Zack Polanski’s migration policies aren’t naive — they are dangerously misleading

In a skilfully written article for The Observer last week, Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green party, spoke movingly of “the people who have lost everything”, waiting in “makeshift migrant camps” in Calais, hoping “that Britain might still honour its word and its values”.

- Jack Straw

Migrants crossing the Channel from France in September 2020.

“We are entering 2026,” he said “with a moral reckoning on our hands. The question is” he continued, are political leaders “brave enough to speak the truth? ‘That immigration is good for this country and that we have a responsibility to protect those failed by global injustice and political neglect.”

Let me, therefore, try a “reckoning” ~ part moral, part political - of Mr Polanski’s policies on asylum and immigration. He is right to assert that “we have a responsibility to protect those failed by global injustice and political neglect”

We do meet our international responsibilities. The message of the Good Samaritan remains one of the most powerful imperatives in our society. Most immigration has been good for this country, but not all.

But it’s at this point that the issue becomes more difficult, regardless of who is in government: Reform, Green and every party in between.

We are a relatively wealthy nation, sixth in most league tables. We are also a small island, with 0.85% of the world’s 8 billion-plus population. For every 1,000 people in the world, eight or nine live in the UK. We are also among the highest densities of population, especially in England.

Our nation’s population has increased by about 10.4 million people, or 18%, since 2000. Most of that was due to net inward migration. In one year alone, albeit an exceptional one - from mid-2023 to mid-2024 ~ net migration added almost 740,000 people. Over the period from 2000, most migrants came by entirely legal routes, but approximately 430,000 were asylum seekers granted protection or other forms of leave.

Our record compared with many countries in the world is exemplary.