Leading UK legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to existing policy 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 signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “every advert” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to gain 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 ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she added. “The principles here, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three 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 trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
