Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from these comments last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, 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 faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “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 discuss the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of the party 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 significant expense – 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 simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, 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 think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
