P.s. I didn't realise when writing this thread, but our conscientious migration policy group actually have their own dedicated website where all our migration policy is publicly available: migration.greenparty.org.uk
You can read our actual manifesto – the policies we're proposing for this parliament – on our website.
And if you want to read the Policies for a Sustainable Society and judge for yourself? Join the party. It costs as little as £1 a month. We'll show you everything.
join.greenparty.org.uk
That was in one of the most deprived constituencies in England, where 45% of children live below the breadline. Not a wealthy liberal enclave. A community that has been failed by decades of two-party politics.
They heard the attacks. They read the policy. They voted Green.
One more thing.
Every party and every right-wing outlet weaponised this policy in Gorton and Denton. The Mail, GB News, Reform, Labour – they all attacked it.
Hannah Spencer won with 40.7% of the vote. A majority of 4,402. The Greens' first ever by-election victory.
So when Reform calls our policy "reckless and dangerous" and Labour calls it "financially reckless" – compared to what?
Twenty years of limbo? A deportation agency that kills people?
Compassion is the practical choice. Cruelty is the reckless one.
Reform wants an ICE-style deportation agency modelled on the American system.
Since September, ICE agents have shot 14 people and killed two US citizens. 24 further deaths in custody. Children as young as five taken into ICE custody.
That's what they call "taking back control."
Now let's look at what the critics are actually proposing.
Labour wants asylum seekers to wait TWENTY YEARS before they can apply to settle permanently. Twenty years in which you can never fully plan your life, never feel secure, never truly belong.
A compassionate system isn't a naive one. Our policy includes exclusions – applications can be rejected on grounds of serious crime or threats to national security.
But migration is a human reality, not a criminal offence. That shouldn't be controversial.
…press wants to engage with:
Restrictive immigration systems don't prevent migration. They make it more dangerous, more permanent, and less manageable.
When you can't leave and return legally, you don't leave. The current system creates the problems it claims to solve.
For people already here without documentation – often the most vulnerable in our society – it means support to regularise their status. To come INTO the system. To pay taxes, access services, and stop living in fear.
Our policy recognises these people exist.
Here's the deeper point nobody in the…
After five years of living, working, and contributing here, you can apply for settled status. Your children born in the UK are British citizens. Once citizenship is granted, it can't be stripped away.
A country where people put down roots, not live in permanent precarity.
It means removing income requirements that currently let wealthy migrants in while shutting out people with just as much to offer.
And replacing language requirements with free language classes – investing in integration rather than using it as a gatekeeping tool.
It means students with a genuine offer from a recognised institution get a visa to study – and three years afterwards to find work, so we're not training people and then forcing them to leave.
Workers with a confirmed job get a visa to work. Simple as that.
So what does a humane system look like in practice?
It means anyone arriving gets a three-month visitor visa — time to find their feet, time to apply for the right visa if they want to stay. Visa fees charged at cost, not inflated to create a profit-making barrier.
The full sentence: "The Green Party wants to see a world without borders, until this happens the Green Party will implement a fair and humane system of managed immigration where people can move if they wish to do so."
We're proud of that aspiration. And we're honest about the pathway to get there.
So what does the policy actually say? Let's go through it.
The opening line is: "The Green Party wants to see a world without borders."
This is where every hostile journalist stops reading. But the sentence doesn't stop there.
Our manifestos – the policies we actually propose for each parliament (up to five years) – are derived from this document. They are not the same thing.
The Mail knows this. A party spokesperson told them so. They ran the story anyway, days before the Gorton and Denton by-election. Funny, that.
The Green Party is the only UK party with a long-term vision for the world we want to see, written and updated by our membership – our Policies for a Sustainable Society.
No other party publishes anything like it. Either because they don't have aspirations or because they hide them.
Calling a member-approved conference motion an "internal document" is designed to make you think we're hiding something.
We're not. We're the most transparent party in British politics. That's exactly what the Mail finds so threatening.
First, the "internal documents" claim.
Our migration policy was voted on by members at conference in spring 2023. It was on our website for years. It moved behind a members-only login because journalists kept misrepresenting it as our manifesto.
It isn't. It never was.
The Daily Mail has said it obtained "internal documents" revealing the Green Party's migration policy.
As a long-term Green Party activist, I'm very familiar with the actual policy. And what the Mail describes and what the document says are two very different things.
A thread 🧵
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Perhaps I'm missing something, but you're responding to a post in which I've said, "Portugal decriminalised drugs", and then proceeded to state a percentage of people who are still prosecuted for drug offences… 🤷🏻♂️
Absolutely! Feel free to reproduce, tweak etc as you see fit! 🙏🏻
Every element is drawn from policies that already work in the real world.
The only truly radical position is continuing to do what we know has failed – and expecting different results. /end
Green Party drugs policy isn't about being soft on drugs. It's about being smart on drugs.
Take the market out of criminal hands. Make drug use safer when it happens. Get people help when they need it. Focus police on the traffickers causing real harm.
Now ask yourself: who actually benefits from prohibition?
The war on drugs has run for over 50 years. Drug use hasn't fallen. Drug deaths are at record levels. Organised criminals are richer than ever.
The only winners are the ones selling unregulated drugs.
Major political parties, police and health professionals in Portugal continue to support the approach. Not because they're soft on drugs – because the evidence is overwhelming that it works better than what came before.
Portugal decriminalised all drugs 25 years ago. Drug-related deaths fell. HIV infections fell. Prison population for drug offences dropped from over 40% to under 16%.
Drug use has stayed below the European average throughout.
Canada legalised cannabis in 2018. Use among school-age children hasn't increased. Cannabis-related arrests have plummeted.
And illegal dealers? Down from 28% of the market to just 3%.
