Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “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 talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer 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 asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“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-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
