Polanski brands Labour’s immigration plans ‘performative cruelty’

According to the Times, Labour is planning to restrict migrants from being able to access benefits. In response, the Green Party’s Zack Polanski has labelled their immigration plans “performative cruelty”:

Labour plans to withhold benefits to people who have been granted Indefinite Leave to Remain.

Performative cruelty and total cowardice.

That’s why the Greens will replace Labour. https://t.co/UxqPjdOjG6

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) July 13, 2026

Polanski slams Labour’s “cowardice”

Steven Swinford of the Times noted that so-called ‘Boriswave migrants’ wouldn’t have to wait ten years to be granted indefinite leave under the unveiled plan. At the same time, they’d face a longer wait to be eligible for benefits — which Polanski sharply criticised.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out how this could all go wrong.

If you have a class of people who can’t claim benefits, you have a class of people who will do anything to earn money should they find themselves unemployed. Employers will take advantage of this, and shadow economies will form. Once these shadow economies become established, we’ll find ourselves one step closer to a government which can strip away welfare for all citizens.

Things don’t get worse all at once; they get worse one step at a time, and this latest proposal is a significant step towards a state which works solely for the rich. Polanski has repeatedly warned against these creeping changes.

Zoe Gardner spoke further on this, stating:

This all sounds tough, but in reality it’s not just performative [cruelty], it’s incredibly stupid.

People fall into difficulties sometimes, they just do. You don’t have to be British to be impacted, we saw that with Covid for eg.

If you blanket deny the state safety net to one group, all you do is create child poverty, vulnerability to loan sharks, destitution & misery in our communities. This actually is bad, not to mention more costly in emergency services, for everyone.

The cost of managing destitute people often eclipses the cost of eliminating destitution in the first place. An example of this is that it costs more to house a homeless person than it does to let them sleep on the streets. This is because the various services which supposedly ‘help’ these people (or criminalise them) cost money, and as it turns out this adds up to more than simply giving people shelter.

Gardner added:

These are people who do & will live here for the long term, probably their kids will always live here.

Forcing them into poverty, debt & homelessness just because “foreigners bad” is not good for society, actually.

We’ve reached the point where this needs spelling out…

Labour has a chance to reverse this stupidity, but instead they’re doubling down.

They should hang their heads in shame for pathetically dancing the Xenophobic polka to Farage’s tune.

Unclear

Since the Times’ reporting above, HuffPost have claimed that Burnham will actually back Shabana Mahmood’s bill as it is. Polanski responded to that too, saying:

Labour had one last card to play.

That after Keir Starmer they could find themselves a progressive leader.

We’re speed running crash and burn faster than anyone could have imagined.

We’re building the alternative of hope with a plan to replace Labour.https://t.co/0qbagSvIYp https://t.co/XRLDDSrN2S

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) July 13, 2026

As we’ve reported previously, ‘wishy washy’ doesn’t begin to cover Burnham’s approach to migration. As such, we have no idea how he’ll vote this evening, and we imagine that neither does he.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore