Lewisham council, led by the Green party, is set to vote on a motion that would prohibit its officials from cooperating with the Home Office on immigration raids. The move follows the discovery of an email in which Home Office immigration enforcement officials requested assistance with joint operational visits, including potential use of environmental health data to target restaurant workers.
Details of the motion
The motion, expected to pass at a meeting next Wednesday, would review the council's systems to end any cooperation with government deportation efforts. The Greens hold 40 of the 54 seats on the council, ensuring a likely victory.
Background and context
The email from 2023, seen by the Guardian, shows a Home Office official contacting the council's food standards team: "I am trying to establish some contacts within the council of whom we as a team can share findings with that may be of interest to the Local Authorities. Also with the possibility of carrying out joint operational visits."
Lewisham became a "sanctuary borough" in May 2021 under Labour, welcoming all migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. The Green party now aims to create a "green crescent" of sanctuary boroughs across London.
Political reactions
Zack Polanski, Green party leader, said: "I'm proud of brave, compassionate Green councils in London working to create a corridor of sanctuary where nobody, no matter where they're from or what papers they have, has to live in fear of being snatched away from the place they call home."
A Home Office spokesperson stated: "While all immigration enforcement visits are intelligence-led, we make no apology for joining forces with local authorities to enable information sharing and ultimately fighting criminals who fuel immigration crime."
Impact and statistics
Since Labour took office two years ago, immigration raids have increased to historic levels. The Home Office reported a 77% increase in raids on businesses like nail bars, car washes, barbers, and takeaways since the 2024 election, with an 83% rise in arrests. However, the effectiveness of such raids is debated.
Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, said: "There is evidence that workplace enforcement makes employers think twice about hiring people without the right to work. But with an unauthorised population likely in the high hundreds of thousands, raids can only ever touch a small share of the businesses involved, and reporting has tended to suggest that they remain expensive, resource-intensive and reliant on tipoffs of variable quality."
Broader implications
The review will also examine contracts with organisations that have facilitated raids, such as the homelessness charity St Mungo's, which apologised in 2019 for sharing information about migrant rough sleepers with the Home Office. The Greens won sweeping victories in the May local elections, partly by attracting progressive voters angered by Labour's migration policies, and now run councils in Southwark, Haringey, Hackney, Lewisham, Lambeth, and Waltham Forest.
