Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
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. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances 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 Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “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
Individuals with permanent residency, 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 racist, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. 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 Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
