Prominent British attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a future party leader proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement recently.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later returned to existing policy that only revoke permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has raised alarms for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and repeated proposals that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
The barrister, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a “thinly disguised keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the current political discourse was an “utter condemnation” 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 the lawyer. “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 positives of immigration.
“The language has to change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has increased in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are reminiscent of extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “regressing” as elected officials target migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Lately, her child has questioned whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Currently we see kids in their twenties and thirties who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it spread so far when you start talking about removing and removing people who are legally in the country, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with permanent residency, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the broader political anti-migrant discourse as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in Manchester with his family, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after relocating to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be separated.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been concerned by the increase of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. Long-term, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about 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 added. “I consider the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
