I've been blocked by City of Sanctuary UK - the open border charity

Not all publicity is good, it seems

Charlotte Gill

Jul 31, 2025

Readers of my X page will know that I am no stranger to being blocked.

I have been blocked by everyone/thing from The Green Party to Chris Bryant (the Labour MP) to Islington Council.

It mostly starts when I nose around people’s activities.

Case in point: recently I was blocked by City of Sanctuary UK after I started highlighting its work.

The charity lobbies for schools, councils and universities, among other places, to accommodate refugees (or rather “sanctuary seekers”, as is the new trendy term). Its website reads:

“City of Sanctuary UK coordinates, supports and grows these networks of welcome. From community groups to schools and universities, local councils to libraries and theatres, we work with individuals, groups and organisations in every area and in every sector to encourage inclusivity, solidarity and compassion for people from a forced displacement background.”

City of Sanctuary has not liked me drawing attention to its scheme, nor have participants in the scheme liked having their work highlighted.

For instance, Islington Council blocked me when I showed it giving out £500,000 in grants, as well as housing to asylum seekers, in its capacity as a “Borough of Sanctuary” (as councils enrolled in City of Sanctuary’s scheme mostly call themselves):

The huge sums taxpayers have been charged to welcome "sanctuary seekers" to Lambeth

Charlotte Gill

Jun 21

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Then I started trawling through “Schools of Sanctuary”, and found even more “sanctuary” accounts, such as “Birmingham Schools of Sanctuary”.

When I highlighted the tweet below - showing kids giving a Valentine’s card to “refugee recipients” (more likely to be male economic migrants living in hotels), Birmingham Schools of Sanctuary deleted it and have since put their account onto protected mode:

“Sanctuary schemes” - which are imported from the US (where I understand them to have been a disaster) - have been rolled out all over the UK, sometimes at extreme expense. DOGE Wales has pointed out that £55 million has been spent on making Wales a “Nation of Sanctuary”.

With taxpayers’ money being spent on “City of Sanctuary” schemes, you’d expect councils/ otherwise to be able to justify their actions and to be proud of their work.

But they too often hide and delete content at the slightest bit of criticism.

What have they got to hide?

Read more about Sanctuary Cities here…