Leading British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
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 right to stay revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency 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 the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on 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 UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes 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 two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags 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 persists.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
