The Minister for Immigration, Robert Jenrick MP, has just announced that the previous RAF Base at Scampton, Lincolnshire, will be used to house Asylum seekers (people that come from other countries to claim asylum in the UK). The Scampton base was previously used as a military base to house pilots and their planes.
The conversion is part of a wider movement to create an alternative to them living in hotels or on the streets. A lot of the asylum seekers are coming from war-torn countries or those struck by terrible disasters such as the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey. The Government has been resorting to more dramatic methods, including the famous Rwanda program, in which immigrants were sent to Rwanda instead of England.
The old RAF base has been around for over 100 years and was also home to the Red Arrows, a symbol for the UK, and the prowess of the air force. This is pertinent as the war in Ukraine has drawn attention to the defence budget and requisitioning an old base could be seen as either a changing of the guard or drawing funding away from the military.
Plans to redevelop the base were made with planned investments of £300 million from West Lindsey District Council. Drama rose within the local community almost immediately after Jenrick said “Today the government is announcing the first tranche of sites we will set up to provide basic accommodation at scale. The government will use military sites being disposed of in Essex and Lincolnshire and a separate site in East Sussex.”
A petition to stop the plans from Lincoln’s Labour candidate, Hamish Garner, has already attained 50,000 signatures. Sir Edward Leigh MP (Gainsborough) vocally expressed his opposition to the plans, having been to PM Rishi Sunak on Monday 27th March to request a delay to the plans. The PM said he could not commit to anything. He had offered barracks in his constituency at Catterick Garrison’s, North Yorkshire, to house refugees.
Jenrick also said that he wanted to take things further, saying, “These will be scaled up over the coming months and will collectively provide accommodation to several thousand asylum seekers through repurposed barrack blocks and portacabins.”
By Malik and Luke
Carre’s Grammar School Newsroom