The most infamous boat in Britain reopens for business next week. From next Thursday, the Bibby Stockholm will once again house people who have fled to this country seeking asylum. The barge was supposed to form part of Rishi Sunak’s solution to the eye-watering costs of accommodating asylum seekers who are waiting for the Home Office to process their applications: stick hundreds of them on a three-storey high floating box moored in Portland harbour, and not only would the hotel bills come down but Mr Sunak could show he was taking action on the record backlog of would-be refugees. It would make a grand photo opportunity, a sign of No 10’s resolve and a boost to Conservative popularity.
Instead, it has been an enormous floating fiasco. After months of challenges from both Dorset residents (including the local Tory MP) and organisations dedicated to securing asylum seekers’ rights, the government finally sent 39 people on to the Bibby Stockholm. Even as they arrived, legionella was confirmed to be already on board. A few days later, all were evacuated. Even if the Home Office manages its “re-embarkation” next Thursday, the barge will have been part-occupied for a grand total of five days and empty for 68, serving only as a giant beached policy failure. Home Office contract documents suggest the Bibby Stockholm costs taxpayers nearly £300,000 a week. So much for cutting bills.
Those who were confined on board the barge issued an open letter, in which they revealed that, over those days, some fell ill and one attempted suicide. “Some of us displayed symptoms of legionnaires’ disease, but no one responded to us,” they wrote. For all the lazy slurs about “bogus asylum seekers”, at the last count seven out of 10 applicants were granted refugee status, humanitarian protection or some other form of leave.
The Home Office has allowed its backlog of applications to grow so large that it now runs around 400 hotels to accommodate those stuck in limbo. At the same time as ministers such as Priti Patel and Suella Braverman have tried to dehumanise asylum seekers by peddling appalling language and downright untruths, they are also throwing them into communities with next to no consultation or preparation. The result is often to stir up local resentment towards vulnerable people – which can then be inflamed further by a footloose and cynical far right.
A textbook example is Llanelli, where six months ago the town’s finest hotel was taken over to house 240 asylum seekers. Around a hundred staff were laid off and contractors began gutting the building. Residents organised a protest camp outside that was visited by a number of extremists. The virus of far-right hate entered a Labour stronghold. This week, the government announced it was dropping the plan – and the racists claimed that as their victory. The Welsh government has rightly demanded Whitehall pay to help repair the social damage and warned “we must not see a repeat of what’s happened in Llanelli”. But that would mean Ms Braverman’s ministry showing some shame for the poison spread by its own policies. Wales will be waiting a long time.
