Prominent UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. However, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate 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 alarming to see the opposition 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 rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“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 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 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 discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his family, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s easy 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 problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the demonisation very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
