Asylum seeker barge docks in Dorset amidst rival protests

Kathy there are 222 rooms on this barge below me and as you mentioned from next week the first 50 Asylum Seekers all single men aged between 18 and 65 will be housed here as part of a phase scheme they won't be detained there will be on board catering basic Primary Health Care offered and extra funding will be provided to the local Council police and NHS but there has been considerable opposition to this the local Council among many others wanted to stop it but was advised that legal action wouldn't succeed so for the home office this marks perhaps an important and highly symbolic moment in the context of its immigration policy but there are other legal challenges of course ongoing to elements of that strategy not least the bid to send some Asylum Seekers to Rwanda they're doing absolutely nothing and they want you to blame the refugees the ref here that's right how important is poor so that's what I'm saying that's governments your story government is trying to get you the people who has to use they're using food banks they're in bed and breakfast with children for a year who do you think is going to get on the house in this I think and so it continued for a short while in Portland this morning within an hour of the baby Stockholm's arrival on the island [Music] some had been here at first light when in the distance Beyond this section of the Jurassic Coast it appeared a hulking great floating accommodation block from perhaps the brutalist school of Maritime architecture a barge the length of a football pitch soon to house up to 500 Asylum Seekers heading for the shelter of Weymouth Bay but utterly exposed to the political storm it will surely have to weather it was due here last month it's finally made it to another chorus of objections and tucked away in Portland Harbor it may soon be but for many no doubt this will be a totemic divisive image in the ongoing debate over the UK government's approach to immigration and Asylum this barge was designed for 200 odd people it's been converted to accommodate 500 in accommodation which is little bigger than a car parking space this is not the way that refugees should be treated refugees are people who have escaped from walls invasions and crises they have a right to apply apply freely for Asylum and to be treated with respect and this barge is not the way to do it yet the imagery May well suit a government pledging deterrence in its bid to stop the boats as overnight its illegal migration Bill cleared key hurdles in the House of Lords Now set to become law it will place a legal Duty on the Home Secretary to detain and remove anyone entering the UK illegally and now they have a barge a cheaper alternative they claim to housing Asylum seekers in hotels what would be cheaper cheaper why is it take it takes some people Asylum to be processed why there has been widespread resistance locally to this barge from the conservative Ron Dorset Council to the groups gathered here stand up to racism on one side note at the barge on the other Who Remain frustrated they say that concerns over how this barge may impact the island could be deemed racist there are 13 562 people on the island we're a small rural community how can we absorb 500 antibodies the problem is we can't even help our own so how can we help others and Weymouth and Portland just haven't got the infrastructure for it we really haven't there'll be extra home office funding reportedly to support the council here one white or Minister today said such local concerns were understood which is precisely why we've got the illegal migration bill which is exactly why we're taking action with Rwanda which is exactly why we have a new deal with the French government to stop this trade and human life across the channel if we break the back of these people traffickers and we stop the boats which is the prime minister's number one priority then we will no longer have to reliant on communities around the UK hosting so many people who come to this country illegally soon dozens then likely hundreds seeking asylum in the UK will find themselves aboard the Bibi Stockholm with all the political scrutiny that it now brings well the UN High Commissioner for refugees Filippo Grande has mourned the loss of Britain's tradition of providing Refuge to those in need let's talk more about this with Vicki tenant who's unhcr's representative to the UK the unhcr says that the UK is potentially in breach of international law here can you set out why you're concerned and why the UK might be in breach of the law well indeed I mean the bill effectively extinguishes the right of people coming here in search of refuge and protection to to seek Asylum and that's certainly a breach of the the refugee convention regardless of how compelling their claims are regardless of how strong their case is for Refugee status they simply won't have the opportunity to have that claim heard and we're we're very concerned about that we know that many of those coming across the channel for example come from countries that are affected by War and persecution they're of profiles that would typically attract quite a high Grant rate in terms of Grants of Asylum and protection in the UK so the people who are going to be affected are indeed those who really are most in need and that's something we're very concerned about did cut any ice that the government did make concessions for example on the Detention of unaccompanied children and indeed pregnant women was that insufficient certainly the concessions are positive but they don't go to the heart of the bill which is really about closing down access to to to Asylum access to protection so no matter who you are if you arrive in the country irregularly having passed through a country where you didn't face persecution then your claim will simply not be heard and the government will be under a duty to try to remove you to another country and if it's not able to do so you'll end up in limbo in the UK indefinitely which is not good news for anybody the Home Secretary says that that claims that the bill breaches a refugee convention are fatuous and that the convention obliges parties to provide protection but it doesn't require that this protection be in the UK has she got her law wrong well we've been very clear from the outset that it is our view as the UN agency charged with responsibility for supervising the refugee convention that's written into the refugee convention we've been very clear that it's our assessment that it breaches international law now it is not necessary for every claim for Asylum to be heard in this country and indeed it is legitimate and there have been Arrangements whereby Asylum Seekers can be sent to other countries to to have their claims heard but that needs to be done within a framework of legal safeguards and within a frame of sharing responsibility for for refugees so an arrangement that's not there yet under this current that's certainly not I mean an example of where that has been in place is the the common European Asylum system of which the UK was part of the Dublin regulation which allowed transfers of Asylum Seekers to other European countries where there was a clear legal framework in place and where it was clear that Asylum claims would be heard but simply sending all Asylum Seekers away from the UK expecting other countries to hear their claims is not in line with the spirit or the or the letter of the refugee so should the UK face sanctions in your view and what should they be well the the the the the the impact of this there are no formal sanctions and of course we as a UN agency and as the UN agency responsible for refugees we will continue to work with and to to to to to be in dialogue with the the UK on this legislation um but the impact is really on the refugee protection system as a whole we know that the majority of refugees are in countries neighboring in their own neighboring their own developing countries middle-income countries and of course they take the vast majority of the world's refugees so the signal that this uh act this this legislation sends to those countries is of course a very very damaging one these are the countries that keep their borders open and welcome the the vast majority of the world's refugees so by stepping away from from that system of international cooperation we think that this is really very damaging in terms of the refugee protection system as a whole right Vicky Tennant thank you very much for joining us

Channel: Channel 4 News

Views: 76,809

Keywords: Channel 4 News, Asylum, Asylum Seekers, dock, Dorset, proetests, Bibby Stockholm, Bibby, Portland, Quasi-prison, Port

Id: CzykTf2eWSs

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023