Good morning.
So it seems this will not, after all, be the week the first – reluctant – residents are transported to the Bibby Stockholm barge at Portland docks in Dorset.
Initially slated to arrive last Thursday, the first group of people seeking asylum were then due to be transported to the huge and highly controversial barge earlier this week. Home Office sources now say nothing is likely to happen before next week because of new health and safety checks, as fresh fears emerged over the vessel’s suitability – and safety.
The government wants to move more than 500 adult male asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm, which it says will help reduce the cost of putting them up in hotels. But aside from major doubts over whether it is a fit place to house potentially traumatised people, serious questions have been raised over whether the vessel is even safe.
Campaigners have called the government’s plans cruel and inhumane. One local authority whistleblower has said it has the potential to become a “floating Grenfell”. And the Fire Brigades’ Union has said it considers the vessel a “potential deathtrap”.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Diane Taylor, who has reported on immigration for the Guardian for many years, about what the government wants to happen in Portland – and why it hasn’t yet.
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Five big stories
Niger | European countries continued with their evacuation of foreign nationals from Niger, as defence officials from west Africa’s regional political and security bloc were poised to meet in Abuja to discuss last week’s coup against the country’s democratically elected president.
Media | The influential documentary producer Jess Search, who co-founded the non-profit Doc Society organisation, has died of brain cancer at the age of 54. She was involved in hundreds of projects including the overfishing documentary The End of the Line, the gorilla protection film Virunga, and the Oscar-nominated Citizenfour, about the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Scotland | A rape suspect accused of faking his own death to avoid prosecution can be extradited from the UK to the US to face charges, a court has ruled. Nicholas Rossi, 35, is wanted by authorities in Utah for allegedly raping a woman in 2008. He also faces multiple complaints against him in Rhode Island for alleged domestic violence.
Education | The head of the body that awards the Rhodes scholarship – the oldest and most prestigious international graduate award – has refused to back calls for the removal of controversial monuments to its original benefactor, Cecil Rhodes, despite insisting the organisation was “in listening mode”.
Pollution | British triathletes preparing for next month’s world championships have been forced to abandon open water swim training because of sewage in the sea off the coast of Lancashire.
In depth: ‘What seems certain is the Home Office hasn’t thought it through properly’
At least 40 people have now received abrupt letters from the Home Office, Diane reported this week, saying: “Your accommodation is changing and you will be moved to the Bibby Stockholm, Portland.”
They are not being detained, the letter continues, “but we would request that you sign in and out of the site when you leave and return so we can assure your safety”. It goes on to list “several facilities” on the barge, which include an “onsite nurse” and “wifi”.
Despite widespread protests from more than 50 organisations and campaigners – and from locals – the Home Office is eager to begin transporting people to the barge as soon as possible. So why the delay?
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A ‘floating Grenfell’
“All migrant accommodation has to go through a series of checks and inspections … that’s what’s happening in this case,” the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said when quizzed about the safety fears some have expressed for those on board.
That criticism is potentially serious. According to one local authority whistleblower, the conditions on the barge are so unsafe that it has the potential to become a “floating Grenfell”, the Times reported this week. Its 222 cabins are arranged along two narrow corridors over three decks. There are two main exits.
There are reportedly no lifejackets and the operator does not intend to hold any fire drills, while the location of the fire evacuation point – in a compound on the quayside behind two sets of locked gates – could cause a “Hillsborough-type crush”, the person told the newspaper. Local councillors were also told that refurbishment was needed to repair rotting.
“As the only professional voice, firefighters believe the Bibby Stockholm to be a potential deathtrap,” Ben Selby, assistant general secretary of the Fire Brigades’ Union, told the Guardian.
Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, rebuffed safety concerns. “It certainly won’t be a deathtrap,” he told Good Morning Britain yesterday. “This actual ship was previously used by Germany to house migrants, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be absolutely safe. Ships are used to transport people all the time … That’s actually why these final safety checks are being carried out.”
A Home Office source has said the delay was “because working practices for port workers have to be signed off for the Health and Safety Executive. There are no fire safety issues.”
Part of the problem, says Diane, is “nobody knows who is legally responsible for what, because this is a legal first, and it’s also a legal hybrid between [UK law] and maritime law.” The Dorset and Wiltshire fire service says it is the responsibility of the Home Office and the vessel operator to complete a fire risk assessment and to ensure that the necessary fire safety measures are in place, but the government has been reluctant to clarify.
“I think that has caused a lot of confusion,” says Diane, “and that may be at the heart of this delay. What seems certain is the Home Office hasn’t thought it through properly, because otherwise they wouldn’t keep announcing it was about to happen [and then delaying].”
Yesterday, workers were seen transporting food on to the vessel, suggesting the authorities believe they can do so imminently. Home Office sources have suggested nothing is likely to happen before next week.
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What it’s like inside
The Bibby Stockholm was designed to house 222 people, but the government plans to put 506 asylum seekers onboard. When the Guardian’s Amelia Gentleman was shown round the ship last month, she noted that while each (now double) room has a TV (pictured above), they have not been wired in – presumably to head off accusations of excessive luxury.
There are no windows in the narrow corridors, and limited communal space.
“The whole barge is going to be much more crowded than it used to be when the Home Office wasn’t involved,” says Diane. (It was previously accommodation for oil and construction workers, and before that was used by the Netherlands and Germany to house asylum seekers.)
“So that is a concern: not just fire, but overcrowding. It’s also very isolated, and [residents] will have to get permission to leave and then have cards that they scan in and scan out. Critics have referred to it as quasi-detention.”
Importantly, too, many of those who have come to Britain have experienced traumatic situations while travelling by sea, and fear being housed on water, says Diane. She points to the case of one man who told the Mirror earlier this week: “There must be a better solution than putting people who have already suffered on a boat. We don’t have anything else to lose, why would you put us through more?”
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A Home Office housing crisis
The Bibby Stockholm is not the only place where the government wants to house large numbers of asylum seekers – nor the only facility where its plans have been coming unstuck.
The use of the former RAF base of Scampton in Lincolnshire, where the government wants to house up to 2,000 people, has also been delayed. It will not be ready until at least October due to the need to carry out surveys on 14 buildings the Home Office wants to use, it has been reported.
The government has also started transporting migrants to another former RAF site at Wethersfield in Essex, with more expected this week, despite local protests. Residents told the Guardian the facility was “like a stalag”, and unsafe for the new arrivals, yet the government insists it is determined to carry on.
It’s instructive to look at the numbers, says Diane. “Even by the Home Office’s announced figures, all these places are only going to accommodate around 3,000 people – and given there are more than 100,000 in asylum accommodation, it’s a bit of a drop in the ocean. So I think it’s all about optics.”
For the asylum seekers themselves, she says: “What matters most is for their cases to progress. Some of them have been living in [terrible conditions] for years on their horrible journeys, the last thing they’re interested in is a hotel. What they want is not being in limbo forever, and having no life because there’s no progress.”
What else we’ve been reading
Stevie Chick spoke to the minds behind the 1990s slowcore phenomenon – a genre characterised by “restraint, from dialling down amps, slowing tempos and paring music back to its elements” – about its lasting, pervasive impact on modern music, and their new fanbase. Nimo
Sam Wollaston looks at the UK’s prolific potholes, discovering that its crumbling carriageways are marked by as many as 2m – enough to fill the Albert Hall 380 times over. Craille Maguire Gillies, production editor, newsletters
“Loneliness is a human condition,” Gwyneth Paltrow wrote on Instagram, “but in the past few years, increased isolation and our lack of community has made our lives even more fragmented.” She has just the solution: a one-night stay in the Goop founder’s luxury Montecito guest house, where you will also have dinner with her and her husband. Stuart Heritage hilariously weighs up how much of this is gimmick and how much is just Paltrow’s effusive altruism. Nimo
ICYMI: Diane Arbus’ biographer, Arthur Lubow, strolls through the largest display of Arbus printed ever shown, for a look at a controversial photographer who was, as he writes, “fascinated to the point of obsession by the discrepancy between who we are and how we want to be seen”. Craille
After her conservatorship ended, many fans continued to harbour deep concerns for the safety of Britney Spears. For New York magazine (£), Rebecca Jenning takes a look at why so many people are still involved in the Free Britney 2.0 movement. Nimo
Sport
Football | At the Women’s World Cup, Thembi Kgatlana last-gasp score saw South Africa reach 3-2 against Italy, and put them into the last 16 at the expense of their opponents. Sweden beat Argentina 2-0 giving them a perfect record as they also enter the knockout stage, while Brazil crashed out of the tournament after their 0-0 draw against an ecstatic Jamaica, who go through to the last 16. Kadidiatou Diani netted a hat-trick, including two penalties, leading France to a frenzied 6-3 victory over Panama.
Football | The former Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has retired from football at the age of 45, after a 28-year career in which he reached exceptional milestones for club and country. Buffon lifted the World Cup in 2006, won 10 Serie A titles with Juventus and a Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint-Germain. “That’s all folks!” he said in a statement. “You gave me everything. I gave you everything. We did it together.”
Cricket | For the Guardian’s cricket newsletter, The Spin (click here to sign up), our writers pore over the scorecards and pick their best players, moments, “moral victories” and more from the summer in their post-Ashes awards.
The front pages
“Trump court date sets US on course for election clash” says our Guardian splash headline this morning. The Financial Times has “Trump team seeks to derail ‘absurd’ push for speedy trial before election”. Little of that on front pages elsewhere, though. “‘Green’ power firm taking us for fools” – that’s the Daily Mail about the wood pellet fired Drax power station, which the paper accuses of manipulating subsidies. The Daily Telegraph has “Minister faces police inquiry over ‘racist’ leaflet” while the Daily Express delivers “Rishi’s blunt ultimatum to striking doctors”. “Yeah right” says the Daily Mirror, to what it calls “PM’s offensive claim [that] NHS strikes are to blame for waiting lists”. “Election won’t be soonak” – not one of the Metro’s better efforts, after the PM “hinted there will be no general election until January 2025”. “Get on your delivery bike, minister tells the over 50s” – that’s the Times as non-working older people are told to “widen ideas”.
Today in Focus
Rishi Sunak’s anti-green gamble
The prime minister’s announcement of new oil and gas licences in the North Sea this week is a sign he sees electoral advantage in being anti-green. Kiran Stacey reports
Cartoon of the day | Steve Bell
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Red pandas, which are native to the Himalayas and western China, are currently listed as an endangered species – the WWF has predicted that there could be as few as 2,500 red pandas in the wild. Their numbers have been declining because of illegal trading, habitat loss, a decline in their main food source of bamboo, poaching and deforestation. So the birth of twin red panda cubs at Whipsnade zoo was met with delight and hope.
The zoo is run by Zoological Society of London (ZSL) who announced the good news on Wednesday, adding that the newborns will given names after their first vet visit at eight weeks. The cubs each weighed just 113g at birth and have not yet ventured out from the nest, where zookeepers say they are being well cared for by their parents.
“These twin cubs give us double hope for the species, as they were born as part of an important European breeding programme for endangered red pandas, designed to keep a backup population safe in conservation zoos – while we tackle the issues they’re facing in the wild,” zookeeper Grant Timberlake said.
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