Leading British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants 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.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” 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 tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed 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 discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, long-term.”
