No 10 pays £1m to pro-migrant charity that calls UK borders ‘systematically racist’

The Government is funding a pro-migration advocacy group that believes UK borders are “systemically racist”, The Telegraph can disclose.

Charity Commission accounts show that the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF), a Left-wing charity, received £1.36 million in government grants since 2020.

In that time, the foundation has given grant money to campaign groups such as Hope Not Hate, which has claimed that “government rhetoric around immigration is moving more and more in line with the extreme anti-migrant views of the far Right”.

Other groups that received the money include Stop Funding Hate, which led an unsuccessful advertiser boycott campaign against GB News in 2021, and Detention Action, which is currently pursuing a court case against the Government’s Rwanda deportation plan.

‘A stain on our collective moral conscience’

The PHF was established in 1987 to support “general charitable purposes”, including literacy programmes in Mexico and performances at the Royal Opera House.

Lord Hamlyn of Edgeworth, its eponymous founder, made his fortune as a book publisher and, upon his death in 2001, donated much of his wealth to the foundation.

The endowment fund created by this gift remains the main source of funding for projects that the foundation supports, and in 2022 had a total worth of almost £900 million.

The PHF also receives support from government grants, which it uses as part of its Act for Change fund.

This money is used to support campaigns such as the Kent Refugee Action Network, which has described the Government’s approach to refugees as “a stain on our collective moral conscience”, and the Phoenix Education Trust which helps teachers and pupils focus on “anti-racist culture creation & decolonising in school”.

No 10 ‘stokes far-Right anti-migrant activity’

Moira Sinclair, the PHF’s chief executive, is also the current chairman of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Leadership Board. Leticia Ishibashi, the PHF’s head of migration, worked with Sadiq Khan and the Greater London Authority to provide greater services for London’s migrant communities.

The PHF believes that the current immigration system has its “roots in colonial enterprise and racially hierarchical worldviews”, and is “increasingly militarised, systemically racist and discriminatory against women and other groups… [and] shaped by populist narratives”.

It has accused Number 10 of “stoking far-Right, anti-migrant activity” through its new Illegal Migration Bill, which is aimed at stopping small boats from crossing the Channel.

Documents on the group’s website also claim that the current immigration system is dysfunctional because the Government’s “response to Black Lives Matter downplays [the] role of structural racism” in UK institutions and that there is a “lack of diversity in the media”.

‘Influencing policy or legislation’

Through its funding, it aims to create “a wider social justice movement” that can overhaul UK border policy and “influence policy or legislation”.

This includes providing financial support for the academic work of a member of the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), the quango set up by New Labour to provide the Home Office with “transparent, independent and evidence-based advice”.

Madeleine Sumption, the director of the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, has been a member of the committee since 2016.

Compas, her academic outfit, was the beneficiary of a 10-year funding grant from the PHF and will have received at least £2 million by 2028.

Ms Sumption also supports other projects funded by the PHF, including Reunite Families UK, where she serves as an advisory board member.

Reunite Families UK campaigns for easier visa routes for family members of migrants, and has said migrants are being “used as a pawn in a war of increasingly hostile and outright racist policies by the Government”.

Earlier this year, she spoke at a meeting organised by Migrant Voice, which received £200,000 from the PHF.

The event was entitled A Better Deal for Migrants, and attendees sought to “discuss tactics, messaging and how we can learn from other campaigns” to change the visa and immigration system.

Migrant Voice is an outspoken critic of the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill, saying that it perpetuates “increasingly toxic, misleading rhetoric on migrants”.

A Home Office document, seen by The Telegraph, showed the influence that the MAC has on policymakers’ decision-making, with officials saying they “would be guided by the Migration Advisory Committee… on any required changes” to the immigration system that sought to bring overall numbers down.

Sir John Hayes, the chairman of the Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs said: “The UK can’t afford to be governed by unelected quangos like the MAC. It’s time the Government closed this quango down and saved the taxpayer a tonne of cash.

“This would give ministers a chance to control our borders and lower the numbers coming into the country.”

Pauline Latham, a Tory MP and member of the Commons international development committee, said: “The Government needs to axe the MAC and free ministers to do what they think is best for the country, and what we were elected by the British public for.”

Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that net migration reached a record 606,000 in 2022. But last year, the MAC urged Downing Street not to focus on tackling the number of people entering the country.

It said in its annual report: “We would caution the Government in becoming too focused on particular net migration numbers, and any change in objective would need to be consistent with the fiscal rules that the Government have in place.”

The same report also urged ministers to adopt a new rural visa programme to boost migration in the countryside, saying: “It is in the interest of the UK Government to pilot and evaluate a rural visa targeted at areas facing depopulation.”

In 2021, the MAC urged ministers “to review the ban on employment for asylum seekers” who have arrived in the country illegally, and claimed “there is clear evidence of the harm that this causes”.

This is despite concerns that such a move would be a further pull factor and help the business model of people smugglers.

A Department for Culture, Media & Sport spokesman said: “Charity law permits campaigning by charities that is in line with their charitable purposes, provided they do so in a non-party-political way.

“Where concerns are raised that a charity is acting outside of its charitable purposes, or is acting in a politically partisan way, then the Charity Commission can investigate impartially and take regulatory action where appropriate.”

The Home Office was contacted for comment.