A resident contacted me recently to express their concerns about a post on the Blackhall Have Your Say Facebook page in which misleading terminology was used to imply that the government had somehow come up with an ‘official’ policy to house ‘illegal’ immigrants in places like Blackhall Colliery. The person publishing the post then goes on to ask if local residents agree with a policy which doesn’t actually exist.
Given the issues raised in the post it can only be assumed that the person publishing it intended to either deliberately mislead the public and unsettle the community - or the post was published in complete ignorance of the facts.
It will be glaringly obvious of course to anyone with even the most basic grasp of politics that the content of the post itself was complete rubbish. Even if it wanted to, no government could even begin the process of establishing official policy based on something illegal - simply because it would be illegal!
With that in mind it’s likely that the post was circulated for no purpose other than to create alarm, suspicion and division in our village - and there’s a reason why.
When organisations like Reform UK and their allies in the Thatcherite wing of the Tory party have no policies or ideas of any substance their supporters tend to go low and seek to generate discord and fear in our communities instead. It’s intended as a distraction, but it can only work when there’s a void left behind after the facts have been concealed.
Unfortunately alarmist posts about 'illegal' immigrants do tend to get traction on social media, simply because no one bothers to challenge the misleading information or question the terminology used. Perhaps worse, it also works against anyone who might have genuine concerns about community safety and cohesion. We've all heard the tale about the boy who cried wolf.
So in order to get the facts out I’ve published below a response I received to a query from a resident who had asked recently how many immigrants had been housed in Blackhall.
The fake news agents might not like what follows, but it’s factual and it stands up to scrutiny.
**** passed your query over to me as it really isn’t a straightforward one to answer unfortunately.
We can tell you from Census 2021 how many people in Blackhall were born outside of the UK.
We estimate that’s about 57 people out of a population of 2,723 (so around 2% of the resident population). Of course, that’s Census 2021 so doesn’t really answer the question about ‘immigrants moving in to the village recently’.
This is where it gets tricky as it's a really difficult one for us to answer.
I’ve spoken to our Resettlement and Humanitarian Support Manager and can say that we haven’t resettled anyone into that area.
There are publicly available statistics which are available at Immigration system statistics data tables. But they don’t go to LA level never mind any sub LA geography (some of it is by region).
Finally, someone with a right to enter the UK and relevant status could relocate to an area and we simply wouldn't know (several people are living in the east of the County who are international students or living in the UK with a work visa, for example).
I’ve also contacted a colleague in Assessments and Awards to see if there was any way of looking at this via that route, but most would probably be claiming UC** and we wouldn’t see any immigration status on a claim. Potentially we could look at new accounts and cross reference with the Resettlement team but as I said earlier, I’ve already been in touch with them and they haven’t resettled anyone in that area recently.
I’ll keep digging to see what I can find. There is possibly a flag in GP practice medical records that relates to migrant status. I’ve asked a colleague at NECS about it. It might be useful although not all non-UK residents will be registered with a GP either.
**it should be noted that illegal immigrants cannot claim Universal Credit or any other benefits.
