Is London getting an asylum barge?
Is London getting an asylum barge?
It’s not clear if the Home Office was serious, or just testing the water
Morning — a plan to house asylum seekers in a barge in London appeared out of nowhere this week. And then it disappeared? We explain what happened after your Sunday briefing below.
Plus: quite a few London MPs have ended up in the spotlight, while LGBTQ+ activists have welcomed a historic first from the Met.
What we’ve spied
🥵 Three London MPs found themselves in trouble this week:
Bambos Charalambous, MP for Enfield Southgate, has been abruptly suspended from the Labour Party in response to a formal complaint. No detail on what he’s accused of, but an investigation is now underway. Charalambous himself has said “it is not appropriate to say anything further at this time”.
As we reported in Thursday’s Spy, Bob Stewart, MP for Beckenham, has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence relating to an incident last year in which he allegedly told a protester to “go back to Bahrain”. Since then Stewart has yet to face any serious repercussions and hasn’t had the Conservative party whip removed.
And of course, Boris Johnson has resigned as an MP. His resignation will trigger a by-election in the west London constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. One last act from Johnson has gone under the radar — he’s given a peerage to former Tory candidate for London mayor Shaun Bailey.
🏳️🌈 The Met has apologised to the LGBTQ+ community for its past failings, a move hailed as a historic first by campaigners. Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley wrote to prominent activist Peter Tatchell, acknowledging the way the force sometimes enforced historic laws that criminalised homosexuality “failed the community” and damaged trust even once those laws were scrapped. Tatchell thanked Rowley “for being the first UK police chief to say sorry for decades-long victimisation”.
🍦 Greenwich could be about to ban ice cream vans from more than 30 streets. Under the council’s new plans, ice cream vans would be banned from trading on more than 20 roads in Woolwich town centre and 13 in the Greenwich area. The King William Walk, a popular tourist spot beside Greenwich Park, is also on the hit list. The council has described the vans as a “nuisance” and says the ban could help improve air quality and reduce noise pollution from “engine idling”.
🚕 Uber has announced that its entire fleet of London vehicles will be electric by 2025. It’s not totally clear how they plan to reach the target, though, and the announcement has caused frustration amongst some drivers, who fear they’ll be forced to foot the bill. Members of the App Drivers & Couriers Union staged a demonstration on Thursday, where they told MyLondon that they felt the measures were "for show" and "won't actually help as Uber is not telling us who is going to pay thousands for us to buy electric cars."
💸 A popular mechanic based in a Hackney railway arch faces eviction after the rent charged by TfL tripled. Len Maloney, who runs JC Motors in Haggerston, has called on Sadiq Khan for a rethink over the price of renting a railway arch. In an open letter to the mayor, he said: “How can TfL justify its policy to maximise profits at the cost of damaging small businesses, their families and their communities?”. His campaign for lower railway arch rent has been backed by the East End Trades Guild, as well as Conservative mayoral hopeful Andrew Boff.
🎡 Plans for a London Eye-style Ferris wheel at Camden Lock have been given the green light. The proposed wheel was approved by Camden Council’s planning committee on Thursday, but the final decision sits with Sadiq Khan. At 131 ft, it'll be pretty huge — about the height of a ten-story building. Still not as tall as the actual London Eye though, which is 443 ft.
🎭 Sarah Jessica Parker is set to make her West End debut alongside her husband in Plaza Suite, a comedy about marriage by Neil Simon. The play transfers from Broadway, where it was enormously successful. The Guardian described it as “a referendum on modern marriage”, which “smuggles in bitter underneath the sweet, like a plate of cream puffs laced with cyanide”, but only gave it three stars. Related: decent reviews for the new Groundhog Day musical that debuted at the Old Vic this week. There’s also a fight brewing over a plan to relocate the English National Opera out of the capital, with the London Assembly making a formal objection this week.
Explained: The plan for a London asylum barge
Mixed messages this week on whether a giant barge to house asylum seekers will be moored in London. The Royal Docks revealed on Thursday that it had been approached by the Home Office about a plan to keep a barge by London City Airport. When the capital’s politicians voiced their opposition, the Home Office denied the plans even existed.
The affair began on Monday, when prime minister Rishi Sunak said the government had acquired two more barges to house asylum seekers, as part of efforts to cut the cost of booking migrants into hotels. A barge is already on the way to Dorset — the Bibby Stockholm, a boat that once housed homeless people and asylum seekers in Germany and the Netherlands. Later this month it’s arriving at Portland Port where it will start housing 500 single adult males claiming asylum in the UK. With an extra two on the way and more expected, speculation began about other sites.
That’s when the Royal Docks management authority let slip that a few weeks ago in May, the Home Office had contacted it about “the feasibility of berthing a cruise ship to house asylum seekers”. The location in mind was the King George V dock, one of three docks managed by the authority in the eastern borough of Newham, by London City Airport. The reason the Royal Docks was now going public was because its board had agreed to oppose the plan. "After investigation, it was concluded that this would not be an appropriate use for the Royal Docks,” a spokesperson said.
Mayor Sadiq Khan also agreed, and wrote a letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman to voice his opposition “in the strongest possible terms”. Though he acknowledged London’s “proud history of providing sanctuary for those seeking refuge”, he wrote he was “deeply concerned” about how those housed on the vessel would have access to the necessary support. He said migrant barges were an extension of the government’s “failed ‘hostile environment’ approach to migration” and that “there is no evidence that the use of such accommodation would act as a deterrent, while in practice it would simply leave large numbers of people in wholly unsuitable conditions”. He also flagged the possibility of the far-right targeting a barge at a “highly visible” location like the King George V dock.
Newham councillors decried it too. "Plans to shove hundreds and hundreds of vulnerable people on moored vessels is symbolic of the policy shambles of this government,” said the mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz. “We have significant concerns about the impact that such living conditions will have on the health and well-being of those seeking asylum, especially children and young people”. Before long it was being reported that London City Airport and the Metropolitan Police also had their concerns.
The Home Office has issued no formal statement in response — any official word was notably absent from BBC and Evening Standard reports. One source at the department did make a passing comment to LBC though: "Sadiq Khan should get on with looking after Londoners, rather than troublemaking. There are no plans for a barge at the Royal Docks.”
If that’s just a bluff, and the plan goes ahead after all, there isn’t much London’s docks, politicians or police can really do about it. Khan doesn’t have to power to veto the barge as mayor, and the government could pass primary legislation to ensure it happens. What’s telling is that Dorset council has announced it's abandoning its legal challenge against the first barge, stating it believed such action was unlikely to succeed and incur high costs to taxpayers. Protests from locals, who say they were never properly consulted on the plans, have fallen on deaf ears.