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<h1><span style="color: #0c3951;">Expectations for Greater Manchester Politicians</span></h1><p>We’ve created a collective <strong>set of expectations</strong> for politicians in Greater Manchester, signed by organisations across the city-region.</p>

Expectations for Greater Manchester Politicians

We’ve created a collective set of expectations for politicians in Greater Manchester, signed by organisations across the city-region.

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Through the Greater Manchester Strategy, our politicians have committed to make Greater Manchester a place “where everyone can live a good life, growing up, getting on and growing old in a greener, fairer more prosperous city region”.

But we know that all too often our regional ambitions are eroded by national immigration laws that disproportionately affect people based on race, class and gender.

We’ve created a set of expectations for politicians in Greater Manchester that we have been using in conversation with politicians.

Since its publication ahead of the 2024 General Election, it has become a collective document: 45 other organisations across all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester have put their names to it. They include campaigning organisations, grassroots community organisations, charities supporting homeless people and national organisations working in Greater Manchester.

We’re calling on all our politicians – representing the area in local, regional and national government – to uphold Greater Manchester’s commitments.

We ask them to:

1. Listen to people with lived experience of immigration control.

2. Speak out about the importance of welcome, safety, justice, home and support for all Greater Manchester’s residents, regardless of immigration status

3. Be accountable in achieving this reality for our city-region.

Download the Expectations here.

Our work

With the collective Expectations document as a shared tool, we’ve started conversations with our Greater Manchester political representatives.

Meetings with MPs

So far we have met with 20 of Greater Manchester’s 27 MPs. These meetings bring MPs together with local charities and service providers, grassroots and volunteer-run groups, and lived experience campaigners. Working as a coalition under the Expectations banner we’ve supported each other to inform MPs about the harm immigration control is doing in their areas, and provided resources and training to MPs’ casework teams on how they can best support their constituents.

Work on the citizenship ban

On 10th February 2025, the Government changed their guidance to say that they would refuse citizenship to people arriving in the UK through irregular routes. This essentially cut off citizenship to thousands of Greater Manchester residents overnight. We wrote collectively to MPs and Councillors asking them to take action.

Read the open letter

Solidarity statement

In the summer of 2025, 81 local organisations signed a message of solidarity when violent protests erupted outside asylum hotels. They said “We are voluntary and community organisations based in Greater Manchester. We are writing to say that you are WELCOME here in our communities.”

Read the statement

Mass lobby

In 2026, 50 campaigners from Manchester, representing different groups signed up to the Expectations, travelled down to London to attend a mass lobby of Parliament against the government’s earned settlement plans.

Read more in our blog

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