Rivals walk off as new Greater Lincolnshire mayor demands tents for migrants
Andrea Jenkyns used her first moments as Greater Lincolnshire’s new mayor to make a blunt pitch: stop putting migrants in hotels and use tents instead. The line drew gasps inside Grimsby Town Hall and sent some rival candidates off the stage mid-ceremony. It also set the tone for how she plans to wield the profile of a new office—loudly, and with migration at the center.
“The fightback to save the heart and soul of our great country has now begun,” she said from the podium, adding there must be an end to what she called “soft touch Britain.” Then the line that lit the fuse: “I say no to putting people in hotels. Tents are good enough for France, they should be good enough for here in Britain.”
Jenkyns’s victory is a milestone for Reform UK. She is the party’s first mayor anywhere in Britain and she wasted no time framing the result as proof that voters want a tighter approach to migration and a “reset” to the country’s direction. Her team says they have been working up policies and are now “in a place of power” to begin “rebuilding Britain.”
The new mayor is a familiar face on the right of UK politics. A Brexit backer and former Conservative MP, she defected to Reform after losing her Westminster seat in the general election. That move, controversial inside Tory circles, has now handed Reform a valuable regional platform just as the party tries to turn scattered protest votes into durable local power.
The morning brought another small but symbolic boost for Reform: a knife-edge by-election win in Runcorn and Helsby, where the party edged Labour by six votes. It’s the sort of wafer-thin result that won’t change Parliament but will fuel Reform’s claim that its vote is hardening in places that once barely registered on its map.
What Jenkyns said in Grimsby was more than a soundbite. It was a deliberate opening shot. Housing asylum seekers has become a running national headache—politically, financially, and logistically. Ministers say hotel bills have run into millions of pounds per day at points over the past two years. The government has tried to phase out hotel use with barges, former military bases, and large sites designed to hold hundreds at a time, often running into fierce legal fights and local pushback.
Lincolnshire has felt that fight directly. The Home Office’s plan to use RAF Scampton as accommodation turned into a bitter dispute with the local council over planning rules, heritage concerns, and safety. That row made clear two things that matter now: the legal bar for large-scale sites is high, and the politics around them are explosive.
Across the Channel, makeshift tent encampments have appeared and disappeared for years in northern France and around Paris. They are typically temporary, often cleared by authorities, and routinely criticised by health groups and rights organisations. Bringing that model into formal UK policy would be a major shift—and it would punch straight into Britain’s legal duties to provide basic, safe accommodation for people seeking asylum.
That is where Jenkyns’s demand meets hard reality. The new mayor can set the tone in Greater Lincolnshire, but she does not control asylum policy or accommodation rules. Those sit with the Home Office and are constrained by UK law, procurement rules, planning law, and human rights obligations. Lawyers point to the Asylum Support Regulations and the Human Rights Act, which together require accommodation that meets basic needs and avoids inhuman or degrading treatment. Mass tent sites—especially in winter—would face immediate legal challenges on health, sanitation, and safety grounds.
Charities that work with asylum seekers have previously warned that tents are unsafe for families and traumatised people and would create avoidable public health risks. Medical volunteers who have worked in French encampments often describe high rates of respiratory illness, skin infections, and mental health deterioration linked to exposure and instability. None of that makes tents a cheap fix. Even rudimentary camps need heating, hygiene, security, and healthcare on-site, which can turn into complex and costly operations.
Yet Jenkyns clearly believes the politics cut her way. Public frustration with hotel use has been building for years. Residents complain about sudden arrivals, scarce local services, and opaque decision-making. Hoteliers say long-term Home Office block-bookings distort local tourism and events. Councils complain they are told after the fact and left to handle the fallout with stretched budgets.
Her answer—go to tents—lands because it sounds simple. But it raises more questions than it resolves in a mayoral context. Where would such sites be placed? Who pays? How would planning be handled? How long would people stay? What happens in a cold snap? And crucially, who is liable if something goes wrong? None of these sit only with a mayor, and most of them sit primarily with Whitehall.
What powers Jenkyns gets—and what she doesn’t
Greater Lincolnshire’s mayoralty is new. The job brings a budget, the ability to set priorities across council boundaries, and a platform to lobby government. Expect focus on transport links, skills and training, business growth, and strategic housing. The mayor will need to build a cabinet, negotiate with district and county leaders, and set out a first-year plan that shows residents this new layer is more than ceremony.
What the mayor does not get is control over asylum accommodation. Decisions on where to place people, for how long, and in what conditions are Home Office calls, subject to national rules and court oversight. A mayor can object loudly—and Jenkyns almost certainly will—pressing ministers to cut hotel use faster or trial new models. She can also try to marshal local sites and partners to create regional solutions that pass legal muster. But she cannot mandate tents.
The government’s recent playbook offers clues to the fight ahead. Ministers have moved away from hotels into larger, more contained sites and the Bibby Stockholm barge, arguing they are cheaper and more manageable. Each move has spawned legal cases and local fury. Where those sites have survived in court, it is because they meet minimum standards on health, safety, and support. Tents would have to clear the same bar. It’s a high one.
Within hours of the result, attention turned to what Jenkyns will do on day one. Local business groups will want a plan for investment and skills. Farmers and food producers—big employers in Lincolnshire—will want clarity on seasonal labour and transport. Voters will want to see potholes filled, buses running, and visible progress on the basics. That is the test of any new mayor: translate campaign noise into delivery.
Politically, Reform’s leadership will see a useful national platform. A mayor’s pulpit brings regular media, budget decisions that can be framed as a governing record, and a chance to show competence beyond slogans. The Runcorn and Helsby result—tight as it was—adds to a story Reform wants to tell: momentum in places the main parties have taken for granted.
The risks are obvious too. Push too far on migration and Jenkyns could be boxed in by laws she cannot change. Overreach on planning and she could trigger the sort of legal clash that sank parts of the RAF Scampton plan. Promise fast savings on hotel bills and opponents will demand a line-by-line accounting when those savings don’t appear. The mayoralty is a megaphone, not a magic wand.
There is also a local dimension that will be hard to ignore. Lincolnshire councils have spent months wrestling with the practical fallout of national policy: school places, GP access, community safety, and communications with residents. Any “tents not hotels” move would run straight into those same services, and council leaders will want a seat at the table before any experiment touches their patch.
In the hall on Friday, the mood told its own story. Some rivals walked away; others stayed and shook their heads. Outside, supporters cheered the message and the messenger. That split is now baked into the role. Jenkyns has chosen migration as her opening note. The next few months will show whether she can turn that note into a workable plan while handling the bread-and-butter demands that define a mayor’s success.
For now, the questions that matter are practical ones:
- Which powers can the mayor actually use to change accommodation locally?
- Would any tent-based plan meet legal standards on safety, sanitation, and health?
- How quickly can hotels be phased out without creating new risks or higher costs?
- What does the first 100 days look like on transport, skills, and growth—areas the mayor does control?
Those answers will determine whether Jenkyns’s first headline becomes a blueprint, or just another flashpoint in Britain’s long, messy fight over how to manage asylum.