Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In the past few months, politicians across various groups have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“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 discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents migrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse 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 Forde. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Backing for the party has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the residency controversy, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated 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 kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous 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 spread so far when you start talking about removing and expelling people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with permanent residency, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six 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 proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the proliferation of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may consider 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 immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
