Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked 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 particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie 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 child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties 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 reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
