naseem Sarwar, 53, told MailOnline: 'There were all sorts of shenanigans going on. There was partying all night, we were sick and tired of them. We were disgusted with that place. I can't see asylum seekers being worse than what we had.'  

Another nearby resident, Mohammed Hussain, 54, said: 'The buildings had some students, but the place also had prostitution and drugs problems. We would rather have asylum seekers housed there than what we used to have.

'It has been lovely and peaceful since the fire brigade ordered them to be evacuated.'

As I have been predicting for many months, we are on course for a transformative cultural revolution, which will have the same magnitude and impact as the social changes that took place in the 1960s - but going back in the other direction.

Our culture, seen by many to have spiralled into amoral libertine degeneracy, is ripe for revolution, and that is what these soldiers (again, that's what they are) are here to spearhead.

We know we're on course for another "pandemic", and we have been explicitly told by the government that, this time, restrictions will be applied more harshly "than feels comfortable". Well, I have to say, they didn't feel bl--dy comfortable last time - massive job losses, business collapses, mental health crises and worse was not comfortable for millions.

So what exactly do they mean that things will be even less comfortable the next time round?

Do they mean that while, last time, the restrictions were enforced merely by the TV and stickers on the floor, this time they will be policed by armed militia patrolling the streets? It was easy to break lockdown rules when the biggest risk was some curtain-twitching neighbour calling the police to "tell on you". It won't be so easy if every moderately-sized town in the country has 500 armed guards patrolling the streets to make sure you obey.

I sincerely hope that this is just my characteristic conspiratorial theorising talking here and that there are no such plans. But currently, I can't think of another plausible explanation as to why the government has invested quite so much time and money (including going so far as taking local councils to court to overrule them if they try to reject asylum seekers from their wards) into this if there isn't a massive pay-off for them. And what else could it be? What else could they be mobilising thousands of military-aged single males all around the country, including to actual military bases, for otherwise? We can discount "because they care about asylum seekers". so what other options are realistically left on the table?

As i have done on several past occasions, I would like to draw your attention to the phenomenally popular predictive programming vehicle, The Handmaid's Tale. Whenever a television series enjoys the kind of visibility and prominence that show has had, you can be sure it's because it's a major part of the agenda, "programming" us as to what is coming next.

The establishment never invests vast sums of money in producing and publicising televisual offerings merely to "entertain" us: rather, it is always to entrain us, to start to get us prepared for what is coming next (see 'Contagion', which predictively programmed us to accept the "pandemic", and upon which the UK government confirmed its pandemic response was based).

The Handmaid's Tale is set initially in modern-day, liberal America... and then it revolutionises almost overnight into an extremist religious caliphate where ultra-strict "morality" is enforced by patrolling armed guards.

What is marked in The Handmaid's Tale is how quickly this happens, how bowled over the unprepared public are, going one minute from drinking Starbucks, commuting to the office, and enjoying a few after-work drinks with friends, to a brutal system of systemic oppression where women aren't allowed to leave the house uncovered or unaccompanied (as already happens in certain hardliner Islamic countries where many of these "asylum seekers" are from), and everybody feels the beady, unforgiving eye of the state constantly upon them.

We need to be prepared for this as a possible future scenario, so we are not shocked into immobility and inaction if it happens. I hope it won't. I hope the thousands of 18-40 year old single fit men with military haircuts currently occupying our military bases really are just innocent asylum seekers. I hope the UK Government really does just have a soft spot for them (even if it doesn't care about students or anyone else).

But I'm afraid I don't think it's likely, and I think we need to prepare for an imminent future quite unlike the immediate past, and be confident in our ability to navigate and adjust to potentially enormous social change. Because, always remember: the future does not belong to the strongest, toughest, or even richest: it belongs to those whom, in times of crisis, don't panic and fall apart - but adapt, recalibrate, and survive.

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