Leading UK attorneys 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 legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert 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 experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target 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 Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, 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 young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining 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 not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows 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 practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
