Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants 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.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” 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 added. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers 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 recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, 37. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned 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 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 required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
