THE ‘City of Sanctuary UK’ scheme was co-founded by Inderjit Singh Bhogal, a Methodist minister, in 2005 in Sheffield. The aim is to welcome and support refugees.
Its website says: ‘Since then, hundreds of local councils, schools, universities, libraries, theatres and more have been awarded with Sanctuary status, pledging to create a culture of solidarity, inclusivity and welcome.’ Cities which are members of the scheme include Bath, Bristol, Newcastle and Birmingham.
The ball got rolling for the adoption of Sanctuary status by Cumberland Council, a Labour-dominated unitary authority (a district council which also performs the functions of a county council) in September 2024. The Sanctuary move was initiated by activists and a council motion request for adoption. The Conservatives pushed for scrutiny of the idea but the proposal to apply to enter the project was passed last year. No residents were consulted.
On January 13, Conservative councillor Gareth Ellis and an activist group, Cumbria Action, attempted to reject the council’s further push to adopt a wider, wholesale County of Cumberland Sanctuary Status. They failed.
Fast forward to Tuesday March 3 when as a member of the public I attended an ‘open’ council debate to hear a second motion requesting a referendum for the people of Cumbria on adoption of Sanctuary status. The 46 Cumberland councillors (26 Labour, 8 Conservatives, 5 Independents, 4 Liberal Democrats, 3 Greens)
sat in long semi-circular rows. We, the members of the public, filed in one by one, having each been given a numbered raffle ticket (the first 45 attendees who arrived would gain entry) to be seated in the public gallery at one side of the chamber.
A local man had undertaken the intimidating task of addressing the meeting. Josh Kirkwood, early twenties, already a father, dressed smartly in a suit for the occasion.
Josh made his way towards the long council desk adorned with a metal mini microphone box (which never seems to work properly.) He was looking down at his notes, ready to begin. I genuinely admired the courage he needed to muster, especially at his age, in a room filled with majority open borders-loving councillors. He divided the key issues and the objections to them into these sections: The Changes in Our City, The Undocumented Arrivals, The Unrecognisable Streets, Struggles of Local Families, Collapsing Public Services.
Essentially and very depressingly, I was listening to the same set of stories which we all hear replicated around the rest of the UK. For example, one incident highlighted by Josh involved a Sudanese asylum seeker, 28-year-old Hassan Khamis. In August Khamis pleaded guilty at Carlise Crown Court to threatening a man with a kitchen knife in daylight on a street in Carlisle. Noting that Khamis made the threat in a ‘hostile environment’, the judge gave him a suspended sentence. (Khamis failed to keep appointments with the probation service and a warrant was issued for his arrest the following month). This incident, Kirkwood pointed out, happened only streets from his newborn son. He talked of the enormous strains on local council housing, saying that heavily pregnant British women were being housed only just before they gave birth, leaving no time to prepare and create any sort of a decent home environment for the new arrival.
There is a lovely park in Carlisle called Hammond’s Pond where one of my children took part in a sponsored charity run some years ago. Kirkwood said that now families avoid visiting this and other parks because of intimidating behaviour towards women and girls by groups of men who loiter there.
The most vivid example Kirkwood gave was of a man allegedly attacked by an asylum seeker who was now on bail. The constant fear of bumping into your attacker literally adds insult to injury.
Towards the end of his speech, Josh acknowledged the defeat on January 13 and along with it the dismissal by the council of all wider safety concerns and affirmed his motion plea to allow the residents of Cumbria a proper democratic referendum and vote on whether they want to become a so-called ‘County of Sanctuary’.
Councillor Gareth Ellis stood up before any votes were cast to ask for an amendment to the motion, outlined below, and request that all votes be recorded for the public record, adding to an already tense atmosphere.
That Council:
- Notes the petition and the concerns raised.
- Thanks officers and partner agencies for the ongoing work already undertaken to tackle illegal trading and related harms.
- Refers to the Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee the matter of illegal trading, illegal working and associated organised crime impacts on high streets across Cumberland, and requests that the Committee considers whether to undertake a Task & Finish deep dive on this topic and reports via its normal routes.
- In making this referral, Council notes Parliamentary concern that ‘illegal immigration, illegal working and illegal trading too often manifest in the proliferation of dodgy shops on our high street’, and notes recent BBC reporting on alleged organised crime networks facilitating illegal working via high street businesses.
The result? Unsurprisingly every member of Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens voted against the motion and the amendment. Residents are still not going to be consulted, and the courage of one young man attempting to stand up to the juggernaut of ‘local democracy’ goes unrewarded.
