Prominent UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP seen as a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” 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 UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her father, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see 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 many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating 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 the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
