POOLE-based cosmetics retailer Lush is demanding an end to all immigration controls.
The company, which supports a range of environmental and animal rights causes, has teamed up with the No One Is Illegal group for a week-long campaign.
All 95 UK Lush stores, including Bournemouth and Poole’s outlets, will feature the No One Is Illegal declaration: “People should be free to live and work wherever they wish and enjoy all of the same rights as other residents.”
Shoppers will be invited to sign a petition supporting the statement.
The campaign is sure to raise controversy, especially as it comes hot-on-the-heels of Labour leader Ed Miliband’s admission that his party got it wrong on immigration.
He told a London conference: “Eastern European immigration did place downward pressure on wages.
“People can argue about the extent. We were too relaxed about that.”
Lush commissioned a YouGov poll which revealed 54 per cent of respondents agreed with their declaration.
Almost three-quarters of people polled said they should be allowed to go to a foreign country to live and work, while 46 per cent of those polled separately thought people from other countries should be allowed to live and work in Britain.
Lush activist Andrew Butler said: “It is time we called immigration controls what they are, anti-foreigner laws, and challenged them in the same way we challenge all prejudice and inequality in our society.”
Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns said: “I think what really concerned people in recent years was the sheer scale of numbers coming in without skills or the economic means to support themselves.
“Anybody who has been to a hospital in this country in recent years will know that we rely on immigration and so do a lot of our key services.
“But the key thing is making sure that where there are job vacancies we are not importing immigrants to fill those vacancies whist at the same time using taxpayers’ money to fund tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of our young citizens to be on benefits and out of work.”
The Lush campaign runs until this Friday.
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