Leading British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse 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,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, 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 consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, for the future.”
