Labour to shut down Bibby Stockholm

16 comments

1. >The contract for the barge, which is currently housing 400 migrants, will end in January because the Home Office says it will no longer be needed as they move to clear the backlog of asylum claims.

   And where will those with rejected claims reside…? Because I don’t see them getting deported.

2. More diversity for EVERYONE (except the well off you don’t have to live next to 100s of Syrians don’t worry lol)

3. [deleted]

4. Boris, Rishi, suella and liztruss should pay for the whole thing out of their pocket. And the whole Rwanda stuff too.

5. As someone who works and lives on a ship for significant periods of time it is maddening to see people complaining about the conditions these people were housed in.
   They are far better than many of our own merchant fleet

   Totally weird that people would complain loudly when there’s millions of seafarers round the world living in WORSE conditions.
   Nevermind the ones in this country.

6. Labout about to clear the backlog in a month…by just allowing everyone to stay, no questions asked.

   5 years time Reform will have a field day.

7. Whole crisis was manufactured by the tories to manipulate the voting masses .

8. We should build like 20 of these barges, put them in major cities, and use them as Student Accom. I’d have been in their in a heartbeat, and it would absorb a lot of housing demand.

9. Could they repurpose to house British homeless people? I’m sure the uptake would be massive.

   Free food and accommodation with facilities.

10. Well, rather than retire the Bibby Stockholme, why not tow it up the Thames and use it to house M.P’s instead of giving them a second home allowance. Win win.

11. Usual suspects are doom spiralling themselves in apocalyptic fantasy’s o er this pretty banal and entirely expected news I see. Well done Torygraph, you play them like a fiddle every time

12. I have complicated feelings about this situation.

    It is wrong to keep refugees warehoused in cramped facilities with no income and barely enough in benefits to buy soap. Labour is completely right that claims need to be processed much faster. We have been wasting absolutely enormous amounts of money on housing people who are on years-long waiting lists.

    At the same time, it has not escaped me that the conditions on the Bibi Stockholm are much better than many citizens are dealing with. I pay nearly £1400 per month in rent on a studio. That’s the absolute cheapest accommodation I can find that doesn’t have mould coming down the walls. I am not exaggerating. I looked for three months. There are tens of millions of citizens living in worse conditions (less food, more mould, less space) than are the people on the Bibi Stockholm.

    One reason Labour was out of power for so long, allowing the Tories to destroy everything, was that they did not care even slightly about struggling British citizens unless they were pregnant or Boomers. They didn’t care about the left-behind people in the north living in towns deserted by industry and competing with hordes of low-paid foreigners for minimum-wage jobs. They didn’t care about people like me who got zero parental help and faced massive tuition fees and housing costs.

    So when I see people moaning and wailing about immigrants who are getting free, clean housing and enough to eat, I do feel pretty over it.

13. The bit everyone seems to be missing on this is that the boat was insanely expensive for what it was.

    The BBC are reporting it would have cost [“More than £20m”](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg640n3372qo) next year.

    You could rent every migrant their own luxury flat in Westminster for that. (Seriously, £3300 pcm goes a very long way even in the most expensive parts of the country. If any of the migrants has become attached to Portland during their stay, they could rent this [luxurious holiday home that has been converted from a chapel](https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/150327404#/?channel=RES_LET) and still have £300+ a month to spare.)

14. I know the barge is owned by Bibby Line – which company has the contract to operate it as an accommodation vessel for refugees?

15. There was only ever a back log of asylum claims because the last government gutted the department processing the claims, resulting it wasted millions on temporary housing

16. Good luck for local councils to find social housing for those migrants and their soon to be resident dependents.