Labour will keep the Bibby Stockholm asylum barge in use if elected next week, Yvette Cooper has confirmed.
The party has said it cannot end the use of the vessel immediately if it wins the general election, but that it wants to end the need for barges and hotels “as fast as possible”. The shadow home secretary was quizzed about Labour’s plans for Bibby Stockholm, which she has criticised in the past over its “eye watering” cost.
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Asked during a debate on LBC whether she would take asylum seekers off the barge on day one of a Labour government, Ms Cooper said: “No, obviously you can’t do that on day one.
“I think we need to end these extortionate barges, military bases and hotels… we want to do that as fast as possible but what you have to do first of all, the system is broken, so we need to prevent small boats arriving in the first place and that means smashing the criminal gangs.”
Last week, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer refused to say whether he would remove asylum seekers from the Bibby Stockholm if he becomes prime minister.
There are believed to be around 100 men living on board the barge, moored in Portland, Dorset, though the number often fluctuates.
Quizzed about Bibby Stockholm by ITV, Sir Keir said Labour would stop small boats crossing the channel, saying the barge was “an example of the failure of the government”.
But he refused to say he would get rid of it if he became prime minister.
Ms Cooper’s admission is likely to infuriate left-wing voters and MPs on the left of the Labour Party, who have criticised the barge as inhumane.
An Albanian asylum seeker died aboard the vessel in December in a suspected suicide, with his cause of death found to have been compression of the neck caused by suspension by ligature.
Refugee charities at the time called for the barge to be shut down, saying they had long warned about the deteriorating mental health of those on board.
A recent inquiry into life aboard the Bibby Stockholm found residents compared it to being “in prison”, while one said it made them feel like a “zoo animal”.
One employee said they stopped receiving shifts on the barge because they were being friendly to residents.
The discovery of dangerous bacteria led to its evacuation last summer just days after the arrival of the first asylum seekers, and it remained vacant for two months.
Labour is understood to believe the barge should have not been introduced in the first place, but that it cannot immediately scrap the vessel if it inherits it after the election.
The party has outlined plans to roll out a returns unit for asylum seekers arriving in the UK, speeding up the processing of those who can be sent back to safe countries such as India and Albania.
It has also promised a new Border Security Command to use counter-terrorism powers in a bid to tackle the people-smuggling gangs bringing migrants across the channel in the first place.
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