Suella Braverman 'desecrating' RAF base used by Dambusters with asylum plan

03 May 2023 , 13:59

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Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron were based at RAF Scampton (Image: Getty Images)

A Tory big beast today accused Home Secretary Suella Braverman of “riding roughshod” over opposition to housing Channel migrants at the Dambusters’ RAF base.

The Government wants to place refugees at the mothballed RAF Scampton base in Lincolnshire.

The airfield was where Lancasters from Bomber Command’s 617 Squadron led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson launched their famous “bouncing bomb” raid on the dams of the Ruhr Valley in May 1943, immortalised in the 1955 film starring Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave.

More recently, it was home to the daredevil Red Arrows, the air force’s Aerobatic Display Team.

But under plans put forward by Tory ministers, it will become home to 2,000 asylum seekers - a move critics say will jeopardise proposals to transform the site.

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The Red Arrows were based at Scampton (PA)

The Government's proposal has triggered a fierce backlash - and Grimsby-born Tory peer Lord Patrick Cormack blasted Mrs Braverman’s bid for the site.

Urging ministers to scrap the plan, the Conservative, who spent 40 years as an MP, told the Upper House: “That is a historic airfield from which 617 Squadron flew in the last war.

“We have plans in Lincolnshire to transform it now the Red Arrows have gone, and to make it both a museum and a site of industrial production of the technological kind.

“And what does the Home Secretary do but ride roughshod over the feelings of local people and desecrate - or plan to desecrate - a lovely part of Lincolnshire?”

Home Office Minister Lord Blidworth insisted the department “listens intently to all representations about the locations of asylum accommodation facilities”.

Lord Cormack accused the Home Secretary of ignoring local views

But he claimed Scampton was “well suited for the purpose of housing asylum seekers”.

He added: “The heritage buildings at Scampton will, of course, be preserved.”

RAF Wethersfield in Essex is also earmarked to accommodate refugees, along with Catterick Garrison in North Yorks.

Ministers are arranging for a barge to be moored at the Isle of Portland, Dorset, to take asylum seekers, while another site in East Sussex site has been chosen to host up to 1,200 people.

But Lord Blidworth refused to reveal how many migrants the Government is braced for hosting in total.

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Wing Commander Guy Gibson led the raid on the Ruhr Valley dams (PA)

Labour frontbencher Lord Vernon Coaker insisted: “Surely the Government must have a figure for the number of migrants, asylum seekers, that it seeks to detain.”

Lord Blidworth said: “The Government will keep the situation under review and see how many places are required.”

He added: “It’s not the Government’s practice to share working policy assumptions in relation to these issues.”

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Ben Glaze