Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy 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 indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the reach 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 partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
