Mair Godley claims Essex councillor Carl Johnson told her she was ‘facilitating the invasion’ by giving language lessons

A 78-year-old volunteer has claimed a Reform UK councillor accused her of “facilitating the invasion” and being akin to a Nazi collaborator during the second world war because she has helped asylum seekers learn English.

Mair Godley and her husband, Nick, 77, a former chair of Wethersfield parish council, live near the former Wethersfield military base in Essex, where the Home Office accommodates hundreds of asylum seekers.

People living in tents in northern France hoping to find asylum in England face increasing intimidation from police and far-right agitators

In the decade since the demolition of the “Jungle”, an area of Calais where thousands of asylum seekers set up makeshift shelters before embarking on Channel crossings to the UK, everything and nothing has changed.

This week, in a woodland clearing not far from one of Calais’s busy main roads, several brightly coloured tents are pitched. A jacket hanging from a tree branch blows in the brisk autumnal breeze alongside a belt decorated with union flags. It is only October but the wind makes the temperature feel several degrees chillier.