Boris' £500k a Year to Store Migrant Boats

A legal loophole has seen the taxpayer shell out about half a million pounds over the past year in storage costs for the small rubber boats used by people-smugglers to traffick illegal migrants into the United Kingdom

The abandoned dinghies are stored in compounds dubbed the Queen’s Warehouses, as the confiscated materials will become “forfeit to the Crown.” The warehouses are stationed near the Port of Dover, where boat migrants are brought ashore by the Border force.

While they would typically be home to confiscated contraband such as weapons and drugs or customs prohibited items including cigarettes, tobacco, and alcohol, with the massive influx of illegal boat migrants over the past year the warehouses have begun storing the inflatable rubber dinghies used by people smugglers in the illegal migrant trade.

Due to the much larger size of the boats, the cost of storage has ramped up dramatically, with a source telling The Times that it amounts to £500,000 per year to house the boats.

Under Section 26 of the UK Borders Act 2007 and the Immigration Disposal of Property Regulations 2008, the government is required to hold onto confiscated items for at least one year in case someone comes forward to claim them.

The law has effectively prevented the government from selling off the boats or putting them to a better purpose as they are rendered unseaworthy after a year in storage.

Over the past year, no one has come forward to claim a single boat, according to the report, as they are used for one-way passage by the human trafficking gangs.

Under the much-vaunted new Nationality and Borders Bill, which is currently being considered by Parliament, the restriction will no longer apply to “ships or other property”, allowing the government to sell them off to raise money or donate them to organisations such as the Sea Cadets.

The source said that the money could also go to “recouping the costs of running the asylum system”, which has skyrocketed to over £1 billion a year.