Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory 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 existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “absolute indictment” 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 Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, 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.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her child has questioned 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-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – 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 easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, 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 nation where immigrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
