BREAKING: The first asylum seekers have reportedly arrived on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset.
has said the accommodation will ‘help solve a serious problem’, telling LBC last week: ‘This is an example of me doing something different that hasn’t been done before.’
But dozens of human rights organisations and campaigners, including the Refugee Council and the Institute for Race Relations, signed an open letter last month saying the proposal was ‘cruel and inhumane’. The firefighters’ union warned concerns over overcrowding and access to fire exits would make the Bibby Stockholm a ‘potential deathtrap’.
However, immigration minister Robert Jenrick offered a guarantee that it is a ‘safe facility’ and said it would welcome its first occupants ‘in the coming days’.
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