Leading UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of legally settled families must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a opposition home affairs spokesperson and a party enforcer, remarked that individuals with lawful residence in the UK should have their permission to remain cancelled, 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 reverted to current rules that only revoke indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has broken the law. However, the proposal has sparked concern for many as a signal of “dangerous times” and belonging to a larger political discourse.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In recent months, leaders across political parties have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “black and Asian people”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the primary pathway for migrants to gain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, the Labour leader said the UK faced the danger of becoming an “island of strangers” without tougher immigration policies.
“It’s hard to believe that the ramifications of that phrase were not fully understood, and it was appealing to a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of discrimination within the opposition party.
Forde, whose family emigrated from the Caribbean, said the remarks were a “thinly disguised racial purity campaign”. The leading barrister 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 the lawyer. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to Reform is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually discuss the benefits of immigration.
“The rhetoric has to evolve and has to be accurate.”
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 circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from previous eras and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were mistakenly categorized as illegal migrants.
The lawyer said her father, who moved to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the present debate. Lately, her daughter has questioned whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Currently we see young people in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, experiencing insecurity,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for most political parties,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the tentacles of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and vast numbers of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Personal Impact
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals floated by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and characterized the wider political debate as racist, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in Manchester with his wife and children, said the growing support of the party in the polls had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing permanent residency – at a significant expense – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he fears his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will not occur,” said Darwazeh, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, he has been alarmed by the increase of St George’s flags in his neighbourhood, a practice that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and immigration opponents. In the future, though the family has no desire to leave, they may think about it if the unfriendliness continues.
“It’s strange that in a nation where immigrants are required, no one’s actually selling a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very odd and terrifying, for the future.”
