Tuesday, February 02, 2021
Making the UK as inhospitable as possible
The Guardian reports that the Conservative former immigration minister Caroline Nokes has accused the Home Office of using barracks accommodation for asylum seekers to make the country appear to them “as difficult and inhospitable as possible”.
The MP said asylum seekers should not be “segregated into a ghetto” in barracks accommodation, but instead placed in supported accommodation where they have access to a range of facilities:
Nokes is among a group of backbench Conservative MPs with barracks in their constituencies who have raised concerns about their use to house asylum seekers. Others include Damian Collins, whose Folkestone and Hythe constituency includes Napier barracks, and Richard Fuller, the MP for North East Bedfordshire, where there is a new barracks-style development close to Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre.
There is growing concern about the conditions inside the barracks. Inhabitants say they are freezing cold and filthy, with no drinking water and food so bad they refuse to eat it. There have been Covid outbreaks, hunger strikes and suicide attempts.
The decision to hold several hundred asylum seekers in the barracks has triggered a raft of legal actions as well as outcry from human rights charities including the Red Cross, Care4Calais, Detention Action and Medical Justice.
Military barracks in remote locations have never before been used to accommodate asylum seekers, many of whom have survived torture and other forms of persecution before fleeing their home countries. Some of those tortured in military or prison facilities at home have said the barracks have triggered nightmares and flashbacks.
“We as a nation can do better than this,” said Nokes, who was immigration minister in Theresa May’s government between January 2018 and July 2019. “The Home Office really needs to get its act together. They need to revamp the accommodation contracts and put in place more contracts for supported accommodation.
She has been vocal about her concerns not only about Home Office plans to establish barracks-style accommodation on Ministry of Defence land in her own constituency of Romsey and Southampton North, but also about wider barracks policy and the approach to asylum seekers.
“I don’t think the Home Office is listening to me. I think they have become very blinkered,” she said. “Barracks are not a short-term quick fix. They have failed.”
The paper says at least five legal challenges are under way – two relating to Penally barracks in Wales, two relating to Napier barracks in Folkestone, and one relating to Yarl’s Wood. They focus on the lawfulness or otherwise of providing such accommodation for asylum seekers, breach of asylum seekers’ human rights, false imprisonment, deprivation of liberty, and failure to conduct vulnerability assessments.
It is time the government started to listen.
The MP said asylum seekers should not be “segregated into a ghetto” in barracks accommodation, but instead placed in supported accommodation where they have access to a range of facilities:
Nokes is among a group of backbench Conservative MPs with barracks in their constituencies who have raised concerns about their use to house asylum seekers. Others include Damian Collins, whose Folkestone and Hythe constituency includes Napier barracks, and Richard Fuller, the MP for North East Bedfordshire, where there is a new barracks-style development close to Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre.
There is growing concern about the conditions inside the barracks. Inhabitants say they are freezing cold and filthy, with no drinking water and food so bad they refuse to eat it. There have been Covid outbreaks, hunger strikes and suicide attempts.
The decision to hold several hundred asylum seekers in the barracks has triggered a raft of legal actions as well as outcry from human rights charities including the Red Cross, Care4Calais, Detention Action and Medical Justice.
Military barracks in remote locations have never before been used to accommodate asylum seekers, many of whom have survived torture and other forms of persecution before fleeing their home countries. Some of those tortured in military or prison facilities at home have said the barracks have triggered nightmares and flashbacks.
“We as a nation can do better than this,” said Nokes, who was immigration minister in Theresa May’s government between January 2018 and July 2019. “The Home Office really needs to get its act together. They need to revamp the accommodation contracts and put in place more contracts for supported accommodation.
She has been vocal about her concerns not only about Home Office plans to establish barracks-style accommodation on Ministry of Defence land in her own constituency of Romsey and Southampton North, but also about wider barracks policy and the approach to asylum seekers.
“I don’t think the Home Office is listening to me. I think they have become very blinkered,” she said. “Barracks are not a short-term quick fix. They have failed.”
The paper says at least five legal challenges are under way – two relating to Penally barracks in Wales, two relating to Napier barracks in Folkestone, and one relating to Yarl’s Wood. They focus on the lawfulness or otherwise of providing such accommodation for asylum seekers, breach of asylum seekers’ human rights, false imprisonment, deprivation of liberty, and failure to conduct vulnerability assessments.
It is time the government started to listen.
