Prominent British legal professionals have issued warnings 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
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked 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 recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal 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 expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, 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.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “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 talk about the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles 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. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the household has no wish to leave, they may consider it if the hostility continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
