Prominent British legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, the party head, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “dangerous times” and part of a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are similar to far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about removing and expelling 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 insecure in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the unfriendliness persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a positive story about migration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
