A Green council is poised to use taxpayer cash to help stop Home Office raids which deport illegal migrants from Britain.
Multiple Green-run councils across London have already vowed to stop cooperating with the department when its teams are active in the capital.
But now, Hackney Council could fund a “public information campaign” advising illegal workers on how to resist the raids.
The Home Office has confirmed the raids are “vital to root out unscrupulous employers and disrupt illegal workers abusing the system”.
But Seema Syeda, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said the charity is “working with Hackney Council to potentially do a public information campaign” against them, the Mail revealed.
On stage at Zack Polanski’s party conference, Ms Syeda said the move would see the council “share information to people about their rights and how they can resist raids” – at the taxpayer’s expense.
Elsewhere on stage, Mr Polanski himself condemned so-called “anti-migrant laws” which he claimed “carve up our communities”.
The Greens are currently congregating in Brighton for the conference – and the south coast city could soon be next to “resist” immigration raids.
Green councillor Nadia Barton Ahmad put forward a motion in the summer to back migrant businesses and those facing raids, but Labour councillors managed to vote it down.
Ms Barton Ahmad said yesterday: “We have local elections here in May, and so we are hoping that within a year we will be able to pass something similar.”
A council run by Zack Polanski’s Greens is poised to use taxpayer cash to help stop Home Office raids
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The Home Office previously said that while it “always wants to join forces with local authorities, their decisions won’t hinder our operations when fighting immigration crime”.
It has overseen an 83 per cent rise in illegal working arrests and a 77 per cent rise in raids between July 2024 and the end of last year.
The Green conference also saw members consider a number of other contentious policy proposals.
Activists are set to vote on one which would would wipe criminal records after five years.
Under the plan, convictions for offences like theft, assault and drug possession would be concealed from Disclosure and Barring Service checks.
The policy would apply to those given prison sentences of under two years or suspended sentences.
THE GREENS TAKE ON THE MIGRANT CRISIS – READ MORE:
A pro-migrant charity is in talks with Zoe Garbett’s Hackney Council to ‘potentially do a public information campaign’
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Shadow safeguarding minister Alicia Kearns warned the Greens now “appear to be criminal apologists.”
Though a Green Party spokesman stressed that any member can submit a motion.
“These do not become policy until they are debated and voted on at conference,” the party said.
The party’s increasingly radical spiral has also triggered internal divisions over a “Zionism is racism” motion.
More centrist, environment-focused Greens are turning away from Zack Polanski’s vision for his movement.
The party’s increasingly radical direction has also triggered internal divisions over a ‘Zionism is racism’ motion
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Caroline Lucas, who was the Greens’ first ever MP, told the BBC: “There is no single definition of Zionism, and irrespective of the intentions of the people who put that motion forward, I think there is a real risk that it’ll be divisive and could be seen as a sign that Jewish people aren’t welcome in the party.
“I will not be supporting it for that reason.”
Former co-leader Adrian Ramsay also opposed the motion, saying it would be “wrong to adopt a policy that could be seen as not supporting the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to statehood”.
Jewish members expressed alarm that Hamas-sympathetic group Friends of Al-Aqsa had endorsed the motion.
One told the Mail: “I’m deeply troubled that my party, a party with its roots in anti-discrimination and non-violence, is getting support for a divisive motion from outside groups and individuals with a problematic history of hatred towards Jews.”
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