‘If you attack somebody’s community, particularly if you’re meant to be representing them, people will push back.’
Sarah Pochin MP appeared on ITV’s Granada Reports last Friday, repeating her claims that ‘illegal immigrants’ living on Greenaway Road in Runcorn are causing anti-social behaviour.
In a previous BBC interview, she said her office was collecting statements from businesses and locals, and suggested she would take legal action against residents who have publicly disagreed with her.
Rob Littler, who sent an open letter to Pochin challenging claims she made about anti-social behaviour by ‘illegal immigrants’ in a video on 13 July, told Left Foot Forward that people in the area “didn’t recognise what she was saying”.
Littler has lived on Greenway Road for 30 years and is church warden at St Michael and All Angels Church, and said the Reform MP’s comments have alienated many of her own constituents.
He said: “It’s a bit of an own goal for her really because any support she might have had around here has kind of dwindled.
“Simply because if you attack somebody’s community, particularly if you’re meant to be representing them, people will push back.”
He added that the threat of legal action was also an “own goal”.
“She can’t sort of sue everybody for libel unless she comes up with any facts. Even then that would be another own goal, an MP suing your own constituents for calling it out,” he said.
He said: “That’s not a thing that’s ever been done, I don’t think.”
Littler said Reform and Pochin are trying to draw a link between ‘illegal immigrants’ in HMOs and anti-social behaviour.
“They’ve taken the name Houses of Multiple Occupancy and turned it into a populist threat,” he said.
There is an HMO on Greenway Road, but Littler added: “The bottom line is the majority are just filled with people who are waiting to get on the housing ladder, people who would otherwise be homeless, many of them are white people.”
He added: “You can’t call anyone ‘illegal’ unless you’ve verified it.”
Cheshire Police say they have not received reports of anti-social behaviour on Greenaway Road. Pochin told ITV that the residents who have complained to her about Greenway Road want to remain anonymous.
In another interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC, Pochin claimed that migrants are more likely to commit sexual offences than white British men, and that those attacks are aimed at white British women.
When asked how she knew the victims were white British women, she admitted: “Well, we don’t.”
She added, “That’s what I believe to be the case,” and said that rape reports in her constituency supported this claim.
Littler said he has contacted the Police and Crime commissioner for Cheshire, Dan Price, to ask for these figures. He said: “We want the figures, because if this is true we want to know about it. We want to know if this is not being exaggerated.”
Pochin has been contacted for comment but had not responded at the time of publication.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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