Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “downward spiral”, after a Conservative MP considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was targeting a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The leading barrister said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” added the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see Labour feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the benefits of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire living in the UK legally were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their twenties and thirties 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 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
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the new proposals floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the proposed policies be implemented, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
