Prominent British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, the party head, later retreated from these comments recently.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept 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 discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed 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 experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians focus on 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 former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, 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.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for most political parties,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach 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 ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a practice that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the vilification very odd and frightening, for the future.”
