Remember the “accommodation vessel,” the Bibby Stockholm barge, which made headlines last year? The same barge that cost the taxpayer a reported £22 million? It’s still there, docked in Portland Port, Dorset, housing over 500 “asylum seekers”.
However, it won’t be there for much longer, at least not in its current guise. According to the Home Office, Bibby Stockholm’s contract to hold asylum seekers will expire in January 2025 and will not be renewed.
If you’re hoping that in the past seventeen months, the Home Office has secured safe passages back to the “refugees’” not-so-war-torn countries, you’ll be bitterly disappointed. Instead, it’s the turn of Nottinghamshire to be the latest dumping ground for our culturally enriching guests.
Reports have emerged that an unspecified number of the barge’s migrants were recently relocated to Worksop. Bassetlaw District Council has denied any involvement in securing temporary accommodation or with being in contact with any agencies regarding the rehousing of the migrants.
An email sent from the council’s chief executive said the following:
“I would like to be very clear that the asylum dispersal process is managed by Serco on behalf of the Home Office.
The council is only informed of the very general location of potential asylum accommodation and does not know of any specific location, nor indeed who will be placed within them. This is all managed by Serco and the council has no direct input to support this process.
The council does however have a legal duty to those who are given leave to remain. In this instance, we are informed that the individuals have been served with a 28 day notice to quit from the Serco accommodation and we would look to secure suitable accommodation when requested to do so.
As a result, we have been in contact with private sector landlords to source potential accommodation for those individuals.”
And to the surprise of absolutely no one, everyone’s favourite multinational contractor, Serco, is at the fore. Having won a £2.9 billion Home Office contract in 2019 to source migrant accommodation, they have been filling hotels up and down the country, often amidst uproar from local residents.
Bassetlaw District Council can try to pass the buck as much as it likes, but it is most certainly involved in the dispersal of migrants throughout its community—it just happens to be for the long term as opposed to the short term, which, of course, is even worse.
It’s all so tiresome. The councils defend their inaction by citing that they have a legal duty to house migrants who are given leave to remain in the UK. While this may be the case, it brings into question the purpose of local representation when politicians perpetually ignore the wishes of their constituents, as we have seen time and time again with migrant dispersion.
As for Labour and the Tories, we can thank them for the current mess we find ourselves in. Years of uncapped immigration has wreaked havoc with communities up and down the country and is the main contributor to the current housing crisis. Even those with only the most basic understanding of economics should be able to grasp the notion of supply and demand; when the number of houses can’t keep up with the ever-rising population, young Brits are then priced out of the housing market. It’s no wonder, then, that these are the people most disillusioned with the establishment parties.
Something has to change. The British people have made it clear that they don’t want their communities fractured by endless migration, but their locally elected officials are letting them down. If laws and legalities work to harm our people, they need to be changed.
Community politics is at the heart of everything the Homeland Party does. Any Homeland members elected into office will always put their constituents first.
We believe elected officials have a moral duty to challenge laws that facilitate outcomes that will harm the social fabric of the communities they represent. When policies disrupt homogenous communities, straining local resources and altering cultural identities, representatives must ask whether these policies serve the common good.
True democratic representation requires prioritising the long-term well-being of constituents and ensuring laws align with ethical responsibilities to protect social cohesion, heritage, and the values that bind a community together. Laws that fail in this respect should not be passively accepted but actively challenged.
