Prominent UK legal professionals have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker considered a potential leadership candidate proposed that significant quantities of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Divisive Remarks on Residency Rights
Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, stated that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their permission to remain revoked, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, later retreated from these comments last Thursday.
While Badenoch initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with party policy, she later returned to current rules that only withdraw indefinite leave to remain (ILR) status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the statement has sparked concern for many as a indication of “perilous periods” and belonging to a broader political conversation.
Escalating Pattern of Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
In recent months, politicians across various groups have adopted anti-migrant rhetoric and echoed policies that were once seen as extreme. Lately, a Reform UK leader complained about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in last autumn, the group’s head, Nigel Farage, pledged to eliminate the primary pathway for migrants 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 statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has examined claims of racism within Labour.
Forde, whose parents migrated from the West Indies, said Lam’s comments 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 experience anxiety.
“It’s a race to the bottom,” added Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the sole solution to Reform is to try and outdo their policies, rather than actually discuss 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 far-right marches have drawn thousands to the capital, leaving many British people of colour feeling the circumstances are reminiscent of far-right marches from decades past and concerned the UK is “regressing” as politicians target migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has acted for hundreds of victims at the heart of the Windrush scandal, in which UK citizens from the former empire residing in the UK legally were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her father, who moved to the UK from the Caribbean in 1951, would be rolling in his grave over the current discourse. Recently, her daughter has asked whether they should get overseas citizenship.
“Now we’re getting kids in their twenties and thirties who have got multiple generations ahead of them, born in Britain, feeling less than,” said the attorney.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-migrant sentiment is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The principles here, the reach of it spread so far 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?”
Individual Consequences
People with ILR status, or with spouses who hold this status, have shared that the recent policies suggested by Conservative and Reform leaders have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as discriminatory, alarming and unwelcoming.
One individual, a person with dual nationality residing in the city with his wife and children, said the growing support of Reform in the surveys had motivated him to get his British citizenship. For the past six years he has gone through the process of obtaining permanent residency – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a spousal visa. Should the suggested changes be implemented, he worries his family would be separated.
“It’s simple for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said the man, 37. “Who knows how this plays out in the coming years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been concerned by the increase of national symbols in his neighbourhood, a trend that has been widely adopted by the far-right and immigration opponents. Long-term, though the household has no desire to leave, they may consider it if the hostility persists.
“I find it really odd that in a nation where migrants are required, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I just find the vilification very peculiar and frightening, long-term.”
