Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his family, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
