In today’s social media age, one version of events spreads like wildfire. So it is fast becoming accepted in the national conversation that all men risking life and limb to cross the Channel in flimsy vessels are dangerous people who are likely to abuse women and girls. The leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, went so far as to say that, because of rising numbers coming in small boats, women had “stopped jogging in the park because there are men lurking in bushes”.

As the political rhetoric has become more toxic, and especially this week, the real-world consequences for those inside the hotels and for organisations like my own and many others in the charity and statutory sector become more dire.

The plight of the asylum seekers themselves must stay front and centre. On the street they have faced verbal abuse and hostility. Shouts of “Go home, scumbag” and more hate-filled language are not uncommon. I met an African man in his 60s living in the north-east recently who in May, not long after the prime minister told the country “we risk becoming an island of strangers”, was set upon by a........

© The Guardian