Friends urge ‘Close the Barracks’
‘The submission, based on conversations with people accommodated in the camps, revealed a catalogue of physical and emotional damage.'
Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) is urging Friends to support a campaign calling for the government not to house refugees in disused army barracks.
Sheila Mosley, from QARN, told the Friend that the #CloseTheBarracks campaign centres around a concern that the government plan to continue using Napier Barracks in Folkestone and similar facilities to accommodate people in the asylum system. She said there are ‘deep and evidenced concerns about the physical and psychological damage this is likely to cause to the well-being of people who are sent there’.
Napier Barracks is one of two disused army barracks that was brought back into use to accommodate people seeking asylum in September 2020.
The barracks closed for a short time in spring after a huge Covid outbreak and much criticism from the courts, national and local organisations, and the former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Bolt. However, the Napier camp later reopened and the lease was extended in September for a further five years.
Sheila Mosley said: ‘The government has made a concerted effort to distinguish between two sets of people, in line with the Nationality and Borders Bill: people who are deemed to be refugees, i.e. those who are brought from far places under the government’s own scheme, whom we are assured will not be accommodated at Napier Barracks. However, the public are encouraged to accept the barracks as being suitable accommodation for people who arrive in other ways, such as on the small boats or in lorries etc for whom the hostile environment is intensifying. It is not suitable for anyone seeking asylum to be housed in disused army barracks.’
QARN made a submission in June to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Immigration Detention as part of its enquiry into the UK government’s use of large-scale institutional sites. These include former military barracks and a temporarily ‘de-designated’ Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), as asylum accommodation.
The submission, based on conversations with people accommodated in the camps, revealed a catalogue of physical and emotional damage. It said that many housed there were afraid to speak, claiming that accommodation provider staff had suggested their asylum claims might be delayed or refused as a result. The submission can be read on the QARN website.
The Nationality and Borders Bill is reaching key stages in parliament in December. QARN members put an orange heart in their window on 6 December as part of a national campaign to show that they stand ‘Together With Refugees’.
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