‘Wingless birds’: life aboard Britain’s controversial asylum barge

LONDON – “You can’t understand my state, I’m going crazy, nothing can calm me down.”

That’s how life feels to one of the 50 asylum seekers who have spent the past three months living on a 222 room barge moored off Portland, Dorset in England while British authorities mull their fate.

The Bibby Stockholm vessel was billed a symbol of the U.K.’s tough stance on asylum, as the governing Conservative Party seeks to show it’s got a grip on migration — with a slew of activity which this week included announcing a host of measures aimed at curbing visas and beefing up a deal to send people seeking refuge to Rwanda.

Ministers argue the barge will cut the mounting cost of housing in expensive hotels asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute while their claims are processed, and will deter people from making dangerous crossings to the U.K. in the first place.

But its rollout has already been controversial — and some of those aboard say they feel stuck in limbo.

In texts shown to POLITICO by the Portland Global Friendship Group, which works to support those on board, the men describe daily life.

The man quoted above says the vessel — a strictly-controlled area which residents cannot enter or leave without passing through airport-style security — is a “prison,” and likens himself to a “wingless bird” in a “cage.” The Home Office disputes this characterization.

The men are not being named in order to protect their identities.

A second man sends those on the outside a frantic call for aid: “I am very afraid of the sea and water, this place is like a prison for me, please help me.”

A third texts to express his fear at a “huge shake,” on the barge, adding: “All guys scared.”

‘Frustrated’

Heather Jones, who started the Portland Global Friendship Group to provide support to asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm, says those currently aboard are “educated, skilled and brave.” But, she adds, they are “incredibly frustrated that they are having to live their lives in limbo and have faced many difficult conditions since being placed on the Bibby Stockholm.”

She describes a life of “monotony,” where the men fill their days “sleeping and eating, with no activities.”

Some complain that the make-up of the vessel itself — and its lack of connection to the outside world — makes leaving acutely difficult.

The men are not tracked by the Home Office, and are free to leave the vessel anytime. But once on board they must go through a metal detector and have a bag search even to access the area where they can have a cigarette. There is an on site basketball court, but the ball must be signed in and out each day as it’s considered dangerous.

Lynne Hubbard of Stand up to Racism Dorset, another group of locals working with the Bibby Stockholm residents, says: “The most frustrating thing [for those living on the boat] is that the port is a controlled area.

“You can’t walk off the Bibby Stockholm and make your way to Portland or Weymouth. You first have to have all your bags checked through an X-ray machine, then you have to wait for a bus.

“The bus comes every hour. Sometimes it might go early, so you might miss it. And there are a limited number of spaces on the bus and there’s only one bus, it will only hold 50 people, so you might not get on that bus. And you can’t leave the port in any other way. So you’re very much confined.”

Hubbard says that because residents’ rooms are “tiny,” the “need to actually leave the Bibby Stockholm is much greater than it was when they were in the hotels.”

That confinement appears to be taking its toll. One message from a resident reads: “Once I missed the bus; I was horrified that I was not able to get out of the barge ’til the next bus and the realization of it crushed my mind like bumping into a cold solid unbroken wall; it made me understand perfectly that I am a detainee.”

‘The right thing to do’

But the barge — which grabbed headlines over the summer after an outbreak of legionella stalled embarkation – has staunch defenders.

Immigration is a hot button topic in British politics. Sunak has made “stopping the boats” used by asylum seekers to cross the English Channel a key pledge to voters.

The Home Office’s longstanding policy of housing asylum seekers in hotels comes with an eye-watering £8 million a day cost.

“Anything that gets the illegal migrants out of taxpayer-funded hotels is a good thing,” Conservative MP Alexander Stafford, a member of the New Conservative group of MPs pushing for tighter borders, tells POLITICO. “This barge was used to house oil workers so is good enough for anyone who claims to be fleeing persecution.”

The barge is a good option, according to another Conservative MP granted anonymity to speak freely, who said it is “right thing to do in policy terms,” with hotels “very expensive” and using disused military bases “hard and slow to do.” Still, the MP noted, they are “not sure the voters notice an individual decision like that too much.”

According to a survey by DeltaPoll in October, 42 percent of respondents support the use of the barge, 36 percent oppose, and 22 percent are unsure. Among potential Tory voters, the plan seems particularly welcome, with more than three-fifths of those planning to vote Conservative at the next election supportive.

‘Like a prison’

Back in Dorset, frustration among campaigners is mounting.

Steve Smith, CEO of Care4Calais, a migrants’ rights group that works with the men on the Bibby Stockholm said they “consistently” report “that the barge is like a prison,” and that those aboard “feel imprisoned, penned in behind barbed wire fences, that their liberty has been removed, with their freedom restricted by 24/7 surveillance and airport-style security to even go for a walk.”

“This is not accommodation as we traditionally define it — this is a quasi-detention centre that is segregating asylum seekers from the rest of society,” he added.

Care4Calais argues the conditions the asylum seekers are living in “amounts to detention” as a result of isolation from the local community, barbed wire fences, a single guarded exit, and limited private hire bus provision.

And although the British government’s most pressing migration aim is to “stop the boats” crossing the English Channel, Hubbard of Stand up to Racism Dorset says the men on the barge arrived “by and large by airplane” having fled countries including Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

“We know some of them are gay. We know some of them have different religious beliefs to what is accepted in their country. We know some of them are escaping war situations,” she adds.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Despite the number of people arriving in the U.K. reaching record levels, we continue to provide accommodation for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute to meet our legal obligation. Accommodation offered to asylum seekers, on a no choice basis, meets our legal and contractual requirements and they are free to come and go.”

Speaking specifically about the men living on the Bibby Stockholm, the spokesperson stressed those on board “are not detained and a bus service is available to take people from the port.

“The welfare of asylum seekers remains the utmost priority,” they added. “We work continually to ensure the needs of those residing in asylum accommodation are identified and considered.”