Leading British legal professionals have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across political parties have absorbed anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly including “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” 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 only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of migration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the polls, and far-right marches 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 “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth living in the UK legally were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Recently, her child has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting 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 acceptable political direction 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 millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
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 uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, alarming and hostile.
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 last several years he has gone through the process of obtaining ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in the coming years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the extremist groups and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family 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 required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
