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Labour wants to reopen a controversial refugee detention centre – but people are fighting back
Apr 6, 2025
After 25 years of local and national protests, Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, finally closed its doors in December 2018.
Opposition to it had been strong, and from the day the detention centre opened in 1993, a monthly demo took place outside its main gates, attracting all types of people, including Jeremy Corbyn and Anneliese Dodds.
Run for the Home Office by a private company called Mitie, Campsfield was mired in controversy and its closure was a huge victory not only for campaigners, but also for human rights.
Its closure was hastened by the publication of a report into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons, known as the Shaw Review, which not only exposed the inhumane treatment taking place in the UK’s immigration system, but also found that detention in itself was harmful.
The review recommended that immigration detention should be used as a last resort, and the government promised to reduce the number of people held in these centres by up to 40% from 2015 numbers.
Campsfield House: first the Tories, then Labour make plans to re-open it
So campaigners, who had spent years fighting alongside Campsfield detainees and witnessed the human cost of the place, were understandably heartbroken when Boris Johnson announced plans, less than four years later, to reopen the immigration detention centre.
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