In Linton-on-Ouse, men in hi-vis jackets are already at work behind the wire-mesh security fence of the Home Office ’s latest “migrant camp”.
After high-profile failures at Napier Barracks in Kent and Penally Barracks in Pembrokeshire, Home Secretary Priti Patel intends to use a mothballed RAF base in rural North Yorkshire to create the UK’s biggest-ever camp for people seeking sanctuary.
Plans to double the local population by housing around 1,500 asylum seekers in a “Greek-style reception centre” in the village have been branded “Guantanamo-on-Ouse”.
As James, a Linton local in his 40s, says: “It’s like NASA saying, ‘we’ve failed to achieve the moon, so for our next mission we’re heading even further, to Mars. Even if they were talking about bringing 1,500 troops in, we’d be saying the same, ‘it won’t work’.”
Olga Matthias, a local academic, is thinking of her father, a refugee from the former Yugoslavia, who built a new life here.
“I keep thinking, how would I feel if I was dumped in the middle of nowhere? What will people do with themselves all day? Where are the support services? Interpreters? Lawyers? This isn’t just about us, it’s about people seeking asylum, their welfare and how they will be treated. This just hasn’t been thought out.”
Getting to Linton-on-Ouse involves negotiating a rickety toll bridge over a river, and a hand-operated level crossing.
There is no high street – just one main road covered in spent cherry blossom, with a closed-down pub, a village hall and a solitary paper shop.
The village primary school was left with just 60 pupils when the airbase closed in 2020. But even with so few residents, locals say infrastructure – from sewers to broadband – is struggling, and the site is on a floodplain.
Linton is surrounded on all sides by Cities of Sanctuary – Ripon, York, Harrogate and Leeds – which have pledged to support refugees. But since the announcement, the village has been targeted by the Far Right, with multiple visits and a protest last Sunday. James, whose name we have changed to protect his identity, moved his family here five years ago looking for somewhere peaceful. He says many locals fear fascists on the streets far more than asylum seekers.
“We couldn’t go out on Sunday, it was awful,” he says. “There are people talking about safety if the centre opens, but it already feels like that. There were people in the village protesting, knocking on doors, asking us to take part in surveys.
“That’s going to be the case for the next few Sundays. The children want to know why they can’t go out and how do you explain that? The people who were here don’t represent us. They’ve hijacked the issue.”
HOPE not Hate’s David Lawrence says the village is a target. “Fascist group Patriotic Alternative has been travelling into Linton in a cynical attempt to ramp up fears in the village. While the group tries to hide its true nature, it is an extremist organisation led by neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers,” he says.
Ali Ahmadi is a local builder. He’s a British citizen who admires Winston Churchill but 20 years ago he was a scared 17-year-old in the back of a lorry, hoping to reach safety here.
“In the lorry, they told us to listen for a banging noise after one hour. If you heard it you are going to the UK via a boat or the Eurotunnel. If you don’t, you are still in France.”
Ali’s family were persecuted in Kurdish Iran, and paid smugglers to get Ali to Europe. “If I arrived now, I would be sent here to this camp or straight to Rwanda,” he says. “Yet ever since I’ve been here, I haven’t taken one penny in benefits. I lived on £1 a day for many years, and I built myself up and built my business. I’m not here to take things.”
After the trauma of being trafficked, he worries for the mental health of the traumatised people put in the camp, as well as the dangers from fascist vigilantes in such a remote area.
“And I feel sorry for the local people,” he says. “There are lots of ex-RAF people who just want to enjoy their retirement. Now they are feeling anxiety.”
He adds, wryly: “We never heard of Linton or Rwanda before Partygate, and the Chancellor’s tax issues. Perhaps they’ve used Priti Patel to divert attention.”
On Monday, Boris Johnson said plans to use the village were “pivotal” to his controversial scheme to remove people seeking sanctuary and send them to Rwanda.
“You can’t do the Rwanda immigration and economic partnership unless you have some arrangement of this kind; some reception centre somewhere,” he said.
But Mal Taylor, a local Conservative councillor and former police officer, tells us the Home Office “have dropped a bomb on this village”.
Hambleton District Council says it has asked lawyers to start mounting a legal challenge to the proposal.
Councillor Darryl Smalley said: “The ‘Guantanamo-on-Ouse’ proposal is an ill-thought-out, cruel and morally bankrupt ploy to reduce our obligations to the most desperate people.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The asylum reception centre at Linton-on-Ouse will help end our reliance on expensive hotels, which are costing the taxpayer £4.7million a day. We are consulting with local stakeholders about the use of the site.
“The New Plan for Immigration will fix the broken asylum system, allowing us to support those in genuine need while preventing abuse of the system and deterring illegal entry to the UK.”
Linton has been in the spotlight before. It was the airbase where Prince William did his flight training. In the Second World War, it was where British bombers took off for raids on Germany, occupied Norway and Italy.
Now the Battle for Linton is beginning, and the Government should expect a fight.
We find local NHS worker Steve Krebs, 64, looking over the metal fence, trying to see what’s happening.
“It’s about their security and it’s about ours,” he says. “The scale of it isn’t in any way suitable for this village. And getting it ready is going to cost an absolute fortune. Who’s going to pay?”
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