Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “race to the bottom”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Legal Status
The MP, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, stated that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their right to stay revoked, to ensure the UK remains mostly “culturally coherent”. 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 party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Escalating Pattern of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across various groups have adopted anti-immigration language and repeated policies that were once considered fringe. Most recently, a political party leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in September, the group’s head, the figurehead, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for immigration to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “nation of foreigners” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said a leading barrister, who has examined claims of discrimination within Labour.
The barrister, whose parents emigrated from the West Indies, said the remarks 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 served the country, should still feel insecure.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued 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 talk about the positives of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have drawn thousands to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which Britons from the former empire residing in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as illegal migrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their 20s and 30s who have got multiple generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“We are in really, really dangerous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a legitimate policy orientation for many groups,” she added. “The principles here, the tentacles 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. This represents a major shift, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies floated by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, frightening and hostile.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the surveys had pushed him to get his British citizenship. 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 spousal visa. 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 not occur,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While day to day, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh 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 desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a country where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he remarked. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
