'Far right' activist applauded amid high tensions at Dunstable's Old Palace Lodge meeting

Tensions around the move by a Dunstable hotel to accept asylum seekers saw a fractious meeting in the town on Thursday.

Wesley Russell, a member of Patriotic Alternative a far right group who had leafleted the area before the meeting, spoke at the meeting.

He was repeatedly asked to stop after calling the asylum seekers ‘criminals’ who should be forced to pay for tickets back to their home countries – but his comments received applause from members of the public. One heckler was also asked to leave the meeting.

Mr Selous told Mr Russell some of the inmates at the hotel are from Nigeria where Christians have been killed for their belief.

And as one member of the audience left Mr Selous was heard to say: "Was that a Nazi salute?”

MP Andrew Selous told the packed public meeting at the Priory Church that he was concerned about some behaviour outside the Old Palace Lodge on Wednesday evening which he says caused distress to people at the hotel.

The hotel closed earlier this year after accepting a Government contract to house asylum seekers. Its management said it was the only way the hotel could continue in business after a rapid rise in energy costs.

But residents at the public meeting said they were concerned about who was staying at the hotel.

A spokesman for the Old Palace Lodge said the people at the hotel had work permits and were able to look for work in the area.

Mr Selous said there was screening by Home Office staff and 24 hour security at the hotel.

One speaker told the meeting a friend had seen asylum seekers sexually harassing young girls in the town and that she was concerned for her children and grandchildren.

Mr Selous replied that he had checked these reports with police and asylum seekers had not yet moved into the area at the time of the claims.

You can watch the full meeting in the video in this article

He said he had been contacted about a group supposedly outside Priory School and also harassing children outside Asda before single asylum seeker had arrived in that hotel and harrassing children outside Asda. Mr Selous said: “There are people imagining that groups of asylum seekers are around doing bad things and its simply not true, its groups of Dunstable people.”

Some in the meeting disputed that those who came over in small boats had a right to be processed for asylum and that the country was struggling to look after its own people caught in poverty traps.

But Mr Selous said legally once people are here there were not many practical options to remove them.

"I take no pleasure in what’s going on.” he said, saying there were plans to reform the law. But he urged people to be civilised to the asylum seekers.

A statement from one resident said the use of the Old Palace Lodge for asylum seekers was “an absolute disgrace.”

But others raised the issue that the present Government had cut international aid which impacted on countries and caused some refugee issues.

Some residents said they were concerned about the increased impact on the local NHS services and dentists surgeries.

The hotel is expected to house asylum seekers for at least the next year.