There was a time when Deliveroo riders were invisible. Smudges of turquoise in the cityscape; helmeted droids handing you your dinner; a dot on a map. So invisible that two years ago I reported on the case of one who collapsed outside a block of flats, only for the customers to step over him to retrieve their Thai meal – even trying to ask the unconscious man where a missing part of their order was.
Now they are a target. A month ago, the Home Office shared the location of hotels housing asylum seekers with Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats, to encourage the companies to identify people working illegally for their apps. This was accompanied by a sinister poster depicting a courier as a black silhouette casting a shadow, captioned: “Delivered by who?” The shadow home secretary Chris Philp filmed himself at an asylum hotel car park, pointing out the Deliveroo and Uber Eats bikes parked there.
The real-world consequences of this were predictable: the public targeting couriers, rather than big corporates bothering to weed out illegal workers signing up to their apps or sharing accounts. And so it transpired outside the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf, east London, which has been a site of protest since the news of asylum seekers moving in last month.
Protesters filmed and tried to block two drivers on motorbikes with containers attached to the back leaving the hotel: “Tell me these ain’t delivery drivers, guys,” says one voice in the footage. They weren’t: they were members of staff working at the hotel, according to the Metropolitan Police. The following afternoon, an Uber Eats cyclist was surrounded by protesters, including men in balaclavas, outside the hotel. In the footage there are audible shouts of “illegal”. It turned out he was delivering food to the hotel, not staying there. The police had to escort him to safety.
The political and protest focus on illegal working is, in a way, curious. It runs counter to a lot of the complaints and arguments I’ve heard from people opposing the asylum hotels lately, which mainly centre around asylum seekers getting something “for nothing”. While reporting in Diss, a Norfolk town where a recent asylum hotel protest turned aggressive and resulted in public order charges, I had a conversation that felt key to the resentment building up in such places. A factory worker in his thirties explained how hard life was for locals – earning low wages, unable to afford housing, their town centre losing its soul – in comparison to the experience he saw as one of free food and comfortable accommodation afforded to the asylum hotel residents. He pointed to a mustard-fronted Turkish takeaway called Istanbul and told me: “I respect them, they came here, they’ve been here years, built a business and give something back, contributing, paying tax.”
Asylum seekers are not allowed to work. This ban was introduced by Tony Blair’s government in 2002 to try and deter new arrivals. Yet a side effect of this is the frustration that builds up in communities where asylum seekers are housed – they are seen as a drain on the state with free shelter and support when they pay nothing back. In reality, they have very little choice. Asylum seekers are demonised as scroungers receiving preferential treatment while giving nothing in return, and at the same time demonised for trying to work. I think every asylum seeker I’ve interviewed over the years has expressed their desire to work. The result is they move into the black economy, which is also seen as a “pull factor” for asylum seekers making the journey to Britain.
From reporting on these tensions, I would argue the antagonising factor is anyone acting outside of official channels, and the lack of control this suggests – as with the small boats. Yet politicians insist opening up legal options for work while asylum seekers await a decision on their claims would incentivise more to make the journey. Their alternative, casting couriers as shadowy unknown figures, risks exposing the most precarious workers even more.
[See also: How Britain lost the status game]
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