Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a future party leader suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a political party leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“It’s hard to believe that the implications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within the opposition party.
Forde, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments 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 multiple generations of people who had served the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued the lawyer. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss the benefits of migration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and concerned the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the centre of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. 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, 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 continued. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far when you start talking about deporting and removing people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers 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 floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling insecure in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his UK passport. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said the man, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the extremist groups and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and frightening, for the future.”
