Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
