Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved 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.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“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 issues”, he has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
