The Bibby Stockholm is facing a ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ moment

It’s one year since it was revealed that the Bibby Stockholm barge would be used to contain refugees and asylum-seekers in Britain. So, Berlin-based artist Katherine Kannon and Dorset solicitor Nigel Turner have worked together to adapt Katherine’s poster of Dorset landmarks. The artwork now includes the barge, shown just off Portland and labelled “Dorset’s Shame”:

The Bibby Stockholm: a year of opposition

Art can be a powerful way to draw attention and invite questions. In a move reminiscent of the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the aim is to sell the posters to mark this anniversary and raise funds for displaying the Dorset print on three billboards around Weymouth and Portland.

Turner said:

When I first saw Katherine’s original Dorset poster, I was struck by the fact that Portland was front and centre of the image. It seemed right to adapt the poster to highlight the Bibby Stockholm as an unwelcome local landmark.

I dealt extensively with Dorset Council last year on this case, and my impression is that they gave up the fight before it started, despite having voted against the barge in July 2023.

On 3 April 2023, it was revealed that the Home Office intended to deploy the Bibby Stockholm as a way to contain asylum-seekers (people who are here legally because their asylum claims are already being processed).

Even the local Conservative MP, Richard Drax, said the use of the barge would be “totally and utterly out of the question”. Since then, the vessel has been the focus of local and national anger.

On 13 July 2023, at a full council meeting, Dorset Council passed the following motion (one councillor described the agreement with the Home Office as ‘a devil’s deal’):

That this council condemns the commercial agreement between the Home Office and Portland Port for the mooring of the Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate up to 500 asylum seekers at this location. That the mooring of the barge in Portland Port is an entirely inappropriate location and should be removed at the earliest opportunity…

Portland residents objected to the Home Office’s lack of consultation ahead of the decision to place the barge there.

An example of quasi-detention

Nevertheless, it arrived in Portland on 18 July 2023 after months of extensive repairs in Falmouth. The Bibby Stockholm was briefly operational for five days in August 2023. However, the small on-board cohort was then evacuated due to the discovery of Legionella in the barge’s water system.

The Bibby Stockholm has been labelled performatively cruel and a method of quasi-detention. Indeed, there have been suicide attempts on board and one Albanian man, Leonard Farruku, died apparently by suicide in December 2023. That same month, 65 charities wrote an open letter demanding the closure of the Bibby Stockholm barge.

In August 2023, the Fire Brigades Union launched a legal challenge over fire safety concerns on board the Bibby Stockholm. And in October 2023 and February 2024, Portland mayor Carralyn Parkes asked the High Court for a judicial review of the decisions, by the Home Office and Dorset Council respectively, not to seek or enforce planning permission at the site (decision pending).

The Bibby Stockholm: the fight continues

The site has drawn protest visits from far-right and neo-Nazi groups. Locally, anti-immigrants have said:

• Residents should be fed into an incinerator.
• The Bibby Stockholm should be bombed.
• It should be set on fire (with everyone in it).
• The barge should be cut adrift.
• There should be a ‘weekly death count’ of its residents.

According to the fire risk assessment drawn up by CTM (the barge operator), the barge is now on 24/7 arson watch.

Despite the Home Office’s claim that the barge was being used to save money on hotels, the National Audit Office has stated that it is considerably more expensive than hotels – the barge will have cost £34.8m over its 18-month initial operation.

High-quality A3 prints of the copyrighted artwork can be purchased for £30, including P&P, by contacting nigelturner[at]westbournecreative.co.uk All proceeds will go to support the Three Billboards campaign.

Featured image via the University of Birmingham, and additional image supplied