Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate suggested that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later reverted 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 signal of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity 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 feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The rhetoric has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“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 legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries 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 unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, he has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
