MORT IN A STORM

A former prison, newly designated as an Immigration Removal Centre, will be officially opened by Immigration Minister Damian 'Bad Omen' Green on Friday 1st June. Right-leaning media representatives will be welcome of course at the big opening event which starts at 10am - but not so protesters for liberty and human rights, who should certainly not consider trying to voice any dissent when the press meet the Minister at 11.30.

Previously an RAF base, Morton Hall in Swinderby near Lincoln has operated as a prison since 1985. Plans to change it's purpose seemed dashed last summer when it was announced that the government could not afford the high costs of locking up yet more refugees and migrants.  But the Con-Dem coalition has now miraculously found the money, presumably from savings made from  cutting public services.

Detention Action and other organisations have been campaigning against the expansion of detention. In a joint letter to the Immigration Minister last year, 25 organisations criticised the Morton Hall plans in the light of the UKBA's "inefficient and damaging" use of existing detention centres and called for a moratorium on expansion.

* See www.detentionaction.org.uk and www.ncadc.org.uk