Prominent British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, 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
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister 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 mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally 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 questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely 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?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
