Leading UK attorneys have raised alarms about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Conservative MP seen as a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to guarantee the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement recently.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “generally consistent” with official stance, she later reverted to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the party’s leader, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without tougher immigration policies.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that statement were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a specific group,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed 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 experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s desperate to see Labour 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 change and has to be accurate.”
Public Sentiment and Far-Right Activity
Support for Reform has surged in the polls, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the situation are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as politicians 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 UK citizens from the Commonwealth residing in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica 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 20s and 30s 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-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 deporting and expelling people who are legally in the country, and millions of them as well. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have expressed that the recent policies floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the broader political anti-migrant discourse as discriminatory, alarming and hostile.
One individual, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in the city with his family, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the last several years he has gone through the procedure of obtaining ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be enacted, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his area, a practice that has been widely co-opted 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 continues.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are needed, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about migration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, long-term.”
