So it’s goodbye to the unloved Bibby Stockholm barge, which has been referred to by its critics as a “floating prison” and has accommodated hundreds of asylum seekers in Portland, Dorset since last summer.
The gigantic structure, which has about 220 cabins, is unlikely to be missed by anyone – apart from perhaps a handful of former cabinet ministers who believed that the punishment message played well with voters, or countered the narrative pedalled by the far right that asylum seekers were accommodated in luxury hotels while homeless military veterans were forced to sleep in the street.
The hostility of the last government towards asylum seekers was not a new phenomenon. But it broke new ground. The scheme to forcibly export asylum seekers to Rwanda, a country with a questionable human rights record, to have their claims processed was a first, as was the use of the Bibby Stockholm for asylum accommodation.
Immigration detention is controversial and many human rights campaigners have called for an end to it during successive governments – calls which have gone unheeded. But it is governed by regulations and there is an inspection regime. Mass accommodation sites have no equivalent oversight. They were introduced by the last government and hidden from public view by their remote and inaccessible locations.
RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, another mass accommodation site earmarked by the previous government, is yet to accommodate a single asylum seeker. A site in Bexhill, East Sussex was also floated as either a mass accommodation or detention facility. Apart from the barge and Napier barracks in Folkestone, the other mass accommodation site that is up and running is RAF Wethersfield, a former military base in Essex, which has been likened to a “stalag” by local residents.
On Tuesday, when the government announced that it will close the Bibby Stockholm in January 2025, a case hoping to achieve a similar outcome at Wethersfield was being heard in the high court in London. Four asylum seekers who were accommodated there after fleeing conflict zones including Eritrea and Afghanistan are bringing a legal challenge, arguing that Wethersfield is not a suitable place to accommodate a group of people with a range of vulnerabilities including experiences of torture or trafficking.
In the course of yesterday’s hearing, a 58-page report from the British Red Cross emerged. It had been commissioned by the Home Office under the previous government to look at conditions on the site after profound concerns were raised by the former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration David Neal. There have been hundreds if not thousands of critical reports about Home Office immigration policy published in the last couple of decades. I’ve read quite a few of them. But there was something different about this one. It captured the cruelty and carelessness with which the most fragile human lives were treated in a way I hadn’t seen before.
The Red Cross report found that, while officially classed as initial accommodation, Wethersfield had many features of a detention centre – checkpoints, barbed wire fencing and a heavy security presence. NGOs say that suicide attempts there are at extremely high levels. The Red Cross report confirms this, saying that of the 83% of people who reported a mental health complaint, 41% had suicidal ideation, 70% were in severe psychological distress and 39% displayed symptoms consistent with PTSD. Some very obvious suicide attempts or acts of self-harm were not recognised as such, and “desensitisation” was found among staff working with this group for extended periods.
Even asylum seekers who arrived in a relatively emotionally robust state experienced a significant deterioration in their mental health while on the site. One man told the Red Cross that he was referred to by a member of the welfare staff as a “King Kong”, another that the Home Office was using the asylum seekers as a “laboratory sample”. The report identified “a prevailing culture of degradation and disbelief”.
The last government hoped that a trampling-with-hobnailed-boots approach to asylum seekers would win them votes. But these polices did not translate into victory at the ballot box.
The new government has made a great start by dumping the Rwanda plan and the Bibby Stockholm, two policies with brutality and inhumanity baked in. Hopefully, the decision to get rid of these harsh symbols signals a kinder approach ahead. The prime minister has indicated that he also plans to close Wethersfield. This needs to happen sooner rather than later. Labour says it will take a tough stance on migration. Whatever policies are rolled out in the coming months, cruel gimmicks inflicted on a group who arrive here mentally and often physically battered, asking only for safety, must be ditched for ever.
Diane Taylor writes on human rights, racism and civil liberties
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