Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “utter condemnation” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Lately, her child 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, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers 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 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 racist, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very odd and terrifying, long-term.”
