Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP considered a future party leader suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be removed from the country.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the statement were “generally consistent” with party policy, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “every advert” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK risked becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated 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 “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still feel insecure.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” continued Forde. “It’s desperate to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually talk about the positives of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Far-Right Activity
Backing for the party has increased in the surveys, and extremist demonstrations have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians focus on migrants.
“These are perilous times,” said an immigration lawyer, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the centre of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see kids in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-immigrant fervour 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 deporting 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 ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a person with dual nationality living in the city with his wife and children, said the recent surge of the party in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a significant expense – after relocating to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes 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, in his thirties. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no issues”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his area, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. 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 required, no one’s actually selling a positive story about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very odd and frightening, long-term.”
