Prominent British attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, 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, 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 deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, 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 consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
