Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks 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 revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple 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 alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, 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 anti-immigration protesters. 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 country where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
