Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked 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, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications 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.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared 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, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
