Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see 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-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, 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 broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
