Sandra Bell 29 Sep 2026
Disinformation about migrants and refugees is on the rise from local and national right-wing politicians and spread widely via social media and some mainstream media outlets.
It’s not only wrong. It's divisive and dangerous. It aims to divide communities and has led to acts of violence, like the 2024 riots by racists against refugees, migrants and British people of colour around the country in the wake of the horrific murders in Southport.
This article challenges common narratives fuelled by disinformation and presents some positive alternative framing and solutions.
Why this matters
People who move are just like those of us able to stay where we are – they want a better life for their families and to contribute to the society they move to. The reasons why people move are complex and it's difficult to quantify how many are forced to do so by climate breakdown or conflict, but their impacts are certainly a factor.
The UK has a long tradition of welcoming migrants and refugees – one example is how Ugandan Asians were welcomed into Wales when they fled the Idi Amin dictatorship in the 1970s, and who went on to make a significant contribution to the cultural and economic life of the country.
But in recent years there's been an increase in right-wing politicians promoting hostile immigration policies and scapegoating refugees for the economic challenges that many UK communities are facing. These are the same politicians who say they'll scrap climate change targets and policies, based on the false claims that climate action is to blame for rising energy bills.
Despite the angry and violent protests mobilising outside refugee hotels, a More in Common poll found that the majority of people (60%) think that the UK should let people fleeing war-torn countries into Britain (the poll asked about people arriving “through capped, controlled routes”). Since the local elections in 2025 and 2026 there has been a political shift. Reform UK is now in control, or with the most seats, in several councils in England. Based on the stated policies of this party, which include leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and scrapping net zero policies, we’re starting to see policies and statements that are antithetical to climate action and hostile to refugees at the local level, rather than the provision of safe routes. Without legal safe routes, people will continue to attempt the dangerous small boat crossings.
Migration is an environmental justice issue
Friends of the Earth campaigns for Environmental Justice, recognising that the risks associated with environmental harms have a disproportionate impact on the people who are least able to cope with them.
Globally, the most marginalised communities are on the front line of climate breakdown and often face its worst effects. Communities are forcibly displaced and then routinely denied the right to migrate safely. Migrants and refugees should not be taking the blame, when huge inequalities in power and wealth and exploitative behaviour by corporations are damaging our planet and impacting on lower income communities.
In the UK, many of the root causes of the climate and nature crises are linked to the challenges that communities are facing with the rising cost of living, access to housing or health issues. Displacement caused by climate breakdown is creating climate migrants around the world – including in the UK. Increasingly, some people are having to leave their homes due to repeated flooding or coastal erosion made worse by climate change.
The impacts of extreme weather and climate breakdown
In different parts of the world, extreme weather, flooding and typhoons force people to leave their homes. But most displaced people in the global south move within or close to their home countries. In fact, countries that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change host far more displaced people than the UK. For example, Uganda is one of the top 5 countries for hosting refugees,
However, the UK has a historic responsibility as a significant contributor to global environmental damage through historic emissions that have caused climate breakdown. It’s hypocritical of western nations to extract resources and wealth, devastate environments and then respond negatively when there is a consequential and understandable movement of people. The west must acknowledge a historic role in the destabilisation of nations, particularly those of the global south as evidenced by the recent devastating floods in Nepal and many other examples.
Because people’s reasons for moving are complex, it’s not possible or useful to put a number on the people that are or will be forced to move due to climate change. But given the role of the UK in causing the problem it follows that people in the UK have a responsibility to welcome refugees who do arrive in the UK.
Food supply
Just as devastating but less immediate, changing conditions make it harder to grow crops or raise livestock over time. Food safety can be undermined by increased food contamination when clean water is harder to come by. Uganda is one of many countries facing climate-related droughts, which impact lives and livelihoods and its food supply. UNICEF and the World Health Organisation identify children, women, disabled people and those with chronic illness as particularly at risk from climate extremes.
The movement of people due to climate impacts and environmental damage should not be framed through narratives of fear and burden. Rather the polluting companies and super-wealthy who are causing the most climate change emissions should be held to account and pay their fair share to fund solutions.
The link between environmental degradation, conflict and displacement
There are more armed conflicts across the planet than at any time since the end of the Second World War, and the UN estimates that two billion people – a quarter of the global population – live in conflict-affected areas.
In addition to the immediate and devastating loss of life during conflict, there’s a longer term impact as environments become degraded, with implications for food and water security, livelihoods and health, forcing more people to leave their homes.
“Environmental damage caused by conflicts continues to push people into hunger, into disease and into displacement and thereby increasing insecurity.” Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Inger Anderson
Due to our historic role in destabilising the economies and environment of global south countries through colonialism, arms exports and the extraction of nations' resources, the UK should take its fair share of refugees. Whether people move to neighbouring countries, as most do, or further afield, they need support not blame for a situation they didn’t cause.
Migrants are not to blame for people struggling to access housing in the UK
Right-wing politicians have spread misinformation about migrants stopping “Britons” accessing housing and being given priority to social housing. Lee Anderson claimed that illegal immigrants would be “...going to go to the top of the queue above the residents that were born and bred Ashfield, residents in my constituency...”.
The Conservatives have made incorrect claims about migrants getting priority for new homes being built with Sir James Cleverly claiming that “more than a third of those homes will be absorbed by migration before local families even get a look in.” This makes no sense as the Conservatives are referring to all new homes, but most new houses built (around three quarters) are sold on the open market so there is no system by which migrants would have priority.
For social housing Reform UK and the previous Conservative government have proposed a stricter ‘connection test’ - the Conservatives proposed that a person must live in the UK for 10 years before being eligible for council housing and Reform UK said “foreign nationals must go to the back of the queue. Not the front.”
The truth is that it’s already hard for migrants and impossible for asylum seekers to access social housing in England. Local authorities are already encouraged to use a residency requirement for social housing so that the applicant must have to have lived within the authority’s district for a specified period of time.
- The social housing survey shows that White British people are actually more likely to be in social housing than other ethnicities, comprising 77.6% of new tenures compared to 74.4% of the population.
- Recent migrants are likely to find it hard to access social housing because they will be new to the waiting list and will find it difficult to demonstrate the necessary ‘local connection’ or residency requirement.
- Asylum seekers are not eligible for social housing as confirmed by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in Parliament in 2024.
This is not to say that there’s not a problem for people accessing housing. The supply of social housing in England and Wales has decreased due to privatisation through the Right to Buy programme and cuts to funding mean there hasn’t been reinvestment in new social housing. The decline in social housing originates with the Thatcherite government in the 1980s. It is not the fault of migrants. Private rented properties are often not affordable to low-income households in high demand areas. Too much housing is of low quality. People need access to affordable, well insulated healthy homes but right-wing politicians are fuelling opposition to migrants by blaming them for a situation that is caused by other factors.
The government must focus on real solutions and not be distracted by, or distract with, false claims.
Migrants are not to blame for people struggling to access health care
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has blamed immigration for NHS waiting lists, using this as part of the party’s justification to “freeze” what he refers to as non-essential immigration. Yet, in the words of the British Medical Association the real problem is that “the health service has been facing years of inadequate planning and chronic under-resourcing". The problems in the NHS have nothing to do with immigration – in fact the NHS relies on migrants with nearly one in five NHS staff being non-British nationals. The BMA says that the NHS would not be able to function without international medical graduates.
Migrant workers are our colleagues and friends. They are the ones holding patients’ hands in the middle of the night, staying beyond their shift even when they are exhausted. NHS worker (UNISON conference)
Environmental factors including air pollution, cold damp housing and extreme heat add to health inequalities and to the burden on the NHS. The costs of air pollution alone are estimated to be at least £27 billion a year, due to illness, lost workdays and premature deaths.
Migration to the UK is exaggerated and toxified
Right-wing narratives claim there's a high level of immigration into the UK. Reform UK says levels are “out of control” for example, then unfairly links this to pressure on housing and services and public spending. Talking in numbers conceals important context about the lives of people on the move and is a form of dehumanisation and othering.
Right-wing narratives also fail to recognise the benefits that immigration brings to the UK including providing key workers in the NHS. Unison is warning that as the UK makes it harder for overseas workers, the UK is going to lose key health care workers to countries that are more welcoming. Although it can be invidious to reduce people to numbers, it’s important to challenge inaccurate claims based on numbers.
- The truth is that net migration to the UK (the difference between the number of people moving to the UK and the number of people leaving) is now at the lowest level since Covid. This is mainly due to the government making it harder for people to enter the UK to work. Last year net migration to the UK fell by nearly 50% to 171,000.
- A lot of attention is placed on asylum seekers coming to the UK giving a misleading impression that the UK is hosting more than its fair share of asylum seekers and refugees. Yet the number of people seeking asylum in the UK has decreased. ONS figures show that only 14% of long-term immigrants to the UK were asylum seekers in 2025.
- The UK is home to just 1% of refugees who were forcibly displaced across the world. The UNHCR (the UN refugee agency) shows that 71% of the world’s refugees are hosted in low and middle-income countries with most living in countries neighbouring their country of origin.
Right-wing politicians also talk about deporting illegal immigrants. Some politicians have used racist language to describe people who are fleeing unsafe situations. But as the Refugee Council points out
There is no such thing as an "illegal" or "bogus" person seeking asylum. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that has signed the 1951 Convention and to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim.
Asylum seekers deserve support - not blame. Many asylum seekers are left waiting far too long to find out whether they'll be granted refugee status. While waiting, they're often stuck in poor quality accommodation and unable to work when they would prefer to support themselves. The system must be overhauled. The majority (up to 66%) of initial decisions on asylum seeker cases are wrong and are withdrawn or changed when appealed.
A lot of attention is focused on people arriving in small boats and it’s important to remember that people are often forced to arrive via unsafe routes – it's not a choice they’ve made. Small boat crossings would dramatically reduce if we gave refugees safe routes and means to apply for asylum.
Fair Solutions
Blaming migrants is a distraction. It’s important for politicians and activists alike to focus on the real reasons for the challenges communities in the UK are facing – including access to housing and the cost-of-living crisis.
It’s vital for the UK to act on reducing future pressures on the environment by cutting climate change emissions and paying our fair share to global climate funds so that fewer people will need to flee their homes due to environmental degradation.
We have obligations to human rights enshrined in the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights which means the UK is prevented from removing people who are at risk of torture, inhumane treatment, degradation or punishment. It protects people from being removed to places where there is a real risk that they could be killed or unlawfully deprived of life, it safeguards against arbitrary detention and prohibits collective expulsion. The current asylum and immigration bill is seeking to restrict the scope for asylum seekers to use provisions in the convention that protect family life, in order to challenge removal. Campaigners are concerned at this development, given these rights originate from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was drawn up after the horrors of World War 2 and was championed by Winston Churchill.
We also need solutions that help communities in the UK – solutions that tackle the real causes of inequalities. Curbing immigration won’t fix our public services – instead it will damage them as services like the NHS and care homes rely on immigrant workers.
Taxing the super wealthy and fossil fuel companies more would provide vital funding for public services like the NHS and climate solutions that would help everyone - like better insulated houses and cutting air pollution. They have done more to cause the challenges we are facing and should contribute to the solutions.
The government should also ensure councils, health services and schools have the resources they need to accommodate people new to the UK.
Note: Amnesty International provides useful definitions of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.
Sources of more information and support
Friends of the Earth Resources
- Read: Resisting far-right threats to climate action and justice
- Read: Why climate justice means migrant and refugee justice
- Watch: Migrant Justice is Climate Justice webinar hosted with City of Sanctuary and Refugee Week.