THE Manston immigration processing camp opened in February on the site of former RAF barracks in Kent.

Built originally to house around 1,000 asylum-seekers for up to 24 hours while a decision was made whether to detain or release, the camp was seen as a significant upgrade to the Port of Dover’s chaotic Tug Haven site.

For around six months, the system worked as intended, with “outflow” — the number of people leaving — matching “inflow.” 

But over the summer, with a government in paralysis during the Tory leadership contest and cross-Channel crossings increasing, the conditions at Manston took a turn for the worse.

Inflow went up, outflow went down, and the population size soon soared to 3,000 — larger than any British prison — crowded into an ever-growing number of rapidly erected giant marquees. Some detainees started waiting weeks for a decision as to their fate.

By early October, the POA were so worried about the safety and working conditions of their members and the capacity to provide proper care for residents that they went public.

In a widely covered press release, the union warned that the situation at Manston was like “a pressure cooker coming to the boil with a jammed release valve” — highlighting days in which the camp had “run out of food and drinking water.”

Announcing it would write to the chief inspector of prisons, the POA continued: “We are informed the marquees are crowded, levels of bedding on site have become inadequate, laundry facilities are inadequate, cleaning regimes are not adhered to as the number of residents does not drop to allow cleaning teams to attend” and, even more worryingly, “issues have been raised around high levels of condensation within the marquees that has led to mould and bacteria developing.”

Within a fortnight, the camp was seeing outbreaks of diphtheria, norovirus and scabies, with unconfirmed reports of foot-and-mouth disease too.

Speaking on a POA podcast, assistant general secretary Andy Baxter recounted his recent two-day visit to Manston, which he called “a humanitarian crisis on British soil.”

Residents were sleeping on pieces of cardboard laid on top of plywood floors, Baxter told listeners, charging: “The government have been asleep on duty, preoccupied by their own internal issues.”

Manston would be holding over 5,000 people by mid-November, he predicted, pointing out there was no plan for what to do with them all.

“Are we really saying that 5,000 people will be housed in tents through a British winter?” he wondered, incredulously.

Protests soon started to break out, with Baxter telling the Morning Star that a peaceful sit-in by 60 detainees in late October was “a further sign of increasing tensions” at the camp.

The inspectorate had by now taken notice, with the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, visiting the site on October 24 .

Giving evidence to MPs on the home affairs committee two days later, Neal painted a distressing picture of the “pretty wretched conditions” at the camp, admitting he had been left speechless at what he saw — “and I am not normally speechless. I immediately arranged to speak to His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, which I did, and I wrote to the Home Secretary on Monday night to alert him to the situation,” referring to Grant Shapps, who was in post during Suella Braverman’s brief six-day break from the role.

Neal continued: “I spoke to an Afghan family who had been in a marquee for 32 days. That is in probably the same type of marquee that you saw in the summer, with kit mats on the floor and blankets, for 32 days.”

Committee chair Dame Diana Johnson, Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull North, asked: “If the numbers continue to rise and the outflow is considerably smaller than the numbers coming in, at what point does this cease to be a place that is safe and can be run properly?”

Neal simply replied: “I think we have passed that point.”

At the same session, Dan O’Mahoney, who as director of the Clandestine Channel Threat Command is responsible for the government’s operational response to small-boat migration, was questioned by Stuart C McDonald (SNP, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Kirkintilloch East) about the legality of processing delays in Manston, with the MP asking: “Given the fact that it is a short-term holding facility, how long does that give the Home Office the right to detain somebody? Is it 48 hours? Is that correct?”

O’Mahoney replied that, in fact, “the short-term holding facilities rules allow for 24 hours,” to which McDonald pointed out: “We must be talking about hundreds — possibly four figures — who have been detained illegally, because they have been there for more than 24 hours,” adding that, “presumably, all of these people are going to be entitled to compensation at some point for illegal detention.”

According to that weekend’s Sunday Times, Home Secretary Braverman had received advice at least three weeks previously “warning that migrants were being detained for unlawfully long periods” at Manston, and that government sources said “she was also warned by officials that the Home Office had no chance of defending a legal challenge and the matter could also result in a public inquiry if exposed.”

The paper added that, “in claims fiercely disputed by the Home Secretary, it is alleged that after receiving legal advice about Manston, she refused to solve the problem by securing new hotels for the asylum-seekers to be transferred to” — leading the POA to seek urgent assurances from the Home Office that all members on site would remain free from any personal liability for any illegal decisions around extended detention.

The day after the select committee session, Dame Diana secured an urgent question in the Commons chamber about the situation at Manston.

Answering on behalf of an absent Home Secretary, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick claimed that “the basic needs of arrivals are provided for at the site, including hot food, fresh clothing, toilet facilities, sanitary packs and medical care.”

However, the committee chair quoted the previous day’s evidence to the minister, pointing out that “detainees are being guarded by people described by the chief inspector as not appropriately trained — and he further warned of a risk of fire, infection and disorder spreading within the facility.” 

Dame Diana also warned that there was a “serious question about the legality of detaining people at the facility for more than 24 hours.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper asked the minister whether he could “confirm that the Home Secretary was previously given options to ease the situation at Manston and refused to act” — which Jenrick refused to answer — while SNP spokesperson Anne McLaughlin told MPs that “the Prison Officers Association’s Andy Baxter has described this as ‘a humanitarian crisis on British soil’,” asking: “How on Earth have we ended up with people sleeping on cardboard, in tents, and with outbreaks of diphtheria and norovirus?”

McLaughlin then raised the issue of unlawful detention, pointing out that “Manston is supposed to be a short-term holding facility — people are not supposed to be there for more than 48 hours.

“Surely that means that people are now being detained illegally in these conditions, so will he tell us, how many people have been detained for more than 48 hours?

“How many claims for unlawful detention is he expecting — and at what cost?”

Again, Jenrick wouldn’t answer, instead asking whether McLaughlin was “suggesting that we just spend millions of pounds more on hotels and that we build more five-star hotels in which to put people who have crossed the Channel?”

It is this kind of black-and-white thinking — that the choice is between five-star luxury and disease-ridden squalor — that lies behind many decisions of this scandal-prone government and Home Secretary.

Thanks to the POA for blowing the whistle, however, Manston appears to be one scandal they can’t cover up any longer.