The ingloriously-named Bibby Stockholm has weighed anchor in Dorset’s Portland harbour to a storm of protest. The vessel is intended to house up to 500 single male adults who have arrived in this country by illegal means. Rishi Sunak’s pledge to ‘stop the boats’ has morphed into a need for bigger boats to contain a small fraction of those asylum seekers still arriving every day on our coastline.
A rare but conspicuously uncomfortable alliance of activists and local Nimbys have united in protest against this move. The former assert that conditions will be inhumane; the latter fret about overwhelmed local services. Both are proxies for a national debate polarised between welcoming everyone who wants a better life on these shores and deprecating a policy that risks putting needy Brits at the back of the queue for decent housing and services.
But in this fractious discussion, one thing seems clear: no one would want to swap places with the barge’s new residents. The facility has been given a Robert Jenrick-style make under and all the official PR focuses on facilities being basic but decent. No longer will illegal migrants be housed in four star hotels. They will have to put up with offshore austerity.
A rare but conspicuously uncomfortable alliance of activists and local Nimbys have united in protest
Except this isn’t quite right. The facilities will house migrants in air conditioned rooms with wifi. Many rooms have a sea view. Far from being confined, the residents can come and go as they please with buses laid on to take them into nearby Weymouth. Taxpayers will be relieved to know that a register is being kept of who is on and off the floatel, although reports of 400 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children missing from hotels on dry land might make them sceptical.
What’s it going to be like on this vessel for the three to nine months the Home Office believe it will take to process the claims? For eight years between 1997 and 2005, the prison ship HMP Weare was moored at the same location. I was on this category C prison for about 400 medium risk offenders several times. Unlike the Bibby, those on the Weare only left to go to hospital or on release. While there were multiple shortcomings in access to open air and family contact, I was quite surprised at the number of prisoners who told me they liked their digs and had more room and facilities than some of the land prisons they were familiar with. Officers enjoyed their novel deployment too and the atmosphere was mostly relaxed.
While debates rage about the actual cost savings the Bibby will deliver and what if any deterrent factor this three storey asylum ark will present, we have a serious national security problem that these initiatives can help with. It is highly likely, if not certain, that among the many asylum seekers who have reached our shores and disappeared are at least some violent extremists. We know for sure that at least one act of terrorism has been carried out by a failed asylum seeker. And it would be entirely rational for Isis to send combatants or sleepers in this fashion. It is consistent with the Home Secretary’s announcement at the recent counter-terrorism strategy (Contest) refresh that there is ‘a persistent and evolving threat from Islamist terrorist groups overseas.’
It doesn’t matter where you stand on the morality of the Government’s asylum policy, everyone should want people’s safety to be paramount. That will mean the state being able to properly screen and keep tabs on the thousands of people who still risk their lives to get here. More than 10,000 small boat migrants have arrived here from France in 2023 alone. Many are seeking a better life. But at the very least we should know who, and where, they are, even approximately. If even half of 1 per cent of that total were combat-trained jihadis that’s 50 extremists in our midst.
As for the other 99.5 per cent, it would surely be better to allow them to work, rather than be held in state-sponsored penury while their claims are being considered. This could easily become a condition of board and lodging. For the tiny fraction of asylum seekers that will traverse the Bibby’s gangways, that would occupy them and give them some dignity and purpose. It would also mean they could pay tax and start contributing to the country they have travelled so far and so dangerously to reach. Bear in mind that the latest figures from the Oxford University Migration Observatory show that only 17 per cent of asylum seekers received a decision in less than a year. There is a reported claims backlog of 132,000. As it is, the main hazards the barge’s management company will face are boredom, fire and disorder.
Citizens in this country who have committed crime have endured far worse conditions on similar barges than will the new denizens of the Bibby Stockholm. While their only crime is entering the UK by clandestine means, such an initiative deserves a chance and my bet is that like HMP Weare it will soon become part of the landscape. But in protecting our nation from predatory terrorists who are probably already here, biding their time, I’m afraid we are still all at sea.
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