As a place of accommodation, the Bibby Stockholm had only a minor function in UK asylum policy, but it loomed large as an emblem of that policy’s dysfunction. The barge moored at Portland in Dorset held 400 men at maximum capacity. The last of them disembarked this week, marking the end of the vessel’s service as a Home Office incarceration facility.
The total number of people in the UK waiting for asylum claims to be processed is around 85,600. Taking one barge out of the equation doesn’t reduce overall numbers. But it does indicate progress towards the more rational approach that Labour promised in contrast to ostentatiously punitive Conservative methods.
