What next? As ministers digest the High Court ruling on the use of a hotel in Epping to house asylum seekers, they have very limited options in front of them, none of them good ones. The High Court should not be attacked for making a ruling that takes no account of politics or even practicalities, for that is not its job. It has, though, made a bad situation very much worse.
It is hardly helpful to anyone, in such circumstances, for Nigel Farage to exploit a delicate and sometimes combustible situation by calling for more peaceful protests. From bitter experience, we know how such demonstrations can degenerate into minor disorder, or worse. In fact, given the force of the High Court judgment, there is even less need for such protests now.
