Trust examines dismantling ‘harmful’ borders
Government-funded group announces new fund to support projects ‘shifting power to migrants’
A CHARITABLE trust that has received more than £1 million of government funding has announced plans that suggest it will invest in projects which call for the abolition of borders and the dismantling of “harmful immigration systems”. The Paul Hamlyn Foundation is reopening its migration fund, which has an annual budget of £5 million.
Leticia Ishibashi, head of migration, said in a statement to mark the fund’s reopening: “Previously, our grant-making was primarily focused on work that fosters positive changes to the UK’s immigration system … our new approach to systemic change focuses on dismantling harmful systems.”
Ms Ishibashi joined the foundation, which has an endowment of more than £800 million, in 2017. She previously worked for Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, and according to her website biography she helped “increase access to immigration” in the capital.
The migration fund had been under consultation following a 2020 commitment to become an “anti-racist funder”.
Ms Ishibashi claims that immigration systems “are built upon and reinforce systemic forms of oppression”.
The foundation’s new fund will support organisations that work towards “shifting power to migrants and their diaspora communities”. This will achieve their aim of “dismantling the hostile environment and other harmful laws”. Resources “that influenced our thinking” are provided, including books The End of Policing, Abolish Borders: The Case for Abolition, Angry White People and Rules for Revolutionaries.
Since the establishment of the group’s migration fund in 2015, previously under the name Shared Ground Fund, the foundation has awarded over £35 million to charities working in the field. Under electoral commission rules, political parties seeking to contest elections can spend a maximum of £34 million during a national campaign.
According to their annual Charity Commission accounts, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation has received £1.36 million in direct government funding since 2020. These grants are used under the organisation’s Act for Change fund, which was supported by the Department of Media, Culture and Sport.
One of the grantees named in the foundation’s annual report is Hope Not Hate, which received £240,000 in 2023. Hope Not Hate have named Conservative backbenchers Miriam Cates and Jacob Rees-Mogg in their State of Hate 2024 report, with the group’s founder Nick Lowles claiming that the Conservative party has a “deep rooted problem of Islamophobia”.
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation was created in 1987 by founder Lord Hamlyn, who died in 2001. His daughter serves as chair of trustees.
Neil O’Brien, a senior Tory MP, said: “It’s a shame to see money that should be used for useful charitable purposes squandered on extreme causes supported by almost no one in Britain, apart from a tiny number of people on the extreme Left.” The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Leticia Ishibashi were both approached for comment.