Jack Aplin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Get to Know the Bibby Stockholm... - 500+ single adult men crammed onto a barge with a capacity of 222 in normal use (e.g. as accommodation for oil workers) Single rooms: - 2 strangers, sharing an austere metal bunk bed - TV (as mocking and useless as a paperweight: they've been deliberately detuned so they won't pick up anything, to "encourage socialising" apparently) - 1 chair, 1 desk, 1 wardrobe - A window (it's supposed to be able to open; this is touted as a major plus by the barge's owners) - Shower and toilet Slightly larger rooms: - 4 strangers, in 2 bunk beds Communal areas: (Most of the larger ones have been repurposed into dormitories. The thin list below is pretty much all that's left.) - Narrow corridors - TV room with sofas, seating up to 12 people max - Tiny gym - Classroom with seating for perhaps 20, some sort of laptops, and "wifi access" - Bar (off-limits to asylum seekers, and reserved as a "staff lounge") - Multi-faith prayer room - Games room with a pool table and a few chairs - "Outdoor" space surrounded on all four sides by massive walls made up of the 3-storeys of cabins, so you can't see anything other than sky - Canteen dining area (not nearly big enough for 500 people) Other facilities: - Basic meals 3x a day (but note that the canteen seems far too small to seat everyone at once, so presumably there will be shifts coming and going all the time) - Laundry service - On-site nurse 5 days a week - Access to GP if referred by the nurse Beyond the ship: - Airport-style security (metal detectors etc.) - 24/7 guards conducting "robust security checks" - 15ft high fence all around - No pedestrian access to the port or the wider area - Only way to get to Weymouth and beyond is on the occasional shuttle buses - Have to sign register every time they leave The asylum seekers on board are likely to be there between six months and a year or more. They can't work. They will be fed and their clothes washed, but they will have just over a pound a day for absolutely everything else they need. They are expected to spend the overwhelming majority of their time on the barge, where as we've seen there are leisure and learning facilities for maybe 1/10th of people if we're being extremely generous with how we estimate it. It is truly, truly disgusting.