{"id":222255,"date":"2023-08-13T00:02:57","date_gmt":"2023-08-12T18:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=222255"},"modified":"2023-08-13T00:02:57","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T18:32:57","slug":"uks-suella-braverman-under-pressure-over-housing-migrants-on-floating-vessel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2023\/08\/13\/uks-suella-braverman-under-pressure-over-housing-migrants-on-floating-vessel\/","title":{"rendered":"UK\u2019s Suella Braverman under pressure over housing migrants on floating vessel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

London, Aug 12 (PTI) UK’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman is under mounting pressure on Saturday over the government\u2019s plan to house asylum seekers on a large barge docked in south-west England after the first set of migrants had to be removed just days after being moved in over a dangerous bacteria outbreak.<\/p>\n

The Bibby Stockholm, a floating vessel docked at Portland in Dorset, opened to its first set of migrants earlier this week amid controversy as human rights groups questioned its suitability as a long-term accommodation.<\/p>\n

However, the government insisted that it was an essential part of its plans to address the soaring taxpayer-funded hotel bills to house migrants while their asylum claims are processed.<\/p>\n

But on Friday it emerged that bacteria which causes legionnaires\u2019 disease, a kind of pneumonia, was found in the water supply and all 39 migrants had to be moved out to alternate accommodation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe health and welfare of asylum seekers remains of the utmost priority. All asylum seekers accommodated on the Bibby Stockholm have now been disembarked as a precaution and moved to alternative accommodation,\u201d a UK Home Office spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Home Office and our contractors are following all protocol and advice from Dorset Council\u2019s environmental health team, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Dorset NHS who we are working closely with,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

It has triggered a barrage of criticism, including from within Braverman\u2019s own Conservative Party, with some dubbing it a farce.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is deeply troubling, and rapidly turning into a farce that the Home Office can ill afford,\u201d Tory MP Tim Loughton, a former minister, told \u2018The Daily Telegraph\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the importance of the project, it was important that every risk assessment was performed before the people were put on the barge. Given the delays, there are serious questions as to why they were not done and what comeback there is on the contractors or whoever is responsible for signing it off for habitation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Scott Benton, a former Conservative MP who now sits as an independent, took to social media to describe the barge as a “complete and utter farce”.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs if having porous borders isn\u2019t bad enough, we can\u2019t even move 39 illegal immigrants onto a barge properly,\u201d he tweeted.<\/p>\n

The Opposition Labour Party has also been mounting the pressure, with shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock posing the question on Twitter: “Has anyone seen Suella Braverman?” “The government has very serious questions to answer on this, particularly around how much they knew about the risk or actual presence of legionella when they chose to press ahead with sending the asylum-seekers on to the barge,” the Labour MP said.<\/p>\n

Campaigners from groups such as \u201cNo To The Barge\u201d have also called for UK immigration minister Robert Jenrick to stand down from his government position after declaring just earlier this week that the barge was \u201cperfectly decent accommodation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s Fire Brigades Union reacted to the news of migrants being temporarily removed from the Bibby Stockholm to reiterate their own safety concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Fire Brigades Union warned the Home Secretary that forcibly holding migrants on this barge was a huge health and safety risk. We wrote to Suella Braverman more than a week ago to demand a meeting to discuss these issues,\u201d said Ben Selby, FBU assistant general secretary.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt remains our professional view that it’s a potential death trap and an accident waiting to happen. However, Suella Braverman and her ministerial colleagues are hellbent on confining vulnerable people in jail-like conditions on what is effectively a prison ship. This outbreak of Legionella suggests that it’s only a matter of time before either lives are lost or there is serious harm to a detainee,” he said.<\/p>\n

The evacuation comes as the number of migrants crossing the English Channel illegally on small boats crossed 100,000 since 2018.<\/p>\n

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made \u201cstop the boats\u201d one of his government\u2019s top priorities as he pledged to clamp down on migrants landing up on the country\u2019s shores illegally and facilitating their swift removal through so-called returns agreements with European countries such as Albania. PTI<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London, Aug 12 (PTI) UK’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman is under mounting pressure on Saturday over the government\u2019s plan to house asylum seekers on a large barge docked in south-west England after the first set of migrants had to be removed just days after being moved in over a dangerous bacteria outbreak. The Bibby Stockholm, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-222255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}