The Green Party’s new deputy leader Rachel Millward has been branded a “hypocrite” after she shared her “strong objection” to the placement of 600 asylum seekers in her leafy £500,000 local area.
In her shared role as Zack Polanski’s subordinate, Ms Millward proudly declared she would hang “the flags of all the nations” to celebrate that “refugees are welcome here”.
Despite her previous enthusiasm, Ms Millward expressed her concerns about the use of Crowborough Army Camp to house migrants in a letter to Labour’s Home Office Minister Mike Tapp.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Government recently announced plans to move migrants out of costly asylum hotels to bases like the East Sussex institution.
Local resistance to the move has been fierce, with Conservative MP for Sussex Weald, Nus Ghani, blasting the lack of transparency over the plans.
In her role as Wealden District Councillor for Hartfield, the Green’s deputy leader has joined the chorus of criticism in a blistering letter co-signed by her fellow councillor James Partridge.
In the broadside, Ms Millward also took aim at the Government’s apparent reticence to loop the local authority into the decision.
She highlighted that there were “significant risks” of “accommodating 600 men on one site with no right to work”.
Green Party Deputy Leader Rachel Millward has been branded a ‘hypocrite’ for opposing the placement of migrants in her local area
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“We had concerns about staffing resource at the camp, about police provision and about the additional strain on already over-stretched public services,” she wrote.
The letter also fumed that the leak of Government plans to the media had “resulted in an increase in community tensions, and the spread of misinformation”.
She suggested it also “escalated to threats to (the) personal wellbeing of council leadership”.
The letter concludes that, in light of the Government’s “total failure”, it was “essential that you reverse your decision.”
Rachel Millward, in her role as Wealden District Councillor for Hartfield, opposed 600 migrants moving into Crowborough Army Camp
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Reacting to the letter, Conservative Party rising star Katie Lam described Ms Millward’s complaints as “revealing” while speaking to GB News.
“They want to welcome as many of these people as we possibly can, they just don’t want them to live where they live,” MP for Weald of Kent told The People’s Channel.
“You couldn’t make this up. The hypocrisy of the Greens is outstanding,” Portsmouth’s Reform councillor George Madgwick added.
Conservative commentator Chris Rose also said the Green deputy leader’s letter was an example of “baffling hypocrisy”.
As discussion of her letter continued, Ms Millward shared a video of herself outside Crowborough Army Camp in which she declared: “Asylum Seekers must be given the right to work – to contribute their skills, and their tax! And to be much more safely integrated into our society.”
Ms Millward, who lives in a £1.6million house, has long decried those who have voiced concerns about housing illegal migrants.
Echoing 1930s-style fears of the Nazis, the African Gender Institute graduate said: “There will be a day when we sit our grandchildren on our knees, and we tell them:
“First they came for the immigrants, so we hung out flags from all the nations, and we said ‘Refugees are welcome here’.”
Ms Millward sent a blistering letter to the Government immigration minister, Mike Tapp
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Despite subsequently warning about the “significant risks” posed by housing illegal migrants, Ms Millward added: “Unlike Labour we’re not going to follow Farage, and we’re not going to start blaming immigrants. It’s time to celebrate immigrants and not demonise them.”
Mr Polanski has also been extremely critical of Britons who have voiced concerns about housing asylum seekers.
He said: “Our problems are not the fault of migrants or people fleeing [for] a better life. It’s the greed of the super-rich.”
The Green leader also accused Reform UK leader Nigel Farage of being a “fascist”.
GB News has approached the Green Party for comment.