Why did UK scrap Bibby Stockholm, the contentious barge to house migrants?

The UK government led by the newly-elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer has decided to do away with the controversial use of a barge—a long, flat-bottomed boat often used for cargo transportation—to house asylum seekers off the south coast of England.

Scrapping the contentious barge, officially named Bibby Stockholm, is part of the Labour government’s planned overhaul of the UK’s immigration system. Scheduled to be disbanded towards the end of 2024, the measure is expected to save the UK government $26 million next year.

Here’s a quick look at why the barge was put in place in 2023 and how the unusual measure drew widespread condemnation from human rights groups.

Controversial, from day one

Even before its passage, the Illegal Migration Bill—which envisaged the use of the vessel to keep asylum seekers from occupying costly brick-and-mortar accommodations at government expense—drew objections from many British parliamentarians.

Detaining the people who crossed the English Channel in small boats on the proposed barge for an extended period of time would violate the country’s international human rights commitments, they said.

In particular, the British parliament’s joint committee on human rights claimed that the legislation breached “a number of the UK’s international human rights obligations” and risked violating many others.

The Conservative government led by former premier Rishi Sunak introduced the measure to discourage asylum seekers from taking rickety, small boats to reach English shores from northern France.

His decision came after more than 45,000 people crossed the Channel to Britain in 2022, a dangerous trip that takes the lives of “several” asylum seekers every year.

Used as a means to curb migration, the vessel houses up to 500 asylum seekers. Surrounded by 20-foot-high fences and a heavy metal gate, the barge has 222 cabins on three levels.

University of Cambridge Professor Irit Catz called the barge a “floating concentration camp” that’s an “appalling disgrace” and one of the “most horrid examples of refugee architecture worldwide”.

The UK’s Fire Brigades Union (FBU) termed the barge a “death trap” and “another accident waiting to happen”.

“Vessels like this are not designed for large numbers like this,” said an FBU official, noting that the government was bent upon using the barge for more than double the original capacity of 222 people.

“Our main concerns are focused around those large numbers trying to pass through narrow doorways… narrow corridors,” he said.

According to a parliamentary report, the government was spending $7.2 million a day on hotel accommodation for asylum seekers in October 2022. However, the value of the contract given to an Australian travel firm for procuring and managing the barge was more than $2 billion.

Local resistance

Area residents had raised serious objections to the vessel's mooring in their neighbourhood, saying the local community wasn’t consulted.

Public representatives warned that asylum seekers faced “claustrophobic” conditions on the barge. Parliamentarians reported they were “disheartened” to see some of the living conditions on the vessel. They found “many individuals having to share small, cramped cabins” originally designed for one person.

“These crowded conditions were clearly contributing to a decline in mental health for some of the residents, and they could amount to violations of the human rights of asylum seekers,” said Dame Diana Johnson, chair of the Home Affairs Committee consisting of cross-party parliamentarians, after visiting the barge.

Just a few days after the first group of asylum-seeking men moved onto the floating hostel last year, authorities found legionella bacteria in the vessel’s water system, resulting in a temporary evacuation. One asylum seeker died in the aftermath.

The recent decision to disband the barge has been described as “fantastic news” by the area’s newly elected member of parliament from the Labour Party.

A global problem

According to the UN refugee agency, there were more than 167,000 asylum seekers in the UK at the end of 2022.

Worldwide, an estimated 117.3 million people remained forcibly displaced at the end of 2023, mainly because of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, and events seriously disturbing the public order. 

Based on operational data, the UN refugee body estimates that forced displacement continued to increase in the first four months of 2024 and was likely to have exceeded 120 million by the end of April.

The number of displaced people has increased every year for 12 straight years, with one in every 69 people on earth currently facing forced displacement, according to the UN.