So Lewisham Council has gone and done it. The Greens, now running the show with a thumping majority after May's elections, are steamrolling ahead with a motion to condemn immigration raids and slam the door on any help for the Home Office.
They want council staff to refuse cooperation on licensing, environmental health checks, even police back-up. Officers must scour every data-sharing agreement and build a firewall between local services and immigration enforcement. First step, they say, in carving out a corridor of sanctuary boroughs right across London.
Think about that for a second. A bunch of ideologues in one corner of the capital deciding national borders are optional. The meeting on 15 July got cancelled, but the vote was due the following week and with 40 out of 54 seats in Green hands it will pass. No suspense there.
What actually triggered this latest stunt
According to The Guardian, it all kicked off after they dug up evidence of a 2023 email. The Home Office immigration team had asked Lewisham's food standards section for help on joint visits targeting restaurant workers. Shocking stuff, clearly. Councils helping enforce the law? Can't have that.
The January motion that paved the way, proposed by Green councillors including Cllr Liam Shrivastava, spelled it out: condemn the raids, refuse all assistance, review the data deals, team up with anti-raids groups. Same script, just delayed.
Zack Polanski, the Green bigwig, told The Guardian he is proud of these "brave, compassionate" councils creating a place where nobody lives in fear of being "snatched away from the place they call home". Brave. Compassionate. Those words get thrown around a lot when the priority is shielding people who shouldn't be here in the first place.
