Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory 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 reverted to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase 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 family emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks 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 served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple 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 many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach 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 spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described 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 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 procedure of obtaining ILR – 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 Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
